The Strangeworlds Travel Agency

L. D. Lapinski's The Strangeworlds Travel Agency is a magic-shop fantasy for 9 year olds about a dusty old shop where the suitcases aren't for packing.

What happens

Flick Hudson is twelve and she's just moved to a village where everyone stares at the new family from the estate. Her parents work opposite shifts. Her baby brother Freddy gets all the attention (and once stuck all her map stickers on himself). There's a world map on her bedroom wall, and the only country she's ever marked off is this one.

Then she wanders down a quiet side street and finds the Strangeworlds Travel Agency.

It has no computer, no posters of beaches and a whole wall of old suitcases. Behind the desk sits Jonathan, an eighteen-year-old in a tweed suit who is extremely rude to her. So why can't she make herself leave?

We already know something she doesn't. In the opening chapter a soaking-wet couple climbs OUT of one of those suitcases, with a slimy red tentacle still wrapped round one ankle. (Rule Number One? Don't Lose Your Luggage.)

When Flick picks up a broken piece of glass, the whole room glitters. Through it she can see magic hanging in the air like snow that won't melt. And she can see something Jonathan really doesn't want to hear about, a glowing crack floating above the street.

It's such a good opening. The shop feels properly real, down to the custard creams and a row of clocks all ticking at different speeds, each labelled with a far-off place. Jonathan is prickly and funny, and there are little hints that he's lonelier than he lets on.

Flick is great company too. She loves maths because it's either right or wrong. She doesn't believe in magic (she's not a baby!) and she can't stop herself answering back. Watching her try to explain away a top hat you can put your whole arm inside is very funny.

It's a story about wanting something bigger than the life you've got, and then being handed the key to it. If your reader has ever stared at a map and wondered, this will hit the spot.

What to read next

If they fall for the shop itself, The Nowhere Emporium is another one to try. A shop of sparkling midnight-black bricks appears overnight in a row of four, and later a boy running from bullies in Glasgow ducks into a shop crammed with wonders.