The Throne of Fire

Rick Riordan's The Throne of Fire is an Egyptian magic adventure for 11 year olds, and it opens with a museum break-in that goes wrong in about five minutes.

What happens

Carter and Sadie Kane are magicians. They're training a house full of kids with magic potential in Brooklyn, and this story picks up after their first recording. Carter gives you a quick catch-up. Egyptian gods are out and about in our world, and a giant snake is about to swallow the sun.

They have five days to stop it. The first step is a heist. Four kids and a baboon dressed as ninjas, on the roof of the Brooklyn Museum, in the rain. What could go wrong? The museum was meant to be empty. It's full of wedding guests.

Within minutes Sadie's hand is stuck to a flaming scroll, a stone griffin has come to life and swallowed her staff, and seven fiery plague spirits are loose in the ballroom. It's chaos, and it's really funny.

The best bit is the way it's told. Carter and Sadie take turns at the microphone, and they keep interrupting each other in brackets. (Sadie punches Carter on the very first page for scaring you.) Carter is the worrier. Sadie never listens and has opinions about everything, including her crush on the god of funerals.

There's real feeling under the jokes too. It's Sadie's birthday the next day and the only one who remembers is the cat goddess. Their mum died when Sadie was small, and she badly misses her friends back in London.

The danger is real as well. Their friend Jaz collapses after driving off the plague spirits, and wedding guests are left shaking on the floor. There are some properly scary monsters, so it suits a confident reader who's happy with peril.

What to read next

If your reader loves myths, magic schools and a brother and sister who wind each other up, they'll have a great time. And if they haven't met the Kanes yet, start with The Red Pyramid, where Carter and Sadie's story begins on Christmas Eve in London.