Book Club: Their son had the worst week ever … then his parents turned it into a hit

Once upon a time, there were two very talented individuals who happened to have a son who happened to have some days at school that sucked. And that very same couple often thought that it’d make a great book.

They didn’t do anything about it until the pandemic made it so, and since then Matt Cosgrove and partner Eva Amores have given the world its Worst Week Ever series. Monday through to Sunday.

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The series may be for kids, but it isn’t exclusively so either. They’re great for grown-ups too.

The seven books follow 12-year-old Justin Chase through a spectacularly disastrous week during which embarrassment, family drama, and plain bad luck seem determined to hunt him down.

His mother marries a man he suspects is a vampire, his father drives a giant toilet on wheels, and his cat may have been abducted by aliens.

Justin also has the unfortunate problem of his humiliation finding an audience online.

Seven days of disaster, hilariously so

Things get progressively more ridiculous. There are disappearing swimming trunks, a disastrous school photograph, an abandoned island, a kidnapping, caves, rats and even zombies before Justin eventually makes it to Sunday.

“It’s actually inspired by our eldest son. He was having a terrible week at school, and he came home and said, ‘You know, my life is so bad it could feel like an entire book series from Monday to Sunday’,” Cosgrove said.

And that’s where the idea for the books came from.

Covid-19 made it happen. Amores was made redundant during the pandemic while Cosgrove, already a children’s author and illustrator, saw his school presentations, festivals, and speaking engagements disappear.

Suddenly they had time together. Possibly too much of it.

“We were at the point of, you know, like, ‘You’re breathing too loud. Stop nagging me!’ And we were really going insane, basically,” Cosgrove said. They channelled the frustration into Worst Week Ever: Monday.

Real-life disasters continue to feed Justin’s fictional woes across the books.

Amores recalled a Year Nine school photograph where her eyes were closed. She was horrified when it was distributed around the school. Justin gets the amplified version: terrible photographs year after year.

“A lot of it was inspired by our own life experiences, but we’ve kind of just exaggerated it so it’s more entertaining,” she said.

Dramatised real-life experiences

These days even disaster has an upside.

“Anytime something bad happens to us, we don’t get stressed. We just think, hey, that’s great material for the book,” Cosgrove added.

Cosgrove and Amores have an energy about them that can draw anyone into a chinwag. They’re beyond nice in living colour; their energy is tangible in a way that few people can project these days. It makes you want to chat with them all day.

The couple who makes the world laugh, Matt Cosgrove and Eva Amores. Picture: Chante du Plessis

And Worst Week Ever, if comparisons are to be made, is like taking Wimpy Kid and putting it on steroids. It’s hilarious, relatable humour that appeals to the somewhat sardonic in all of us, the teenage existential crisis with a light at the end of the tunnel that Nietzsche never saw. Cosgrove and Amores did, and they serve it up well.

What neither expected was for their pandemic project to explode beyond Australia.

Cosgrove said the series has been translated into about 35 languages and is available in more than 50 countries, including in Afrikaans.

“We thought we were just writing something for an Australian audience, so we were absolutely blown away when it just took off,” he said.

My Goorste Week in Afrikaans

There is more going on beneath the humour and mayhem. Another layer, if you like. Like double-ply tissue paper.

The pair deliberately wanted books that could compete with screens, gaming and algorithms for children’s attention without talking down to them. Bullying and media literacy are woven through the silliness, while the central thread is resilience.

“We really want kids to read,” Cosgrove said. “We want to create a book that is going to make kids want to read and to keep turning the pages.”

By Sunday, Cosgrove said, the boy can look back at seven catastrophic days and realise something unexpected.

“Maybe it was the best week ever after all, because he’s survived and he’s grown and he has new friends and he’s had all of these wonderful experiences.”

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