The League of Unexceptional Children 2 – Get Smart-ish

Gitty Daneshvari's Get Smart-ish is a very silly spy story for 9 year olds that sends two utterly forgettable American children to save London.

What happens

It opens on a foggy night. A masked woman knocks out two security guards with a tranquilliser gun (borrowed from London Zoo) and walks off with a tiny glass vial. Inside is a virus that makes people less clever. A LOT less clever.

The thief is a teenage British spy who has gone rogue. So the prime minister rings the American president and asks for help.

Help arrives in the shape of Jonathan and Shelley. They're twelve, and they were picked by a secret organisation precisely because nobody ever notices them. Jonathan's own grandmother's family newsletter says only that he's "still alive".

Shelley is the best thing in it. She narrates her own arrival at the airport like she's in a film. She talks nonstop in a voice so quiet that nobody hears her. And she gets every saying slightly wrong. Reading between the vines, anyone?

In London they're teamed up with three young British spies who are frighteningly good at everything. One hacks codes, one can't stop quoting famous people and one blows things up for fun. They call Jonathan and Shelley Khaki and Glasses and keep testing them on British history (Shelley claims to be Facebook friends with Anne Boleyn).

If you've got a reader who has ever felt like the least impressive person in the room, they'll love these two. Being underestimated turns out to be quite useful!

It's also a funny picture of London through American eyes, from afternoon tea at a posh hotel to a break-in at the Tower of London at two in the morning.

A couple of small things to mention. A few grown-ups use mild British swear words. Guards get knocked out with darts and chloroform. And one of the young spies tells a sad story about a dad who disappeared with his little girl. None of it is dwelt on, and most readers will be far too busy laughing.

What to read next

It's the second book about Jonathan and Shelley, and it helps to have met them first. Their story starts in the very first League of Unexceptional Children book.