John Patrick Norman McHennessy, the boy who was always late

This is a dark book about revenge against authoritarian education from the usually gentle John Burningham. Every day when John Patrick Norman McHennessy sets out for school he gets caught up in extraordinary events with lions and crocodiles and tidal waves, so arrives late and bedraggled. His over-bearing school master doesn't believe a word of it, makes him write out endless lines for lying, and threatens the boy with a beating. Until one day the tables are turned with a hilarious twist. The schoolmaster has no empathy at all for his young pupil, and pays the price for it, (the book's latin epigraph says 'you reap what you sow') but the reader empathises greatly with the boy and delights in his ultimate revenge. Not for the faint hearted, but probably very theraputic for parents who were put through such an education themselves.