The Artemis Fowl Files

The Artemis Fowl Files by Eoin Colfer is a bundle of extras for 10 year olds who are already deep in the series.

What happens

It is not a novel, and that is the first thing to say. This is the contents of Artemis's safe. Two short stories, and interviews with Mulch Diggums, Holly Short and Artemis himself. Then a spotter's guide to elves and trolls and sprites and pixies and goblins, Foaly's gadgets drawn and labelled, and coded messages to translate out of the Fairy Book.

The story worth talking about is the first one. It goes back to before the series starts, to how Holly Short got into Recon at all.

Holly is a corporal stuck on traffic duty, in a computerised suit that flashes her orders in lights across her chest. She is basically a walking road sign, and she has had six months of it.

Then she opens the back of an illegally parked camper van and a wobbling cube of orange gel full of smuggled mackerel falls on top of her.

So she arrives at Commander Root's office covered in fish gel. His first reaction is to ask whether she is a girl, because her pilot scores were too good for him to have assumed otherwise. Eighty women have reached the initiation before her. None of them passed.

That thread is the best thing in it. Holly is stubborn rather than noble about it. She does not simply want to pass, she wants to beat Trouble Kelp's score, and you can hear her thinking it.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

It opens with a torture scene. An exiled old elf forces a silver spider down an officer's throat and cheerfully describes what it is doing to the lining of his stomach while it does it, then wipes the officer's memory.

It runs about three pages and it is the very first thing your reader will meet. A ten year old who took the goblin battles in their stride will probably be fine. A squeamish one will not be, and there is no warning run-up to it.

The rest of the book is fan material rather than story, which is exactly what it is sold as.

Honestly, this one is for a child who has finished a few of the books and wants more of the world rather than more plot. Handing it to a newcomer would be the wrong way round entirely.

What to read next

Start them on the first Artemis Fowl novel instead, where a twelve year old with a plan kidnaps a fairy officer for ransom and discovers that the People are far better armed than he had allowed for.