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Philip Reeve's Goblins Vs Dwarves is a funny fantasy adventure for 9 year olds about a goblin, a would-be hero and a mine full of very rude dwarves.
Henwyn is a young human who fancies himself an adventurer. His best friend Skarper is a goblin (spindly, foxy-faced, with a ginger tuft on the end of his tail). Humans and goblins aren't supposed to be friends at all.
They live at Clovenstone, a huge ruined fortress full of goblins, cheese-making and trouble. Out exploring the mountains one day, Henwyn falls straight through the ground and lands in a tunnel. Then something comes round the corner wearing lanterns. It's a giant mole.
The tunnels belong to dwarves, and they aren't friendly. To them Henwyn is a clumsy "bigling" and Skarper is even worse. Soon it turns out what they really want is the lake of slowsilver deep under Clovenstone. That's where every goblin hatches from.
Their friend Princess Ned would much rather talk than fight. So off they all go to say hello nicely, with a goblin blowing a trumpet that sounds exactly like a fart. It doesn't go well!
This book is properly funny. Skarper eats both of Henwyn's pies while his friend is stuck down a hole. One of the baby goblins belts its teacher with a log the second it hatches. There's even a contest on the battlements that you'll have to discover for yourself (let's just say it isn't rain).
Underneath the silliness there's a proper adventure. Henwyn thinks life should work like the old hero stories, and Skarper, who is very good at running away, isn't so sure. There's also a dwarf girl called Etty, who's sent to listen in on them and seems a lot less certain about all this than the grown-ups.
If your reader likes their dungeons and dark forces served with toilet jokes, this is probably going to be a hit. Who doesn't love a goblin who'd rather have a pie than a fight?
It follows straight on from Goblins, the first book about Skarper and Henwyn, so start there if you can. It's in the library too.
If they want more castles with secret tunnels underneath, try Goblins in the Castle by Bruce Coville. William has spent years hunting for hidden passages in Toad-in-a-Cage Castle, and one of them takes him five hundred steps down towards the dungeons.
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