The Longest Night of Charlie Noon

Christopher Edge's The Longest Night of Charlie Noon is a spooky woodland mystery for 10 year olds that starts with a trail of sticks on a path through the trees.

What happens

Charlie has just moved from London to Dad's old village. Dad lost his job, Granddad Noon died and left them his house, and now Charlie is the new kid who finds the countryside full of germs.

Dizzy is the one friend Charlie has made so far. He sketches birds instead of playing games (polio left him with one leg shorter than the other). And he's found something in the woods. Sticks, stripped white and laid out in shapes, like a secret code.

The school bully, Johnny Baines, says they were left by Old Crony. According to Johnny, Old Crony lives deep in the woods and eats children. Charlie doesn't believe a word of it. So after school Charlie and Dizzy go looking.

The signs are there. Arrows, triangles, boxes made of sticks. Then Charlie works out that they're letters, and what they spell is EAT U.

And then something in bloodstained rags bursts out of the trees howling.

From there the book gets properly strange. Charlie's watch stops at half past six. The light goes far too early. The birds fall silent. A nightjar starts calling in what sounds like Morse code (and Charlie, who taught themselves Morse from an old scouting book, can read it). How can it be night already?

It's gripping and a little bit eerie rather than gory. You're right there in Charlie's head, sweating in the heat, trying to make sense of it all. And being lost with Johnny, of all people, doesn't help one bit. There are codes to crack along the way, and your reader will want to have a go too.

Good to know before you start. Johnny is genuinely nasty, and he calls Dizzy a cripple. Charlie gets a bad knock on the head with a fair bit of blood. There's a dead fox under the leaves. And there are hints that things aren't easy at home, with Dad sitting at the kitchen table counting empty bottles.

If your reader likes to be a bit scared and loves a puzzle, this is a real page-turner.

What to read next

If they're hooked, try The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day, also by Christopher Edge. Maisie wakes up on her tenth birthday to find the house completely empty, with no sign of her mum and dad anywhere.