Harry the Poisonous Centipede Goes To Sea

Lynne Reid Banks's Harry the Poisonous Centipede Goes To Sea is a funny, squirmy adventure for 8 year olds about two centipedes who fall asleep in a crate of bananas and wake up a very long way from home.

What happens

Harry and George are best mates and "centeens", giant tropical centipedes about eighteen centimetres long. They hunt at night and bring treats home to Harry's mum, Belinda. On this particular night George is off chasing a girl centipede (Harry isn't quite ready for all that yet).

Then they spot a tarantula in a crate. They eat so much of it that they're too full to squeeze back out, so they curl up for a nap. By the time they wake, the crate is moving, then it's on a ship, and home is further away than they can imagine.

They're not alone either. Josie, the centipede George was chasing, is hiding in there too, and she won't eat anything that's been alive. For a pair of hunters that's almost shocking!

What's so lovely here is that the whole story is seen through centipede eyes. People are "Hoo-Mins", the sea is the "no-end puddle", a rat is a "hairy-biter" and anything humans do that makes no sense is "do-diddle". Your reader gets to crack the puzzle words as they go. The narrator chats away to them the whole time too (at one point promising to get the centipedes safely across a busy road, then owning up to how).

It's got real heart as well. Harry misses his mum terribly and tries to explain love to Josie, who has never heard of it. There's a bit of jealousy between the two boys over her too.

Just so you know, it's honest about nature. The centipedes kill and eat things, a mother rat nearly bites George's head off, Harry has to drop three of his legs to escape and there's an unfortunate dip in a sewer. It's all told with a grin, so squeamish readers are more likely to squeal than get upset.

What to read next

This one follows on from Harry's earlier adventures, so if your reader wants to meet him from the very beginning, start with A Story To Make You Squirm, where he's still a young centi in the tunnels with Belinda.