Sticky Pines: The Bigwoof Conspiracy

Dashe Roberts's The Bigwoof Conspiracy is a spooky, silly monster mystery for 9 year olds set in a very weird little town.

What happens

Lucy Sladan is twelve, she has purple hair and she KNOWS aliens are real. Two people from Sticky Pines have gone missing. The newspaper blames wild animals. Lucy is sure they've been abducted.

So one stormy night she sneaks out with her parents' old camera to get proof. Out in the woods she finds a huge, hairy thing with a face like a bulldog, staring up at strange blue lights in the sky. Then her flash goes off and everything goes black.

She wakes up in the mud with a soggy, ruined camera and a boy called Milo Fisher standing over her. He's new in town, he's dressed far too smartly for a forest, and he has a camera of his own!

The trouble is, Milo's dad has just bought the sweet factory where Lucy's dad works. And Mr Fisher seems very interested in exactly what the children saw.

Lucy is such good company. She has her own made-up swear words (Holy. Flippin'. Crudballs.) and she's fed up with nobody ever taking her seriously. Her best friend Tex teases her without mercy. When she says she's seen Bigfoot, he renames it Bigwoof, and the name sticks.

The jokes come thick and fast, but it does get properly creepy. The creature's howl sounds like a wolf being attacked by bees, which is a noise your reader will probably be imagining for days.

It's worth knowing that people keep disappearing through the opening chapters, including a teacher who's just given Lucy a cookie. Milo also mentions that his mum died when he was six. It's said once and gently, but a child who's lost a parent may notice it.

If your reader likes to be a little bit scared and a lot amused, this is a great pick. Who doesn't love a kid who won't be told she's imagining things?

What to read next

If they're after more UFO mysteries, try The Area 51 Files. Twelve-year-old Sky is sent to live with an uncle she's never met, on the top-secret base where everyone says flying saucers crash-landed.