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Doctor Who: Thirteen Doctors 13 Stories is a collection for 11 year olds with one adventure for every Doctor, all the way from the First to the Thirteenth.
Each story is by a different writer and stars a different Doctor. The Thirteenth Doctor's story is by Naomi Alderman. So if your reader only knows the newest Doctors, this is a brilliant way to meet all the others.
The second story is a good taste of it. It's London in 1968. Jamie, the Doctor's companion from the Scottish Highlands, is standing outside a bookshop in his kilt when he hears a shout down an alley. He rescues an old bookseller from a thug, and gets a very old book as a thank-you.
Meanwhile the TARDIS is in bits all over the control room floor. The Doctor says they're stuck in London for good. So Jamie cheers him up with a present... and the Doctor reads the title and throws it across the room with a shriek.
Suddenly the TARDIS takes off on its own. It lands at the very edge of space, beside a city of black glass that hurts your eyes to look at. Giant apes made of glass carry the TARDIS off. And inside the tallest pyramid, something with tentacles is waiting.
It reads just like an episode! The Doctor is rumpled and brilliant and a bit rude, eating an ice cream while everything falls apart. He plays a recorder so shrill it sends all the birds flapping into the air, just so no one sees him slip into the police box. Jamie grumbles, puts out a fire the wrong way and follows him anyway.
It's properly creepy in places. The opening story has the darkest idea in it. The Doctor has lost a hand to pirates who float sleeping children out of their beds and up to a ship, to drain them for power or cut them up for spare parts. It's only ever talked about, and the children get home, but the hold is hung with meat hooks and it's a grim thought. In the second story there's a book that pulses like a heartbeat, a stink of rotting fish, and sea creatures in rags rising out of a pool of mercury. These two are more shivers than gore, but the monsters are eerie. If your reader enjoys a scary bit on the telly from behind a cushion, they'll love it.
Every story is its own adventure, so it's easy to read one at bedtime and save the next.
If it's the newest Doctor they're keenest on, The Secret in Vault 13 is a whole novel with the Thirteenth Doctor, Ryan, Yaz and Graham, and it starts with them being chased across a planet by a robot.
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