Alice-Miranda Holds the Key

Jacqueline Harvey's Alice-Miranda Holds the Key is a mystery for 9 year olds in which a food scare at her dad's supermarkets lands right on Alice-Miranda's doorstep.

What happens

It's Saturday movie night at Grimthorpe House when the news cuts in. Lots of people are in hospital, and the trail seems to lead back to Kennington's, the supermarket chain her father runs. Nobody can work out what's making them ill.

Caprice, being Caprice, helpfully points out that if anyone dies her dad will probably go to jail. (Thanks, Caprice.)

Alice-Miranda barely sleeps. She wants to help and Millie has to remind her that she can't fix everything. A ride out to see Mr Frost and his goats (who somehow keep ending up in trees) is meant to take her mind off it all.

Your reader is ahead of everybody here. The very first pages show a shadowy figure slipping into a factory control room while the night supervisor is off fixing a machine. Something has been done, and nobody saw a thing.

There are new faces too. Chessie is so homesick at her new boarding school that she hides on a shelf in the linen cupboard. A girl called Madagascar makes it all much worse. Then there's a busy mum of three who's set on a promotion and won't let anything get in her way.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The ride home ends in a nasty fall. Bony swerves to miss a hare and Alice-Miranda hits the ground hard. Millie finds her out cold with blood coming from the back of her head.

She's unconscious for about six hours and needs stitches, with a badly sprained ankle on top. She does wake up, and the doctor expects a full recovery, but it's a scary few pages. A horse-mad child who already worries about falling off might find it a lot.

The flip side is Millie, who's a total hero. She works through her first aid out loud, makes bandages from a tea towel and gallops off for help. Isn't that exactly the friend you'd want?

It also means Alice-Miranda won't be back at school this term. So the action heads home to Highton Hall early, with the village garden party to get ready for and her parents under huge pressure.

There's lots of chat about earlier adventures, so it's lovely for a child who already knows the gang.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, go right back to her very first holidays at home in Alice-Miranda on Holiday, where she brings Jacinta to stay and a charming stranger wants to know all the house's secrets.