Beast Quest 11 – Arachnid the King of Spiders

Adam Blade's Beast Quest Arachnid the King of Spiders is an adventure for 7 year olds about a giant spider living far too close to town.

What happens

Tom is hunting for the pieces of a magical set of golden armour, scattered across the kingdom by the wicked wizard Malvel. He's already won four pieces, and each one gives him a new power. The helmet sharpens his eyesight, and the leg armour lets him run for miles. But two pieces are still out there, and each is guarded by a Beast.

Worse, Malvel has kidnapped their friend Aduro. He's tied to a chair dangling over a pit of boiling tar, and every time Tom loses heart he's lowered a little closer.

So Tom and Elenna follow the map to a mountain town. It's the King's birthday and there's a street party going on, with stew, jugglers and a coconut shy (Elenna knocks down three coconuts in a row, of course). But not everyone is celebrating.

A woman called Dorina tells them her friend went into the mountain caves to collect crystals and never came out. Huge webs appear on the town walls overnight. Food keeps disappearing. And when Tom wakes in the night, their whole bedroom is covered in webs. Arachnid has been in the room with them!

That's a properly shivery moment, and there are plenty more. A mountain path crumbles under Tom's feet. Then there's the cave itself, full of glowing blue crystals, where a spider the size of a barn sits waiting with six eyes and rows of teeth on its belly.

It's a great one for readers who like their monsters BIG. The chapters are short and pacey, and the way each armour power is explained makes it easy to follow even if you haven't read the earlier books. Silver the wolf gets a starring role too.

A heads-up for spider-haters, though. The prologue has a woman wrapped up in thick silk inside the cave, and Silver ends up in the web as well. If your reader can't stand creepy-crawlies, this might give them the shivers. If they love them, even better!

What to read next

To see how the golden armour went missing in the first place, try Zepha the Monster Squid, which opens with a swarm of bats carrying it out of the palace.