The Broken Leg of Doom!

Pamela Butchart's The Broken Leg of Doom is a hospital mystery for 7 year olds where a broken leg turns into a VERY big deal.

What happens

Izzy knows something bad is coming. Her mum always says bad things happen in threes. Maisie has just broken her leg doing Jodi's extreme dancing, and Izzy's Twix has gone missing (she ate it on the way to school, as it turns out).

So when they get to the hospital, the creepy statue in the entrance doesn't help. Nor does the strange boy in the hat with a feather in it.

His name's Seb and he's been on Ward 13 for longer than anyone. He says there's a curse on the ward. And he says it's just slipped inside Maisie's giant plaster cast.

Maisie is terrified of the number 13, by the way. So nobody's rushing to tell her.

What follows is Izzy, Jodi and Zach doing what they always do. There's an emergency meeting in their secret den under the stairs, a list of everything they know (not much) and a lot of research. Before long they've decided that all the bandage displays around the hospital can only mean one thing. A MUMMY'S CURSE!

Izzy tells the whole thing in one long breathless rush, with half the words in capitals. Somebody faints, somebody screams, and somebody eats an egg sandwich even though she HATES eggs. It's funny in exactly the way kids are funny when they're telling you about their day.

Jodi is the one to watch. She's bossy and fierce and throws her dinner tray on the floor, but she also cries in the waiting room because the dancing was her idea. Who hasn't felt that sort of guilt about a friend?

Then there's Seb, with a stash of KitKats and a Monopoly board hidden in a cleaning cupboard. There's something about him Izzy can't quite work out (your reader will have their own theories).

What to read next

According to Izzy, the gang have already dealt with demons and vampire rats. If your reader wants to see them take on the school kitchen, try Attack of the Demon Dinner Ladies, where the dinner ladies suddenly turn up in fancy new hats and Maisie gets carried off by seagulls.