Katie Reads Books

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

It’s before the First World War, but tensions with the Germans are already high. A fairly ordinary man, called Richard Hannay, returns to London, but promptly gets bored of life. It all gets exciting, though, when a man who is assumed dead turns up in his flat and then gets properly murdered. Richard, not wanting to let a good man down, works out why he died and manages to stop secrets from being leaked to the Germans – hoping to stop the oncoming war. Prepare to be sat on the edge of your seat as the adventure unfolds.

There’s a great movie adaptation available that we, as a family, all enjoyed (once we were all old enough!)

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S Lewis

Four children get sent away during the Second World War to a massive, rambling old house. There they find their way into a magic, snow-bound land of Narnia. Here they meet two beavers who take them to Aslan’s How. Aslan is the fabled prince from over the sea. On the way, it becomes a race; one of the boys betrays the rest to the White Witch, who enslaved the land, making it always winter, but never Christmas. They know Aslan is on the move because Father Christmas visits them. They all meet at the stone table where Aslan sacrifices himself for the boy who betrayed them, so good wins out.

Escape from Mr Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein

There’s a rambunctious gentleman back in Ohio – Mr Lemoncello! He’s returned to bring fun games to his new library and aims to get all the kids into reading again. He hosts an essay competition at the local middle school to pick some kids to compete in his crazy, bonkers library lock-in to launch the library in style. Kyle Keely and his friends must compete in wacky challenges to a) get out of the library in time and b) beat Charles Chiltington. There are races through the library stacks, hunts through the Dewey Decimal system and fun times in the video game lab, but can he win?

Redwall – Mossflower by Brian Jacques

The woods of Mossflower are being ruled by the wildcats of Kotir. The animals are all starving, being forced to work long hours on very little food and water, until brave young Martin the Mouse arrives. Working together, Martin, Gonff and the others, take down the wildcats. By the end of the book they have started work on Redwall Abbey, to build a safe haven for all animals to work in harmony.

The rest of the books follow a similar pattern. An evil force threatens to take over, the abbey dwellers band together, sometimes with outside help, and good wins out. If you’re planning on reading aloud you had better brush up on your accents for the moles and hares. Or there’s an audiobook available read by the author and a full cast.

Ruby Redfort – Look Into My Eyes by Lauren Child

Ruby Redfort is a teenage girl who has trained herself to be very observant. She can make and crack codes even college professors can’t break.

One day she gets invited (after following a trail of clues most of us wouldn’t even have realised existed) to work for Spectrum, a top secret spy organisation. It’s so secret that the entrance to it changes every once in a while. Originally she’s employed to just crack the code that a dead agent left. Her curiosity gets the better of her, leading to her getting locked in a giant sand timer by the evil count. Fortunately, she breaks out and rescues the jade Buddha from him and his minions.

Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

You will have to read a couple in advance if you’re not familiar with the stories, but there are quite a few suitable for family entertainment in my opinion. It’s been a tradition, in our family, to read a Sherlock Holmes story on Twelfth Night around the Christmas tree every year since I can remember.

Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant detective in old London who solves all sorts of incredibly messed up and tricky crimes. He’s a bit blunt and odd, but his sidekick Watson makes up for it.

When your child is old enough, there is a good TV show set in London, keeping directly to the books, that brings the stories to colourful life. There is also Elementary which plays a little looser with the characters, having moved to a 2012 New York. In this, Sherlock Holmes is an ex drug addict with Joan Watson, his sober companion turned protégé.