The Serpent’s Shadow

Rick Riordan's The Serpent's Shadow is a fast, funny and properly dark Egyptian myth adventure for 11 year olds, told by a brother and sister who are fairly sure the world is about to end.

What happens

Carter and Sadie Kane are magicians. They run Brooklyn House, a school for young magicians, and they're trying to stop Apophis, a giant snake of Chaos who wants to swallow the sun.

It opens at a party in Dallas. The Kanes have come to protect the last copy of an ancient scroll that Apophis has been destroying one copy at a time. Then a man's face pushes out of a museum wall and starts calling Sadie "doll".

The whole story is told as a recording, with Carter and Sadie taking turns at the microphone. Sadie grew up in London and has no patience with anyone (she'll call it candy floss, thank you very much). Carter is the bookish one. They keep butting into each other's chapters in square brackets, and that's half the fun.

There are LOTS of jokes. A baboon who reads books upside down. Penguins in paper King Tut masks. A camel called Hindenburg with a truly dreadful wind problem. You'll probably hear your reader laughing at the worst possible moments.

It isn't all jokes, though, and it's worth knowing what's in the first few chapters. The attack on the museum is frightening. When the Kanes get back outside, every magician at the party has been killed. It happens off the page, but it's very clear. Sadie's heart stops for two minutes, and their friend Walt carries a curse that's slowly killing him.

There's some romance too. Sadie is torn between Walt and the god Anubis, which older readers will probably love and younger ones may roll their eyes at.

So this one sits right at the top of the shelf. For a reader who's happy with high stakes and real loss mixed in with the silliness, it's a brilliant ride. For a more sensitive reader, those opening chapters could be too much.

What to read next

It isn't where the Kanes' story starts, and they already have a lot of history behind them. If your reader hasn't met them yet, begin with The Red Pyramid. Carter and Sadie have grown up apart and only see each other twice a year, and the trouble starts on Christmas Eve, the night their dad blows up the British Museum.