The Other Alice

Michelle Harrison's The Other Alice is a spine-tingling mystery for 11 year olds about a boy whose storytelling sister vanishes the night before a very odd town tradition.

What happens

Midge is eleven, and his favourite thing in the world is hearing the stories his big sister Alice writes. Alice has one firm rule. Every story she starts, she finishes, however silly the ending.

Except she's stuck on this one. It's taking everything, she tells him. The next morning Alice is gone.

In her place there's a talking black cat who drinks tea with milk and two sugars. And out in the street there's a girl who looks exactly like Alice, apart from her bright green eyes. She writes in a notebook that she has never heard of anyone called Alice.

Where do you even start with that? Midge starts with his sister's notebooks.

The town is brilliantly creepy. Every year in Fiddler's Hollow people make little straw dolls called Likenesses for a night called the Summoning, when you might get to ask someone, living or dead, a single question. Then the dolls all go on a huge bonfire in the market square.

Midge tells the story looking back, and you can really feel how much he loves his sister. They play a riddle game where you have to answer one before you're allowed in the other's room (Midge has got pretty good at them). Their late-night chats in Alice's attic, full of notebooks and knick-knacks, are some of the nicest bits.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Alice has hard times as well as happy ones. Midge remembers last summer, when a story made her so unwell that he covered for her with their parents, and days when she hardly speaks and he makes his own beans on toast. It's handled gently and never given a name, but a child who worries about someone in their own family might find it hits close to home. There's also a spooky lookalike, a Likeness of Jack the Ripper and a sad rumour about a boy knocked down by a car.

For readers who like a shiver with their mystery, it's a clever, gripping read. And who could resist a cat with very firm opinions about tea?

What to read next

If they want more of Michelle Harrison's magic, try A Pinch of Magic next. The cat here says she comes from the Crowstone Marshes, and Crowstone is the misty island where the Widdershins sisters live under a family curse.