A most suitable romp for a young read, showcasing the author's love of rap, and more. It's unfortunate the bullying storyline is going to keep this of interest to the target age range only – it's certainly not a fun or engaging plot for any other audience – but the intended reader will be well served. James actually starts the book wanting to be an ace cake maker, but the bully keeps belittling his dreams, and ruining everything. It's only accidentally – and perhaps a bit surprisingly slowly, given the emphasis on it we know to expect from the author, and the title and cover – that he falls into rapping. Very handy then that the country's biggest hip hop star is in a dry patch, and is needing a young upstart to get his mojo back. The book is certainly more than breezy enough for this to appeal to reluctant readers, never once embarrasses itself with sounding desperate, dad jokey or anything else, and has a great twist late on that nobody will see coming. A strong 4/4 stars.

Schoolboy James Perera loves baking, except for his ‘Doom Dessert’, Bread and Butter Pudding Souffle which he loves eating but can’t for the life of him recreate, although it may have something to do with him only trying to bake it when he’s angry or upset, which is a lot recently.

His dad has upped and left the family alone and the school bully, Alfie Adams has it in for him. He is called ‘Scabby Bake’ by his peers who refuse to eat his cakes on the say-so of Alfie and now he’s discovered rapping but the words just won’t come out when he rap battles.

Grime artist Brukka (who looks a lot like Romesh in the illustrations) is looking for young talent and James thinks that this could be his big break, but with everything going on he isn’t sure he has the confidence to make it.

Lil’ Muffin Drops the Mic is the first children’s book by comedian Romesh Ranganathan. The plot mainly revolves around life at school and young James. It is a quick read and has some amazing black-and-white illustrations throughout.

I can see children enjoying the story given the setting and how big rap and grime music is at the moment. The writing could have been a little more fleshed out but then this is a children’s book and the basic writing style will probably appeal to its intended audience and help them to connect with the book.

Overall, the story is bang up to date with references to social media and text snippets. It has plenty of humour within the pages, including the lyrics to some very strange raps, such as one about a teddy bear, and it shows that you have to believe in yourself.

This book wasn't one I enjoyed, I'm afraid. I knew that Romesh Ranganathan had been a teacher, so I was expecting something more enjoyable. Maybe it was aimed at an older age bracket.

For a book which is meant for children this was not an easy read. The writing doesn't flow, it feels clunky and it feels like there are unnecessary words and explanations when you don't need them. It really drags the story. It became frustrating and I couldn't finish for this reason.