Sticky Pines: The Valley of the Strange

Dashe Roberts's The Valley of the Strange is a funny, spooky sci-fi mystery for 9 year olds, and once again nobody believes a word Lucy Sladan says.

What happens

It opens underground. Lucy's dad Silas is blasting tunnels for a company called Nu Co., trying to find out where the sweet black goo under the town of Sticky Pines comes from. His crew break into a huge cave carved with monsters, and in it is a stone slab with a button in the middle. Of course somebody pushes the button.

By the weekend Silas is making huevos rancheros and announcing that the whole family is moving to Los Angeles so he can be a rock star. His new song is called Raven-Haired Love Mermaid. Lucy's mum is NOT impressed!

Lucy is thirteen, with purple hair and a homemade UFO detector strapped to the top of a billboard. She's sure there's something very strange about Sticky Pines, and the more people roll their eyes at her, the more determined she gets.

Milo, her best friend, is in a trickier spot. His dad runs Nu Co. and wants those same strange creatures caught. Milo loves his dad, he worries Lucy won't want him around once the mystery's over, and he's trying (very badly) to ask her to the school dance.

It's a really fun read. The chapters swap between Lucy and Milo, so you get to be inside both their heads. The jokes come thick and fast, from a school newspaper row about whether fart jokes are lowbrow to Lucy's own made-up exclamations. What the greasefire?

There's some real peril too. Drones go after animals in the woods and a dad starts acting like a stranger. It's more exciting than frightening, and it's always got one eye on the laughs.

It's a great pick for any reader who loves aliens, monsters and a big dollop of silliness in their mysteries.

What to read next

It does follow on from earlier adventures, though. If your reader is new to Sticky Pines, it's worth going back to where Lucy and Milo first meet, in The Bigwoof Conspiracy. That's the night Lucy sneaks out in a thunderstorm with her parents' old camera to prove aliens are real.