The Twitchers 1 – Twitch

M. G. Leonard's Twitch is a summer mystery for 8 year olds about a boy who watches birds and ends up watching something else entirely.

Twitch gets his nickname from a nervous blink. He likes it anyway, because his grandad told him a twitcher is a birdwatcher who goes after the rare ones.

He keeps chickens and pigeons. He has swallows in the garden and blue tits in the nesting box. He has also built himself a hide deep in Aves Wood, out past the boggy bit where nobody sensible walks, and planted brambles and nettles all round it so nobody finds it.

On the last day of term he heads straight there. The wood is full of police. Dogs, boats in the reeds, a helicopter low over the trees. A prisoner has escaped from Dovelock Prison and the officers think he's coming to the wood to collect something.

Twitch is very good at sitting still and looking through binoculars. You can see where this is going and it's a lovely fit.

There's more going on than the escape. Two girls are hiding behind a fallen tree, watching the police as nervously as Twitch is. And on the walk home a friendly Irish stranger called Billy has already asked him where a person might park a camper van somewhere quiet, without having to pay.

A word about the bullying, because there's a lot of it and it's nasty. The book opens with four boys about to kill a trapped pigeon with a brick, and Twitch throwing a stone to stop them. Afterwards he's thrown into the bins and kicked. Later a crowd pins him down and tries to force a worm into his mouth. It stops because an adult shouts.

None of it is glossed over. Twitch is bruised, he's alone, and the reason he keeps going is the birds.

If your reader finds sustained cruelty hard, that's the thing to weigh. If they can stand it, the payoff is a hero whose whole skill set is patience and noticing, which isn't a hero they'll have met very often.

For another mystery where a quiet boy is the one paying attention, try The Highland Falcon Thief. It starts with Harrison being packed off on a steam train with an uncle he hardly knows, and a jewel thief in the papers.