The Tornado Chasers

Ross Montgomery's The Tornado Chasers is a funny, slightly strange adventure for 9 year olds about a boy locked in his bedroom on his eleventh birthday, in a village that's far too safe.

What happens

Owen Underwood has a startle reflex. If something takes him by surprise, his body jolts out of his control for a second or two, so he wears a crash helmet all the time. His parents are, let's say, careful. His birthday pizza is pushed under his locked bedroom door with a pair of rubber gloves. His cake is one pop-tart. There's a can of bear repellent by his bed. (Yes, bears.)

They've just moved to Barrow, the safest village in the valleys. There's a tornado warning out, the first for ten years, and bears have been loose at night ever since the last big storm. In Barrow the children wear bright yellow. They walk home in pairs, curfew is at four, lights go out at six, and anyone who breaks the Storm Laws can be sent to the County Detention Centre.

Owen's Home-Time Partner is Callum Brenner, the boy the whole class avoids. On day one Callum throws him head first into stinging nettles. Then Owen gives a class presentation about his grandparents, daredevil pilots who flew their planes towards tornadoes. And Callum can't stop staring at the photo...

It opens on the night it all happens (the police later stamp Owen's diary EVIDENCE), then goes back a week to explain how he got there. It's very, very funny. Owen is polite to the point of hopeless and explains his condition to anyone who'll listen. His teacher leaps out from behind the door in a bear costume to teach safety. In the school play he's cast as a bush, and he startles straight into the fairy lights.

There's something a bit off about Barrow though, and your reader will feel it. Why does one girl say the village was only built ten years ago? Who is the silent man in dark glasses they call the Warden? Under the jokes, it's a story about being afraid, and who gets to decide what's safe.

Callum is a proper bully to begin with and swears a little. Owen's grandparents died in a crash long before he was born, told as family history. Nothing is graphic.

What to read next

For another funny story told by a kid who's new and doesn't fit in, try Perijee and Me. Caitlin lives on a tiny island with just her mum and dad, and she decides it's her job to keep a very strange baby alien safe.