Aziza’s Secret Fairy Door and the Ice Cat Mystery

Lola Morayo's Aziza's Secret Fairy Door and the Ice Cat Mystery is a sparkly, wintry fairy adventure for 6 year olds.

What happens

It's the first day of the holidays. Aziza's flat is draped in tinsel, Dad's about to make his Jamaican Christmas cake and her big brother Otis thinks her whistling is terrible.

Then she spots frost on her peace lily. And on the little fairy door standing next to it...

That's the sign. Aziza shrinks, tugs the frozen door open and steps back into Shimmerton. It's meant to be summer there. Instead the grass is white, the river is freezing over and a leprechaun has icicles in his beard!

The trouble is Ccoa the Ice Cat. He's wandered down from Ice Mountain. When he's upset, the weather goes wild. Nobody can find him, and his sorcerer has disappeared too.

So Aziza teams up with her best friends, Princess Peri and Tiko. And, after some arguing, with the three naughty Gigglers as well (Peri is NOT happy about that).

It's such a cosy read for the colder months. There's a hailstorm with stones the size of ping-pong balls and a tree whose leaves join up into a giant hand to shelter under. Tiko gets the sneezy shapeshifts and turns into a baby goat. The Yule Lads turn up early too, including Pot Scraper, who licks all the pots clean.

Kids will love how kind Aziza is. She gives the Gigglers a chance when Peri won't. She thinks about how frightened Ccoa must be, not just about the frost. And it's her whistling (yes, the terrible whistling) that turns out to matter.

There's lots of chatty dialogue and plenty of silliness, so it works well for sharing at bedtime or for a newly confident reader. The bits at home are lovely too, with tinsel everywhere and Mum's jollof rice.

What to read next

Aziza has been to Shimmerton before this adventure. If your reader wants to know how it all began, go back to the story of how Aziza's fairy door arrived. It turns up on her birthday with no stamps and no note, just her name on the box.