Spy Toys: Undercover

Mark Powers's Spy Toys: Undercover is a very silly spy adventure for 9 year olds about three toys who have to pass as ordinary schoolchildren.

What happens

Meet Dan, a teddy bear who's far too strong, Arabella, a rag doll with a terrible temper, and Flax, a robot rabbit who loves a gadget. They're secret agents for the Department of Secret Affairs. This is their third mission, and it starts with a whole chocolate factory vanishing overnight.

Their boss, Auntie Roz, suspects a science teacher called Mrs Dimpling. So the toys are zipped into android bodysuits and sent to her school as new pupils.

It goes about as well as you'd expect. Arabella smashes the pencil pot on her first morning and gets sent out. Dan rescues a girl from a bully by twisting the climbing frame into a cage (then puts it back before anyone notices). Flax gets hooked on a phone game called Turbo Badger.

It's like a cartoon on the page. The jokes come thick and fast and the narrator talks straight to you. Arabella is the one your reader will be quoting. She calls people "sweetie" just before she's rude to them, which is often.

And when the real villain turns up, they're one of the funniest baddies around. Small, very clever and truly horrible. Who knew a thumb war could be so scary?

There's plenty of cartoon peril (a toy sloth that eats metal, a kidnapped rabbit) but nothing that lingers. It's a great pick for a reader who wants something fast and daft, especially one who's already a fan of secret agents.

What to read next

This is the third Spy Toys book, but it stands up well by itself. If your reader wants to know how a faulty teddy ended up a secret agent, try the first Spy Toys story, where Dan is dropped down a chute on to a factory rejects pile and meets a very grumpy rag doll.