Stormbreaker is the start of one of those series that really gets kids hooked.
And the great thing is once they’ve devoured the books (which they inevitably will), you can enjoy the TV series together too!
If you need books like Alex Rider before the weekend, the short answer is City Spies, SilverFin and Bodyguard: Hostage.
All three of these include children doing dangerous jobs adults can’t do.
The full debrief on each is below, including which one suits which kind of Alex Rider fan, and what to hold back for a year or two.
The tricky part is that Anthony Horowitz set the bar annoyingly high. Real peril, proper villains, a hero who gets hurt.
A child who lives on action books can smell a watered-down substitute a mile off. So nothing here is a substitute.
One thing first, in case they’re not actually finished. Alex’s first three missions are all in the library, so if yours has only read a borrowed copy of book one, the next two are ready to go.
Point Blanc sends Alex undercover at a sinister boarding school, and Skeleton Key teams him up with the CIA on a Caribbean island.
Why books like Alex Rider are hard to find
It’s worth being clear about what the series actually does, because that’s the itch you’re trying to scratch.
Alex is a reluctant hero. He never asked to be a spy, he’s fourteen, and MI6 uses him anyway. That reluctance is what makes him feel real rather than smug.
Then there’s the pacing. The chapters end on cliff edges, the plots move like films, and adults underestimate Alex constantly while he wins anyway. And the danger is real enough that winning costs him something.
Quick aside. If you’re actually here because you’re not sure your child is ready for Alex Rider in the first place, our guide on what age the Alex Rider books are for answers exactly that, including how the series darkens as it goes.
The next steps everyone suggests (and why I’d wait)
Type this question into any forum and the same answers come back. CHERUB. The later Young Bond books. Horowitz’s grown-up thrillers.
Those suggestions are right about the appeal and wrong about the age.
CHERUB is written for teenagers and reads like it, relationships and all. Horowitz’s adult crime novels are exactly that, adult. Even Young Bond gets noticeably darker as the series goes on, which is why only the first book appears below.
None of this is forever. It’s just not for a 9 or 10 year old this year.
So the list below stays firmly in 9 to 11 territory. Same thrills, right age.
The next mission
City Spies by James Ponti
City Spies
The closest modern match, and the one I’d hand over first.
Sara Martinez is a hacker facing years in juvenile detention. She broke into New York’s foster care system to expose her own foster parents (who deserved it). Instead of a cell, she gets an offer from a British agent called Mother. Join four other kids at a secret MI6 base in Scotland and put those skills to work.
Her first mission is an international youth summit in Paris. Where Alex works alone, this is a team, so it suits the fan who always wanted Alex to have backup. Best around 9 to 11.
SilverFin by Charlie Higson
SilverFin
If the appeal of Alex is the Bond DNA…
This is Young Bond. James himself (aged thirteen) on his first day at Eton, where he’s already made his first enemy. There’s something in the water at Loch Silverfin. It’s deadly, and it’s being kept secret.
Higson matches Horowitz for pace, and the remote Scottish loch gives it a shiver Alex Rider never quite goes for. The one for the fan who reads the missions for the villains. Happiest with a 10 or 11 year old, and see above on the later books.
Bodyguard: Hostage by Chris Bradford
Bodyguard: Hostage
Connor Reeves is a teenage martial arts expert whose job is to be the invisible shield around the US president’s daughter (Alicia). She has no idea he’s her bodyguard. The people planning to kidnap her don’t know he exists either.
Of everything on this list, it’s the closest to Alex in intensity, so it belongs to the fan who reads for the danger. One for confident readers of 10 and up.
Dear Scarlett by Fleur Hitchcock
Dear Scarlett
This is a bit of a wild card.
Scarlett has spent years believing her dad was a thief. Then (long after his death) a stranger turns up at the door with a box “on her father’s instructions”. Inside is a trail of clues, and following it with her friend Ellie pulls in spies, lost diamonds, blackmail and one sinister mayoress.
This is spy fiction from the family side, more mystery than mission. If it’s the puzzle-solving that hooks them rather than the peril, our books like Murder Most Unladylike list might be a better fit. Around 10.
Jacob Two-Two’s First Spy Case by Mordecai Richler
Jacob Two-Two’s First Spy Case
For the reader at the younger end, or anyone who likes their espionage with jokes.
Jacob has barely settled into his new life in Canada when he acquires a neighbour who does double duty as a spy, plus a new school principal who turns out to be properly nasty.
Silly and soft for a 9 year old who wants spy books without the violence.
More Horowitz first?
Fair question. If it’s specifically Horowitz’s writing they love, The Diamond Brothers books are great.
The Falcon’s Malteser stars Tim Diamond (the world’s worst private detective) and his much sharper little brother Nick, who get lumbered with a package containing nothing but a box of Maltesers. Then the man who left it is murdered.
It’s much funnier than Alex Rider, closer to a spoof than a thriller, and Public Enemy Number Two follows on. Both sit happily at 9.
When they’re ready for a harder mission
Rescue by Jennifer A Nielsen is the step up, because the danger is history rather than gadgetry.
Occupied France, World War Two. Meg’s father left to fight 657 days ago and is now a prisoner of the Nazis. All she has left of him is a jar of coded messages they used to swap as a game.
Then she finds an injured British spy hiding in her grandmother’s barn, and his mission becomes hers. Guide a family of refugees across France to Spain, cracking her father’s final code on the way.
Save it for 11 and up though.
At the same age, The Bletchley Riddle puts a maths-whizz brother and his younger sister inside the real codebreaking centre at Bletchley Park, ciphers to solve included. Also one to save for 11.
Three quick extras. The Arctic Railway Assassin trades spies for an assassin on a night train through the Arctic.
A younger sibling hovering nearby? Explorer Academy: The Forbidden Island runs ciphers and shadowy organisations for around age 8.
And if what your child actually loves is the clever-kid-outsmarting-adults angle rather than the spying itself, our books like Artemis Fowl list chases that exact thread.
Just so you know…
Alex’s first three missions (Stormbreaker, Point Blanc and Skeleton Key) are all in the library, along with every book above.
Little Reads is 3,000+ hand-picked books for children aged 5 to 11.
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We’re a library, not a classroom. If you’re after phonics or reading levels, we’re not your app. If you’re after a nine year old lost in a book, we are.
And if yours is currently between missions, you now know exactly what to slide across the table.