The Accidental Billionaire

A new, hilarious book from author Tom McLaughlin, creator of the highly-acclaimed The Accidental Prime Minister.

Funny by Name. Funny by Nature. Jasper Spam is mad about science, the problem is that all of his experiments tend to end in a BANG, until one day quite accidentally Jasper manages to invent something that will change the world forever . . .

One crazy experiment involving a shed, a mallet, and a poorly aimed laser beam results in Jasper’s cat Rover, becoming the world’s first talking cat. Finally an invention that works – the Cat Chat 2000! Soon people are handing over all of their cash to get a talking cat. With his new found wealth Jasper can finally live the life he’s always dreamed of – buying a mansion, sports team, and producing a Hollywood blockbuster. But is there a huge price to pay for bringing talking cats to the world, and money won’t be able to solve the problem that the Cat Chat 2000 has caused.

Published by Oxford University Press

About the author:

Tom McLaughlin has been an author for over 10 years now. He writes and illustrates picture books and chapter books for Key Stages 1 and 2. Tom has been nominated for the Greenaway Medal twice and his debut chapter book also received nomination for the Branford Boase Award. The Accidental series has sold over 110,000 copies in the UK alone and been translated into 12 different languages. The Accidental Prime Minister was shortlisted on the Shrewsbury Bookfest Book Award 2016. As well as working in children’s books, Tom also worked as political cartoonist, animator, script writer and written several columns for The Guardian.

Tom is leading creative writing workshops in primary schools across Shropshire for the Shrewsbury Bookfest Schools’ Week 2021 project.