The Sword and the Fallen Star

Kyle Bagsby's The Sword and the Fallen Star is a spooky, funny fantasy for 8 year olds about a new boy who pulls a sword out of a stone in a museum basement.

What happens

Dandy Gallant is starting his third school in two years. His dad is the new curator at the town museum, and the family live in a flat above it. All Dandy really wants is to play hockey.

His first day isn't great. Two boys corner him in the toilets, and then turn out to be on his new hockey team. That evening, sorting through a storeroom full of junk with his dad, Dandy spots a sword stuck in a stone. He pulls it out as a joke. It slides out far too easily.

That night, in the cemetery outside town, a skeleton-faced creature called the Lich raises the dead. Three rather wobbly skeletons come shambling to the museum to steal the sword. (One of them keeps losing his shin bone.)

Dandy is saved by a little girl with glowing green eyes who can make trees move and heal a cut with a hum. She can't remember her own name. She eats every crumb of his sister's birthday cake, so he calls her Cake.

Cake is the heart of this one. She's tiny, fierce and very funny. She punches a creepy garden gnome, bites Dandy for leaving her behind when he goes to school, and threatens to wake the gnomes if he won't take her too. Dandy then phones the primary school pretending to be his own dad. It's a lovely bit of comedy.

The storytelling is friendly and chatty. It keeps stopping to explain what a phrase means ("on its last leg" means about to give out), which some newer readers will find really helpful.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The first chapter is sad. A wizard gives up his young daughter to the stars to defeat the Lich, and it's written quite movingly. Dandy is also punched and kicked by the bullies, and the skeletons attack him in the dark. For a child who scares easily, those bits might be too much. If your reader likes a few shivers with their jokes, they'll be fine.

What to read next

If they enjoy it, Kyle Bagsby also wrote Autumn Eternal. Kip lives above his aunt and uncle's shop in Arno, a strange little town in the middle of a forest where the birds moo like cows.