Case Study – David Walliams, Billionaire Boy

Billionaire boy is a book about a 12-year-old who is called Joe Spud who lived with his dad who is a billionaire, who funnily made his money from a funny business called bumfresh toilet paper.

Being a billionaire obviously meant Joe Spud and his dad had a huge property in the countryside, so it was a very pleasant and quite place to live, being billionaires the both of them had everything they ever wanted x1000000, the problem is even though Joe had everything he wanted he was extremely depressed and had no friends or no one to bond with making him feel lonely and resulted in him having poor social skills, he had a massive step down when he went from a private school to a public school to see if any new beginnings would commence, there was a positive though, he ended up meeting 12 year old bob who he soon makes friends with.

They then had a cross country race where both bob and Joe came last in, they then go to a local shop where Raj exposes his secret to Bob about how his rich and has stack loads of money, but he gets over it quickly, they then come across two students who where known for bullying Bob these guys where called Dave Grubb and Sue Grubb, rudely the bullies dump Bob into a nearby bin, shortly after this Joe discovers Bobs dad had recently died and offers Bob a £50 but he kindly refuses and pays the bullies instead to stop them from being mean to Bob.

Nearer to the end of the day in a history class with teacher Miss Spite Joe realizes he has forgotten his History homework that is due in, Miss Spite knowing the situation gave Joe only 15 minutes to get the homework delivered, Joe then calls his father but stupidly his dad arrives in a helicopter and this notifies the whole school that he is rich. Joe is then chased by most the year all asking and begging for money off him, making him arrive to the teacher only 5 seconds late! He then gets put on litter duty, Joe tried to explain the situation to the teacher, but the teacher does not listen and puts him on litter duty for a month.

Being a nice friend Bob helps him out on his litter duties, whilst Bob was on litter duty with Joe they bump into the Grubbs and they expose the fact that Joe deals money with them, this angered Bob and walked off calling him a Brat.

After the school holidays a new girl arrives to the school called Lauren, boys being boys they all had their eye on Lauren and where all interested, this included Joe. One day after school he comes home to a humongous party, at this point his Dad had a dodgy girlfriend who was not very nice called Sapphire calls out the fact that his seen Lauren on television before. Sooner or later Joe then finds out his dad paid Lauren to be his friend, practically getting a taste of his own medicine after the Bob incident.

Raj, who exposed Joe’s secret, finds Joe sleeping in a skip and talks over with Joe about his problems. Joe then travels to Bob to make his apologies, Bob does accept the apology but then soon finds out that Mr Spud has lost all his money after the Bumfresh product is making everyone’s bottoms purple, resulting in him getting sued, Joe returned to his house named ‘Bumfresh Towers’ and his Dad tells him he should save something from the house before the Bailiffs take everything. Mr Spud is then surprised after Joe returns with a rocket made from toilet paper that he constructed before they become Billionaires, he said it was made with love. Later, Joe' dad falls in love with Bobs mum and Bob then became stepbrothers.

Characters:

Joe Spud: This is the main character of the book; He is the son of the Multi-billionaire. His best friends with Bob and he has a love interest in a girl called Lauren. He got bullied in school because of his wealth and the fact his father made toilet rolls, and this resulted in him having severe social awkwardness.

Bob: Joes best mate, his dad sadly died from cancer and had a very poor family, The Grubbs bullied him a lot at school and was made fun of by the rest of the school for being overweight. He is Raj’s favourite customer at his convenience store.

Leonard Spud: This is the Dad of Joe, The owner of Bumfresh, he is divorced and is 46 years of age and him and his girlfriend have a strange age gap of 27 years, he has an obsession with dating page 3 girls but in the end he marries his sons best mates mum.

Sapphire Stone: known for being a page 3 girl and a money grabber. It is seen that not only she was dating Mr Spud for his money, she also later on dated the whole of a Premier League team, she has blonde hair not much intelligence and is only 19 years of age.

Lauren: She is an actress, Mr Spud wrongly paid Lauren to be Joe’s girlfriend, she stars in a pot noodle advert. She is 13 years of age and has a Boyfriend who is anonymous. She’s Joe's love interest and she is very pretty.

The Grubbs: The Grubbs are the school bullies but are also twins, one of them is called Dave and the other is called Sue, even though they look almost identical feature wise. Their parents cannot tell them apart strangely and they got sent to an American Boot camp for juvenile delinquents.

Raj: Raj is the very kind and supportive shop keeper, who on the occasion can be quite weird and sells mainly newspapers and magazines.

Miss Spite: This is Joe’s strict teacher, when Joe gets litter duty, His dad ended up getting the History teacher sacked with his money.

Mrs Trafe: The very nice dinner lady who loved the company of Joe, Bob, and Lauren. But no one else in the school. She does purposely cook horrible food for the school like inedible foods for intense deep-fried Blu Tack.

Author:

David Edward Williams OBE is an English comedian, actress, journalist, and television personality (born 20 August 1971), known professionally as David Walliams. ... At the 2015, 2018 and 2019 National Television Awards, he received the award for Best TV Judge for his work on Britain's Got Talent, the different books he has written are Gansta Granny what he wrote in 2011, Billionaire boy what he wrote in 2010, The Boy In The Dress what he wrote in 2008, Mr Stink that he wrote in 2009, The Worlds Worst Children which he wrote in 2016, Rat burger that he wrote in 2012, Grandpa’s Great Escape what he

wrote in 2015, Bad Day what he wrote in 2017, The World’s Worst Parent what he wrote in 2020, Slime what he wrote in 2020, The Ice Monster that he wrote in 2018, Fing what he wrote in 2019 etc.. Etc.

He has also been In a whole load of comedy sketches and Tv shows and reality shows like: Come Fly With Me, Little Britain, Britain’s Got Talent, Partners In Crime, Little Britain USA, Big School, Walliams & Friend, Gangsta Granny, EastEnders, Rock Profile, Mash And Peas, The Strangers, Blankety Blank and so much more, he is known as a national treasure and a very funny clever guy, he is also very big jokester and loves annoying people and getting on peoples nerves for the UK’s, especially Simon Cowell and pressing the golden buzzer on bad performances on Britain’s Got Talent, he then played characters in show Come Fly With Me and show Little Britain, playing both Male and Female characters in a funny comedic sense, recently these shows have been banned because of sensitive people reporting both shows for making some controversial jokes.

His personal life is not exactly open, but he is 1.88M in height, he was born on the 20th August 1971 making him 49 years of age. He was born in Wimbledon in London what is famous for its tennis competition and is quite a well spoken and formal area of London, He has a wife named Lara Stone who is a Dutch fashion model born on the 20th December 1983 making her 36 years of age, she is 1.77m tall and she is born in Geldrop, Netherlands, her parents called Catherina Stone and Michael Stone. He also has a 7-year-old child with the Dutch model named Alfred Walliams he was born in 2013 and his grandparents are called Michael Stone, Peter Williams, Catherina Stone, Kathleen Williams.

Random Facts About David Walliams:

- Walliams appeared with the National Youth Theater during university holidays in 1990, where he encountered future comedy partner and friend Matt Lucas. When he joined College Equity, he changed his stage name to David Walliams, as there was already a member called David Williams.

- The net worth of David Walliams is currently about 17 million pounds. It was revealed during his bitter divorce battle with model ex-wife Lara Stone in 2015, that the pair had accumulated more than £19 million in cash.

- David's dogs are both Border Terriers, and in February 2019, while the BGT judge had Bert for years, he rescued Ernie. Back then, by posting a cute picture of himself holding Ernie in one hand and Bert in the other, he introduced the little pup to his fans.

- Simon has a complicated decision to make.

A source said that "David refuses to be in the same room as his nemesis, and he told Simon Cowell it was him or Piers." Both are Simon's good friends and have been faithful companions on his shows, it now depends on who is willing to compromise Simon.

- In early 2015, the couple split, and David filed for divorce in September of that year, alleging the "unreasonable actions" of Lara. Only a day later, their Decree Nisi was issued as the "quickie" divorce sped through the courts and over six weeks later, the marriage was formally issued.

- Most children's books by David Walliams are written for children aged eight and over. The author also wrote picture books perfect for children from the age of three, such as The First Hippo on the Moon and Boogie Bear.

David’s Website:

https://www.worldofdavidwalliams.com/

On this website you can find out some information on when new books are being realized and information on what David is getting up to in his life, it’s a very child friendly looking website and is easy to navigate around with obvious buttons to get to other sections of the website, areas involving the Home page where most of the books he has produced is stored with the picture of the book showcased at the front, there’s also a book page where we get a clearer and closer look of the different books he has produced. There is then an autobiography with facts and information noted down about him, it said in a kid friendly form. There’s then a activities page where you can choose a numerous amount of printable activities you can do during Covid. Then there is a VIP Book Club where you can sign up for a VIP book opportunity where you can see things no one else can. There is then a special page for Raj’s shop with different books that may be available at Raj’s shop.

Time Period The Books Where:

The books he made started from 2008 where he started his career as a child author, after being a successful

on writing and illustrating some books, his fame already made him a popular Author almost instantly selling over 36 million copies of all his books worldwide, even though he started as a comedian he prefers to be seen as a brilliant child author who brings his humor into the work he creates with his most sold book being Gangsta Granny with other 1.35 million paperback copies alone, the book I researched on was billionaire boy a book I owned personally this was released in 2010 and has over 750,000 copies sold worldwide, this is also my personal favorite book and gives a good understanding of what goes on in a day to day business. His most recent book he made is called Code Name Bananas, this book was written and illustrated in 2020 and is about a flying monkey who wishes for bananas for Christmas with his current copies sold at around 100,000 what will 100% increase at the Christmas period.

Billionaire Boy Facts:

-From 5-31 October, Billionaire Boy was filmed in South Yorkshire. Wentworth Woodhouse, Europe's largest private house, was last seen on the BBC as the setting for one of the UK's most ambitious television dramas ever-Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.

-I would suggest that this book is recommended for children aged 7 years and above, but please notice that certain topics and words might be inappropriate for children. This book is fun to read and will definitely help increase the vocabulary and usage of adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions and verbs for your kids.

Reception:

Billionaire Boy received positive acclaim from reviews by newspapers such as The Guardian and The Express. As with Walliams' other novels, the story has mainly been described as hilarious yet touching.

- The Telegraph “The funniest book that my 8-year-old has ever read in his life, ever.”

- Oliver, Aged 8 “I started reading this book yesterday evening and I’ve just finished (one day later)”

- Express “In the words of my 22-year old son: This is the best I’ve ever read!”

- Emily, Aged 10 “It’s a brilliant page turner, and It’s packed full of fun jokes”

In Conclusion:

I think David Walliams is a really underrated child author and has produced top notch novels for a decade, Producing my favorite book ‘Billionaire Boy’ as a child what I read about a good 4 times, from being a great act and comedian and putting a smile on the face of the people of the UK creating two Iconic TV shows that are known as a English classic and then putting the smile on the face and educating a lot of young people around the world in a funny but at the same time serious matter, his successful in a lot of areas and is a very clever man and is able to produce lots of different types of media for the public to see and experience in the warmth of there own home, Davids book will be a classic over time and will be remembered and used for the younger generation coming up, thanks for reading my Case Study.