Treasure Hunters – Danger Down the Nile

James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein's Danger Down the Nile is the second Treasure Hunters adventure for 9 year olds, and it begins by taking away the Kidds' ship and packing them off to boarding school.

What happens

The four Kidd children grew up on a boat called The Lost, hunting treasure with their mum and dad. Now both parents are missing and the children have been managing on their own. Bick tells the story, and he's still certain Dad's alive. (Hardly anyone agrees with him.)

Then a man they call Uncle Timothy, who isn't really family, takes them to court in New York. The judge hands him control of their money and orders The Lost to be sold. All four are sent to Chumley Prep, the boarding school Dad went to.

They've never been to school in their lives. Bick hates the itchy grey trousers most of all.

But even school turns into a treasure hunt. A very cross librarian wants a book back that a Thomas Kidd borrowed in 1982. Tommy's a Thomas Kidd, but so was Dad. And Dad always said that if he ever found the world's greatest treasures, he'd hide them in the boys' toilets at his old school. Who could resist a midnight search after that?

Before long they've done a runner. A secret message says Cairo. So they end up sleeping under Grand Central station, sharing a hot dog that's been on the pavement and wondering how four children with no money get to Egypt.

Don't expect the Nile straight away, then. The early chapters are nearly all New York, with Cairo, pyramids, jungle and the river itself still to come.

Bick is very good company. He asks where YOU think they should go next and bickers with his twin Beck (she does the drawings). Their sister Storm has a fact for everything. You also hear about four famous lost treasures, including a pirate called the Buzzard who threw a coded necklace into the crowd.

It's worth knowing that the missing parents hang over all of it. Storm keeps announcing that they're both dead. In the first few pages the four of them are sinking in a tiny submarine and joking about what they'll miss, and a grown man cheerfully offers to torpedo their boat. It's cartoon danger, but a child who takes things to heart might not find those jokes funny.

What to read next

This is book two and it leans on what's gone before. If your reader hasn't met the Kidds yet, begin with the first Treasure Hunters book. That's the one with the storm, the leaking ship and the decision to keep the family business going.