Read Harry the Poisonous Centipede’s Big Adventure free in the Little Reads app.
Harry the Poisonous Centipede's Big Adventure by Lynne Reid Banks is a creepy-crawly story for 7 year olds about a young centipede caught and kept in a jar.
Harry lives in cool, dark tunnels with his mum, Belinda. He has forty-two legs, poison pincers and a best friend called George. One night he's bored, and he pokes his head out of a tunnel without checking first.
A loop of thread tightens round his middle and he's lifted into the air. A boy has caught him for his collection.
Harry ends up in a pickle jar on a shelf. The jars all round him hold a yellow scorpion, a hungry tarantula, some very sad caterpillars and a dung beetle who only talks in rhymes. And down at the end, in a jar of his own, is George.
The best thing about this book is the way it makes you see the world from down on the ground. Glass is "hard-air". People are Hoo-Mins. The sea is the no-end-puddle. A centipede's own language has no vowels at all, so Harry is really Hxzltl (try saying your own name that way!).
The storyteller chats to your reader the whole way through, explaining things and even reassuring them when things look bad. It's a lovely one to read aloud.
When a window frame gives way and the jars come crashing down, Harry can finally run for home. But he turns back for George. You'll have a lump in your throat at that bit, and then the pair of them are off on an even bigger adventure involving an eagle and the sea.
It's worth knowing that creatures die along the way. The caterpillars won't eat what they're given and simply stop, and the scorpion gets stamped on. Harry's dad was killed by a Hoo-Min before Harry hatched, which is mentioned early on. It's all handled gently (the centipedes call dying "stopping"), but a very tender-hearted child might need a cuddle.
Does your reader love minibeasts, or wish they could keep one in a jar? This will make them think twice. It's a funny, exciting story about friendship, and about how it feels to be on the other side of the glass.
If they'd like to go back to where it all began, Harry's first adventure is A Story To Make You Squirm, when he and George first go Up the Up-Pipe.
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