We the Children

Andrew Clements opens We the Children with a hurt old man, a secret and a gold coin, and it is a proper mystery for 8 year olds.

What happens

Ben Pratt is late for homeroom again when he finds Mr Keane, the school janitor, dragging a broken leg towards a chair with a dust mop for a crutch.

Mr Keane is not a kindly old man. He has yellowed teeth and a temper and every child at Oakes School gives him a wide berth. He grabs Ben's hand, presses something into it, clamps the fist shut and makes him swear to keep a secret before he will say what the secret is.

It is a gold coin, worn smooth as a beach pebble. One side tells you where to look if the school is ever attacked. The other says the place is the children's, and that they are to defend it. It is signed Duncan Oakes, 1783.

The town council has sold the school and every scrap of land under it. In June the place comes down and an amusement park goes up.

Mr Keane has carried that coin for forty three years. Every janitor since the school was founded carried it before him. Now it is Ben's, and so, he is told, is the fight.

There is plenty going on in Ben's life besides. His father has left home and is living on the family sailboat down at the marina. He runs his tongue over the caps on his front teeth when he is nervous. And he loves the school, the wind off the water and the view, in a way he has never really said out loud.

The mystery itself is nicely built. A riddle on the coin. A new janitor called Lyman who is clearly watching. And Jill, who is sharp and blunt and thinks Captain Oakes was a seriously weird old lunatic for burying himself in a school playground.

It is worth saying that the opening is intense. An old man in real pain, sirens, paramedics, and a frightening grip on a child's wrist. It is over in a few pages, but it is the first thing that happens.

The chapters are short and they end on hooks, so this suits a reader who likes being pulled along. It is the first of a series and it does not tie everything up, which is either the appeal or the problem depending on your child.

What to read next

If they want the next stretch of the fight, In Harm's Way opens with Ben, Jill and Robert in the principal's office, watching ten seconds of video they very much wish did not exist.