Bad Dad revealed as David Walliams' 10th book

David Walliams’ next children’s book will be called Bad Dad, a “heart-warming rags to riches story” about a boy who tries to break his dad out of prison.

Illustrated by Tony Ross, the UK's bestselling children's fiction author's 10th novel is set for a pre-Christmas release on 2nd November and will follow a boy named Frank whose dad is thrown into prison for driving the getaway car in a bank robbery. The plot then follows Frank as he hatches a daring plan to break his father out of prison for the night so they can put the stolen money back, while the evil crime boss Mr Big tries to stop them.

Consistently producing Christmas hits for booksellers, Walliams has been writing for a decade and has racked up sales of 11.04 million books for £62m to date through Nielsen BookScan. Three of his titles have surpassed one million copies sold apiece this year: Gangsta Granny, Billionaire Boy and Mr Stink, and he has spent 100 weeks as Children’s number one, which no author has ever done before.

Walliams said: “I cannot believe 10 years has passed since the publication of my first children’s book, The Boy in the Dress. The success of the books over the last decade has been beyond my wildest dreams.”

HarperCollins described Bad Dad as “a fast and furious, heart-warming, riches-to-rags story that will have readers on the edge of their seats, roaring with laughter and holding back the tears”.

Its children’s books executive publisher Ann-Janine Murtagh added that the title was “a future classic”.

“It is a rollicking road movie in a book, but it's also a story with a truly touching depiction of a father and son relationship, which demonstrates what a uniquely talented writer David is and defines this book as a future classic,” she said.

“We are incredibly proud to be publishing Bad Dad on the HarperCollins list – it's a bold, beautiful and brilliant book and is sure to stay in the hearts of Walliams' readers forever.”