The Fabulous Zed Watson!

Basil and Kevin Sylvester's The Fabulous Zed Watson is a loud, funny treasure-hunt story for 10 year olds about a kid who's determined to find a lost book.

What happens

Zed chose their own name. They use they/them pronouns, they love monsters, and they're slightly obsessed with an unpublished novel, The Monster's Castle.

The catch is that nobody has ever read the whole thing. Its writer, H.K. Taylor, hid it away after editors called it unreadable (the vampire and the werewolf in love were both men). All that's left are four chapters, three dried blue rose petals and a riddling poem. A tiny online fan group has been trying to crack it ever since.

Then Zed has a breakthrough. "Root" might mean "route". The poem could be a map!

Zed's voice is the best thing here. They're LOUD, even with their indoor voice. They chat to a home-made poster of their favourite vampire. They've packed a sweater for every occasion, even in August. The jokes come thick and fast ("I'll take your weird for it").

Their family is huge and chaotic too. Dinner is a crowd of siblings, neighbours and the odd stranger, with a mattress toboggan run on the stairs and a pet bunny loose underfoot.

Then there's Gabe. He's quiet, he barely smiles, and Zed can't even remember his name at first. But he knows his plants and his Latin, and the two of them make a brilliant mismatched pair. Who'd have guessed that the boy from the library would turn out to be a fellow fan?

Zed being nonbinary is simply part of who they are. Their family was "amazing" when they came out, and the story gets on with the hunt. If you've got a reader who loves puzzles, codes and a narrator with BIG energy, this will go down very well.

What to read next

If they want more literary treasure hunting, try The Unbreakable Code next. Emily and James play a game where people hide books around San Francisco and post clues so other players can find them.