Winston Chu vs The Whimsies

Stacey Lee's Winston Chu vs the Whimsies is a funny, magical adventure for 8 year olds about a boy who picks the wrong thing in a very strange shop.

What happens

Winston is nearly thirteen and lives in San Francisco's Chinatown. He's skating home with a shoofly pie he baked for the anniversary of his dad's death. Then a hissing squirrel the size of a cat drops onto his helmet.

The pie flies straight into the face of a large man in a Hawaiian shirt. The man and his friend run off. And out of a shop Winston has never noticed before comes Mr Pang, in a golden jacket and an orange sports headband, thanking him for scaring off a pair of burglars.

His reward is anything in the shop. The rules? The first thing he touches is his. No givebacks. Keep away from the red labels.

The shop is brilliant. Hovering pizza swats, Ask-Me-Anything Beethoven busts, Far-Seeing Eyeballs, a furry ukulele. Winston is being SO careful. Then a magpie crash-lands and gets stuck beneath the shelving, and he grabs the nearest thing to help it out. An old broom.

So he goes home with a broom (and a matching dustpan, as a bonus). Then his things start disappearing. His key chain, then his football shirt on match day. There's a blue thread caught in the broom's bristles. And when he goes back, the shop has gone.

Winston's voice is great fun. He's jokey and a bit hard on himself, and he's surrounded by good friends who bicker constantly. His family feels real too, with a grumpy big sister, a toddler who throws spaghetti and a mum who's out of work.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Winston's dad died three years before the story starts. He was an army translator, shot by accident by one of his own side in Iraq. It's backstory, not something that happens in the book, but Winston thinks about him a lot. There's also a moment where one friend worries out loud that the old shopkeeper might be a stranger who's dangerous to children, and another laughs it off.

If your reader's lost someone, it might feel close. For most, Winston's jokes and his loyal friends balance it well.

What to read next

If a magic shop that appears out of nowhere is the bit they love, they'll enjoy The Nowhere Emporium. A shop of midnight-black bricks turns up overnight in a row of village shops, then vanishes. Much later, in Glasgow, a boy running from bullies ducks into a shop full of wonders.