The Secrets of Droon 25 – The Riddle of Zorfendorf Castle

Tony Abbott's The Riddle of Zorfendorf Castle is a Droon adventure for 7 year olds about a beautiful old castle with a secret hidden underneath it.

What happens

Eric, Neal and Julie are at the beach on a sunny Saturday when the magic soccer ball starts calling them back to Droon. Eric saves Neal from falling into a hole with a sneaky spark from his finger (Neal is carrying a LOT of lunch). The trouble is, the nosy new girl on their street, Meredith, might have seen.

Down the rainbow stairs, they land somewhere horrible. It's the flying palace of Ko, the four-armed, bull-headed emperor of the beasts. He's leaning over a magic model of Droon and pointing at one place. Zorfendorf Castle.

Zorfendorf has a famous library, a kind three-eared giant called Thog and centuries of history. Or does it? A hidden book with the wizard Galen's handwriting in it suggests something very strange about how old the castle really is.

There's so much packed in. A secret room called The Wizard's Sneeze, rivers running underground, a magic word, a fountain nobody knew was there. The friends (plus Khan, a purple pillow-shaped king who's hilarious) solve one puzzle only to find another waiting.

It's fast and funny. Neal is always thinking about food. And when the whole gang pops up in their own town pond, right in front of the lifeguard, Julie saves the day by turning into a big orange fish!

There are some big feelings in it too. Sparr, who used to be the villain and has been turned back into a boy, finds out something very sad about his mother. Nobody's quite sure which side of him will win.

If you've got a reader who loves a quest with plenty of clues and magic, they'll be hooked. The chapters are short and there's action on nearly every page.

What to read next

It's a long way into the series, though, with lots of history the characters already know. If your reader's new to Droon, begin with The Hidden Stairs and the Magic Carpet, when a soccer ball rolls into a closet under Eric's basement stairs and Julie falls through the floor.