Edward’s Diary Volume I: The Prequel

Will Brooks's Edward's Diary Volume I: The Prequel is a strange, funny and sad zombie-apocalypse story for 11 year olds about a boy who thinks he may be the last person alive.

What happens

Edward starts a diary because he's sure nobody will ever read it. A sickness that began in Spain has filled the world with the Dead, and he's boarded up every window of his big old gothic house. He was fourteen when it started. He's lost count of the years since.

He isn't exactly alone, though. His mum was an inventor (the kind whose inventions come to life), and before she left she made Frank. Frank is a living voodoo doll, stitched together using Edward's own DNA. So Edward feels everything Frank feels. That's a problem when Frank decides to find out how the toaster works at three in the morning, with his hand.

Then there's Spike, a teenage vampire in the basement who has no fangs. He's kept going on one cup of coffee a night, and he'd very much like Edward to think he's dangerous.

The diary jumps about, which suits it. There are silly poems (one is a love letter to the snooze button), little scenes written like a film script and lists comparing a normal day before with a day now. Frank's questions ("who would win if a marshmallow and a fox got into a fight?") sit right beside Edward missing hot chocolate at bedtime and his mum's goodnight kiss. It's very funny one minute and quite lonely the next.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The day it all begins includes a car crash outside school, with bodies on the playground and a boy screaming as he recognises a parent. Edward's mum packs a case and leaves him behind. He says his friends are probably dead, and that after she went he locked himself in his room and starved himself until he was ill. He's also well into his teens by now, looking back on being fourteen.

For a reader who's sensitive about parents leaving or about not eating, that may be too much. For a confident older reader who likes zombie stories with more heart than gore, there's a lot here. Frank alone makes it worth a go (you won't forget that lidless eyeball in a hurry).

What to read next

If they'd like another boy riding out the apocalypse on his own, try The Last Kids on Earth. Jack is thirteen, holed up in a fortified tree house living on biscuits and crisps, and he heard the radio news stop, just as Edward's TV did.