Alice-Miranda in Japan

Jacqueline Harvey's Alice-Miranda in Japan is a mystery for 9 year olds that takes the whole gang to Tokyo, where a runaway girl is hiding somewhere in the city.

What happens

It all starts with Mrs Oliver, the cook at Highton Hall. She takes a phone call and comes back looking very wobbly. She's been asked to give a talk in Tokyo about Just Add Water, her food invention. (She's sure they only asked because somebody else dropped out.)

Within minutes Alice-Miranda's parents have turned it into a family trip. Millie and Jacinta are coming too, and they can hardly believe their luck.

Meanwhile a girl in a baseball cap is pushing through the Tokyo crowds, sure she's being followed. She crawls under a subway barrier to get away. Her name is Kiko, she's eleven, and she's carrying her mother's diary and a necklace.

By nightfall she's asleep in a doorway. A tiny, very rude old woman finds her there, decides she's a boy and puts her straight to work. Kiko doesn't argue. She just says her name is Yoshi.

Obaasan is a brilliant character. She dishes up noodles to a whole houseful of elderly residents and insults every one of them as she goes. There are squirrel ornaments on every shelf in the place. Hundreds of them!

Your reader knows more than Alice-Miranda does for a good while, which is part of the fun. They meet Kiko's aunt, who smiles in a way nobody ever should, and two men in black suits who've lost track of her. They also see a stranger pick up the necklace Kiko drops.

Back at the inn it's futons on the floor and slippers you swap at every doorway. Jacinta can't believe there are no beds. Millie puts milk in her green tea. Then Jacinta presses a button on the very high-tech toilet and Millie gets a jet of warm water in the eye!

Millie also has a new guidebook and reads facts out at every opportunity, which drives Jacinta up the wall. Who wouldn't want a friend like that on holiday?

This one sits well into the series and the friendships have plenty of history. Jacinta has clearly changed a lot (she watches a spoilt little girl at breakfast and begs Millie to say she was never that bad). A new reader will keep up fine, but they'll get more from it having met everyone earlier.

What to read next

If they want the same friends back at school, Alice-Miranda at Camp sends the whole school off for five days with a new girl who has a beautiful voice and a nasty streak.