2015 Edinburgh Fringe

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"Return of the Snot Zombies is up against Julia Donaldson's Gruffalos, Ladybirds and Other Beasts but worse than that, Julia's show starts 30 minutes before mine and she's a legend!"

Stuart Reid has been a full-time author for just three years but is already well-known throughout the UK for his wacky, yucky book events called Reading Rocks! He has appeared at over 800 schools, libraries and book festivals, inspiring and encouraging children to read more books, more often, and this year will be his 3rd season at the Edinburgh Festival.

"Hopefully Julia's stories will appeal to a younger audience, whereas my books are all about bums, bogies and big bottoms burps. I'll even be launching my 5th book at the Festival, Gorgeous George and the Jumbo Jobby Juicer, with a few readings, pictures and even some video."

Stuart (47) went on: "I suppose the other thing in my favour is that Return of the Snot Zombies is a free show, compared with Julia's, where families will need to cough up nearly £50 to see the Gruffalo. Anybody can come along to my show and everybody will have a great time."

However, price point and value-for-money might not be Stuart's only advantage. A senior librarian from East Renfrewshire's Library and Education Department has stated: "I've been fortunate enough to see Julia Donaldson on 3 or 4 occasions, and she's fantastic but honestly, Stuart's show is funnier. The kids at the library thought he was brilliant!"

"That's a relief," sighed sorry Stuart. "Maybe we can share the audience, on different days."