Guys Read: Thriller

Guys Read: Thriller, put together by Jon Scieszka, is a collection of spooky mystery stories for 9 year olds from a mix of different writers.

What happens

Scieszka kicks things off by describing the cover. A shady man with a crowbar is lurking in a dark alley and a kid has just spotted him. What has he done? That's the mystery. What happens if he turns round and sees the kid? That's the thriller!

Then M. T. Anderson takes you into a haunted house with a TV crew. Paul's dad films a ghost-hunting show called True Spook, and Paul has to hide behind the furniture so he doesn't end up in the shot.

Paul doesn't believe a word of it. The show's two psychics spend most of their time bickering (mainly about whether a girl called Sharon ever existed). But the house does have a story. A rich old man hid his fortune somewhere inside before he died, and his sons never found a penny.

Paul isn't bothered about ghosts. He's VERY interested in treasure. So when everyone else wanders out of the old man's bedroom, he starts squeezing the mattress. Then a face appears in the air, glaring at him.

You'll be giggling at the psychics one minute and holding your breath the next.

Matt de la Peña's Believing in Brooklyn is quieter. Benny lives with his grandma, who's very poorly, and his friend Ray tapes a drawing of a wish machine above Benny's fireplace as a joke. Benny wishes for earplugs. The next morning there's a pair of headphones in his room that he's never seen before. Then a whole pizza turns up. So who's granting the wishes?

Every story is a fresh puzzle, so if one doesn't grab your reader the next one might.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Benny is frightened his grandma is going to die, and he has a nightmare about her stopping breathing. The floating faces in Paul's story are properly creepy too. There's some rough playground language, including a slang insult about mental illness, and Benny's seventh-grade friends have crushes and a trip to the movies on their minds. The line-up promised at the start also includes a body on the railway tracks.

A child who's worried about a poorly grandparent might find Benny's story hard going. If your reader loves a shiver and a puzzle, there's lots here for them.

What to read next

If they'd rather laugh than shiver, Scieszka mentions that the first book in the series was all funny. Guys Read: Funny Business is in the library too, and it starts with Dean, who bets other kids quarters at recess and has never had much time for Ernest and his cardigan.