Frankie Sparrow – Private Investigator

Ewan McGregor's Frankie Sparrow Private Investigator is a funny detective story for 8 year olds about a cheeky young sparrow who ends up working for his uncle.

What happens

Frankie is small, fast and always in trouble. The school holidays start with yet another detention from Mr Finch. Then his dad catches him and his friends playing Keek-a-boo, which means aiming their droppings at people walking under their tree. (Your reader will probably think this is the best game ever invented.)

So Frankie gets a job. First he's up at 4am fetching twigs for his dad's nest-building business, which goes about as well as you'd expect. Then he trips up a fleeing magpie with a nest-building pole, and suddenly he fancies himself as a crime fighter.

That's how he lands at Uncle Charlie's office. Charlie wears bright bow ties and round glasses held on with a rubber band. He's a private investigator who has never actually solved a case.

Their very first job is a missing teacher. And of course it's Mr Finch!

Alongside Frankie's story there's a second one going on in the Pigeon Police. A crime wave is hitting the Parliament of Owls. Detective Pratchett is huge, rude, wears a flat cap and pinches a little robin's breakfast roll right out of his wings. He's very keen for a scruffy magpie called Johnny Fidget to take the blame.

The fun is that your reader gets to see more than Frankie does. They'll be shouting at the page long before the sparrows put the clues together. Who else could be up to something?

It's a very silly world, in the best way. There's a Bird Stop Cafe, a seagull pilot who can't stop talking, and a swift called Swifty the Gadget who hides in camouflage and lets off smoke bombs. The birds have jobs, detentions and elections, just like people.

Frankie is great company too. He's lazy about getting up but sharp once he's interested. He asks the questions his uncle forgets to ask, which is very satisfying for a young reader to watch.

If you've got a reader who loves a mystery with plenty of jokes and not too much danger, this is a good one to try.

What to read next

For another boy who's sure he's a born detective, have a look at The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity. Steve Brixton has read every Bailey Brothers mystery and keeps his notebook in a secret hollowed-out book, and before long he's mixed up in a real case.