Tom Swift Inventors’ Academy 5 – The Spybot Invasion

Victor Appleton's The Spybot Invasion is the fifth Tom Swift Inventors' Academy book, a techy school mystery for 9 year olds about some very creepy little goblins.

What happens

Tom's dad founded the Swift Academy of Science and Technology, so testing a home-made invention in the stairwell counts as a normal lunchtime. This one's a full-body airbag suit. It inflates perfectly. It just doesn't stop bouncing (almost three flights later, Tom is very green).

Then the goblins turn up. Squat plastic figures with bat ears and round "Oooh" mouths. First there's one on the school nurse's desk, then they're stuck to lockers all over school. Everyone else thinks they're cute, or an advert for some new game. Tom thinks they're horrible.

He's right to. The goblins are recording what people say and playing it back to the whole class. Suddenly friends are falling out over things they only said in private.

And when Tom and Noah finally smuggle one home to take it apart, it disappears off the garage worktable while their backs are turned.

Tom tells the story himself, and he's good fun. He's the kind of inventor who acts first and works out the landing later. He's honest, too. He admits the goblins scare him because of a film he watched when he was little. His friend Amy teases him about it, then says sorry, and that little fall-out and make-up is handled really nicely.

There's plenty of real science to get curious about along the way. Airbags, inflatable splints, CPR. There's even a physics teacher who turns his tumble down the stairs into a maths problem for the whole class!

Tom's mum died a few years before the story starts. It's mentioned in passing, as the reason his dad works so hard to be two parents at once.

If your reader loves gadgets and a mystery that stays inside the school gates rather than saving the world, this series is a great fit.

What to read next

To start at the beginning, go back to The Drone Pursuit. Tom and Noah have built a surveillance drone with tiny microphones that can pick out one conversation in a crowded corridor.