James Ponti’s City Spies is a fast, funny spy story for 9 year olds about a girl who goes from a courtroom in Brooklyn to a secret team in Scotland in a single day.<\/p>\n
Sara Martinez is twelve and in very big trouble. She hacked into the computers of New York’s juvenile justice system. Now she’s facing two and a half years in juvie and no computers at all, which to Sara is the worst part.<\/p>\n
Her reason matters, though. Her foster parents crammed in more children than they could care for, because they were paid per child. When five-year-old Gabriel wet the bed, they locked him in a cupboard. When Sara let him out, they left them both on the roof all night.<\/p>\n
Then a tall British man with a burned hand walks in and announces he’s her new lawyer. He isn’t. He’s never set foot in a law school, and he carries three passports in three different names.<\/p>\n
He tells the judge Sara will serve her time at Crunchem Hall under a strict warden called Trunchbull, and the judge goes for it. (If your reader knows Matilda, they’ll get the joke straight away!)<\/p>\n
He calls himself Mother. He works for MI6, and his team of young agents all go by the names of the cities they come from. So Sara could become Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
It’s such a fun read. Mother is hilarious, the chat between the kids is sharp and the pace never lets up. Sara’s very first test is getting a shoebox of her treasures back out of her old foster home, with a fake FBI agent and a greedy foster dad in the mix. She adds a finishing touch of her own for Gabriel’s sake.<\/p>\n
After that it’s a flight to Scotland, a boarding school that’s partly in a castle and an operation in Paris only three weeks away.<\/p>\n
Worth knowing before you hand it over. Sara’s past is tough and the book doesn’t soften it. She’s been through six foster families and nine schools, and what happened to Gabriel is told plainly. A child who has been in care, or knows someone who has, might find those early pages hard.<\/p>\n
It is put right, though, and quite early on. Sara’s temper and her sense of fairness are exactly what Mother sees in her.<\/p>\n
If they want another young person pulled out of ordinary life by British intelligence, try Stormbreaker. Alex Rider is fourteen, his uncle dies in the very first chapter, and the story he’s told about the crash doesn’t add up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
James Ponti’s City Spies is a fast, funny spy story for 9 year olds about a girl who goes from a courtroom in Brooklyn to a secret team in Scotland in a single day. Sara Martinez is twelve and in very big trouble. She hacked into the computers of New York’s juvenile justice system. Now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":10459,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":10454,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Stormbreaker","lr_seo_hook":"A hacker, a fake lawyer called Mother and a team of kid spies in Scotland."},"book_tag":[1050],"age_group":[24],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[1184],"class_list":["post-10460","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-action-books","age_group-books-for-9-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-james-ponti"],"yoast_title":"City Spies by James Ponti | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A hacker, a fake lawyer called Mother and a team of kid spies in Scotland. For ages 9+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n