The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club

Alex Bell's The Polar Bear Explorers' Club is a snowy, magical adventure for 9 year olds about a girl who flatly refuses to be left at home.

What happens

Stella Starflake Pearl has wanted to be an explorer for as long as she can remember. A navigator, to be exact. She loves unicorns most of all, and after unicorns she loves maps and compasses.

There's one big problem. Girls aren't allowed on expeditions. So when her dad Felix heads off to the Icelands, Stella is meant to stay with Aunt Agatha (the aunt who once packed her a single cabbage for lunch).

Felix found Stella alone in the snow when she was a toddler, and he's her father in every way that counts. He's also a fairyologist who keeps pygmy dinosaurs in the orangery and a polar bear called Gruff in the house.

Then Aunt Agatha arrives with a plan to send Stella to a finishing school, where the girls walk up and down with books on their heads. Felix's answer? Stella's coming on the expedition with him!

What follows is a stormy voyage north. Stella gets gloriously lost below decks, meets a wolf whisperer called Shay and goes flying over the railings with a wolf in her arms (luckily there's a lifeboat in the way).

The world is SO full of ideas. Her birthday present is a tiny ice igloo with a family of penguins inside, who throw their own party in paper hats. Her compass has headings like Yetis and Angry Gnomes, and Stella very much hopes to meet a properly furious gnome.

Out on the ice, Stella and a few other young explorers get cut off from the grown-ups. They have to find their own way across the frozen wilds, past frost fairies, outlaws and cabbages that eat meat. So much for Aunt Agatha's cabbage!

Stella is fierce and kind, and when she snaps at Felix she says sorry straight away. Felix is a joy (he's counted 134 things he'd rather do than grow a moustache).

If your reader has ever been told they can't do something, Stella's fury will feel very familiar. Kids at school called her a ghost girl because of her white hair and skin, so there's a gentle thread about being different too. And for an adopted child, hearing Felix call Stella his daughter in every way that matters could be a lovely moment.

What to read next

If they'd like another magical world where sweets grow on trees, try Alex Bell's A Most Peculiar Toy Factory. Tess Pipps lives on a farm with chocolate-milk cows, and the grown-ups just laugh when she says the town's toys are dangerous. It's a good deal spookier, though.