Read The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Beast Beyond the Fence free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Marcus Rashford and Alex Falase-Koya's The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Beast Beyond the Fence is a funny, spooky school mystery for 9 year olds about a boy who'd do anything to see his football again.
Marcus is in year seven at Rutherford Secondary. A month ago he kicked his favourite ball over the fence into the plot next door, and nobody has ever got anything back from over there. That ball really matters. His cousin Lola gave it to him before she went to America, and she'll be home in six days.
Then a note turns up in his pocket. Do you want to join the BCI? The Breakfast Club Investigators turn out to be Stacey, who's desperate to find a vampire or a werewolf or at least a giant robot, and Lise, who's friends with everyone. Soon quiet Asim is in too, sketching everything he sees.
Their first trip through the gap in the fence takes them into the empty building next door. There's a chewed-up games console covered in slime. And then something very big starts to howl (no fur, and skin that seems to pulse). Cue the fastest run back to the playground you've ever read!
It's pitched really nicely for this age. Scary enough to give your reader a thrill, with a stern head teacher waiting at the other end, which is somehow even worse.
What makes it special is how warm it is. Marcus's mum works at the hospital and always lets him talk things through. Mr Diallo at the corner shop takes the batteries out of his own TV remote so Marcus can have them for his torch. You really feel a whole community looking out for each other.
There's plenty about football and friendship too. Marcus has lost his touch and keeps making excuses not to play with his old mates, Oyin and Patrick. If you've got a reader who's ever been too embarrassed to ask for help, they'll feel that one.
There are lots of illustrations as well, which is handy for readers who like a break from solid text.
If it's the school detective side they love, Half Moon Investigations has Fletcher Moon, a fully qualified private eye at twelve, getting dragged into a playground case that goes very wrong.
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