The Nothing to See Here Hotel

The Nothing to See Here Hotel by Steven Butler is a gleefully gross story for 7 year olds about a boy whose family runs a secret seaside hotel where every guest is magical.

What happens

Frankie Banister starts by telling you about his granny. She is not a sweet little dumpling of a grandma. She's a troll, she lives at the top of three hundred and ninety-nine steps, and she chucks a spoon at his head when he brings up her dinner.

That's page one, and it tells you the tone straight away.

The hotel sits on Brighton seafront and human eyes can't see most of it. There's a spell on the front steps that fills any non-magical nose with the smell it hates most. Frankie's dad writes terrible online reviews of his own hotel to keep people away, then frames them above reception. (Zero stars, obviously.)

Then a goblin rider comes out of a storm on the back of a raven, carrying a message. Goblin Post only ever means something big. It also means a very demanding guest is on his way and the Banisters have a lot of work to do.

Frankie talks straight at you the whole way through. He interrupts himself, checks you're still with him and keeps promising that none of it is a lie. It's the sort of book where your reader will look up and start reading bits out loud whether you asked for them or not.

The best of the lot is Nancy, the hotel cook. She's a giant spider in a flowery apron and fluffy slippers, with a Scottish accent and a bluish perm. She carries Frankie down the great staircase on her back and swings off the banister on a strand of web.

One thing to be ready for. The grossness never lets up, and it's very specific. Granny eats a whole cockroach quiche, plate included. She once ate one of the family cats and brought the furball back up. She's horrible to Frankie throughout and calls him things like "useless carbuncle".

It's all played for laughs rather than for scares. But if you've got a child who doesn't much enjoy a nasty grown-up, even a funny one, Granny may be a bit much. If they're the sort who snorts at anything involving slime, pondweed tea or a troll's terrible pong, they'll be delighted.

What to read next

If the hotel goes down well, You Ain't Seen Nothing Yeti! picks up where this one finishes. Same narrator, same guests, plus a snowstorm and a family of yetis turning up for a magical celebration.