This book is about a boy whose name is Tom Gates and lives in England. Tom is a sneaky and outgoing fifth grader who encounters a lot of problems in life like being late for school. The book is written in the style of a diary and mostly takes place at Tom’s school and home. He enjoys all types of music and decides to start a band with his best friend Derrick. They write a song. Amy is a girl in the story who Tom likes. Unfortunately, Amy doesn’t like Tom in the beginning of the story. He asks her to a concert anyway. He is determined to get Amy to go with him.

In The Brilliant World of Tom Gates, Tom has three hobbies- annoying his sister Delia, being in a band (the Dog Zombies), and eating caramel wafers. Tom also has a lot of things in his life that bug him. He gets stuck sitting between the annoying Marcus Meldrew and way too close to his teacher Mr. Fullerman. His sister drives him crazy and his Dad dresses like a homeless man when he picks him up from the bus stop. Tom's teachers give him too much homework, but he always finds a creative way to get out of doing it.