Marge and the Secret Tunnel

Isla Fisher's Marge and the Secret Tunnel is a funny babysitter book for 6 year olds, with three stories about the most unusual grown-up you could hope to meet.

What happens

Marge is tiny (she can peep through the letter box without bending down). Her hair is every colour of the rainbow, she says she's a duchess, and she turns up to babysit in a ski suit when there's no snow anywhere. Jemima and her little brother Jakeypants think she's the best.

In the first story the children find a big hole under the oak tree at the bottom of the garden, right next to their lost Frisbee. Is it a secret tunnel? Does it go all the way to Australia, like Jakey hopes? Marge, of course, writes a very polite letter asking to be invited in, and lowers it down on a fishing line...

In the second, a trip for school shoes and haircuts ends with them locked inside the shopping centre after dark. (Marge thinks it's the perfect time for a trolley race.) In the third, they become cat detectives to find a missing kitten, and somebody ends up stuck in a fence.

Jemima tells the stories, and she's a lovely narrator. She's the sensible big sister, a bit shy, who wants to disappear when Jakey lies flat on the floor of the shopping centre and worries about Mummy's to-do list. You'll probably recognise a few of these moments!

Marge's tall tales are half the fun. A racing camel who lost because he bought the wrong size shoes. Royal cats who embroider hankies. The Queen mistaking her for a headless ghost. Is any of it true? Kids will have a great time deciding.

Friendship runs through it as well, as Jemima (who isn't good at making friends) meets the girl who's just moved in next door.

The stories are short and lively, with big sound words like DING DONG and NEEEE-NAW, so they suit a newly confident reader or a bedtime share.

What to read next

This isn't the book where Marge first arrives, as Jemima mentions a few earlier adventures. To go back to that very first evening (and Jakey's war on broccoli), try Marge The Collection, which begins with the day the children meet her.