The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop

The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop by Kate Saunders is a magical London adventure for 8 year olds about twins who move into their family's old chocolate workshop and meet a very bossy talking cat.

What happens

Oz and Lily Spoffard are eleven-year-old twins. Their dad has just been left a house by a great-uncle everyone thought died decades ago. It's a boarded-up old shop in Holloway, and downstairs is a dusty workshop full of chocolate moulds.

Lily is sure straight away that the place is weird. She's right! The roses on her bedroom wallpaper whisper mean things at night. There's a rat in the workshop smoking a cigarette. And a stout golden cat called Demerara, who's in a photo from 1929, strolls into Lily's room and starts talking.

Demerara and Spike the rat are both immortal (much to her disgust, since she can't stand him). They explain that the Spoffards were chocolate makers AND witches, who made chocolate that did magic things. One of the brothers turned bad. He's still alive, and a secret government department wants the twins' help to stop him.

Demerara is the star. She's vain and fussy and longs for a lipstick of her own. She borrows Lily's body glitter for a meeting at MI6 and then has to keep remembering not to lick herself.

Lily is lovely too. She's dyslexic and feels rubbish at everything next to her violin-playing brother. When the boy across the road makes a thoughtless comment, she sets him straight in a speech that'll make you want to cheer. If your child finds reading hard, they might feel very understood by her.

Could your family's old house turn out to be magic? It's a very tempting idea, and the book has lots of fun with it. The twins' parents never notice a thing, which is a joke that works every time.

It's good to know the villain's history is dark. He murdered his brothers back in 1938 and tried to sell magic chocolate to the Nazis. It's told as a story from the past rather than shown, and it's more exciting than frightening.

What to read next

If they want more chocolate with a touch of magic, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is waiting. Mr Willy Wonka is a magician with chocolate, and rival makers keep sending spies to steal his recipes.