Book excerpt: A brilliantly funny new series from Dirty Bertie author, Alan MacDonald, featuring a pig on a bike, a Poopomatic, and a talking dog! Meet Oscar. He's no ordinary dog . . . Sam has wanted a dog for AGES, so when Oscar turns up on this doorstep he can't believe his luck. And when he finds out that Oscar's secret he can't believe his ears! Oscar thinks humans are silly and rather badly trained - but when the freedom of the town's dogs is under threat, Oscar's about to discover that a dog's best friend is his boy. Alan MacDonald is the author of many books for children, including the bestselling Dirty Bertie series, which he worked on with award-winning illustrator David Roberts. His series Troll Trouble (Bloomsbury) has been optioned for film by Twentieth Century Fox, and Alan has also published picture book The Prince of Pants (Scholastic) with the illustrator Sarah McIntyre. When not busy with books, Alan writes for children's TV series such as Horrid Henry, The Tweenies, Boo! and Fimbles. Sarah Horne has illustrated many hilarious children's books, including Llama United by Scott Allen (Pan Macmillan) the Fizzlebert Stump series by A.F. Harrold (Bloomsbury), the Guinea Pigs Online series by Amanda Swift and Jennifer Grey (Quercus) and Michael Rosen's Laugh Out Loud Joke Book (Scholastic). Sarah grew up in Derbyshire and now lives in London.