Derek Landy’s Skulduggery Pleasant is a spooky, very funny adventure for 11 year olds about a girl, a creaky old house and a detective who turns out to be a skeleton.<\/p>\n
Stephanie Edgley is twelve. Her uncle Gordon wrote horror stories, and he dies at his desk seven words into a sentence of his new book (which feels like a very Gordon way to go).<\/p>\n
At the funeral she notices a tall man standing under a tree. He’s bundled up in a coat, a scarf, a hat and enormous sunglasses on a warm afternoon. The next day he turns up at the reading of the will too.<\/p>\n
The will is a treat. Gordon leaves his grabby brother Fergus and sister-in-law Beryl a car, a boat and a brooch without a single jewel on it. Stephanie gets almost everything else, house and all, once she turns eighteen.<\/p>\n
Then her mum’s car breaks down and Stephanie talks her way into a whole night alone in Gordon’s house. Would your reader have stayed? The phone rings. A man wants to know her name. A few minutes later he’s hammering on the front door.<\/p>\n
It’s worth knowing that this part is properly frightening. The man smashes in through a window, grabs Stephanie by the throat and says he’ll kill her. Her rescuer shoots him. Later on, the rescuer calmly explains how he died himself, a very long time ago, and what was done to his body afterwards. That’s all in the first few chapters.<\/p>\n
If your reader gets jumpy at night, this might be one to read together. If they love a real fright with a joke straight after it, they’ll be hooked.<\/p>\n
Because the jokes really do come straight after. The stranger from the funeral loses his hat, his wig and his sunglasses in the fight, and underneath there’s nothing but a skull. And then he’s mostly worried about the door. He makes her a cup of tea with lots of sugar. He admits the head isn’t even his (he won it in a poker game).<\/p>\n
Stephanie has never fainted in her life, and then she does. Once she’s up again she wants to know how he talks without a tongue and whether he has a brain. When he tries to leave without her, she takes his hat hostage.<\/p>\n
That back and forth, in a little seaside town in Ireland, is the best thing about it.<\/p>\n
If they’d like another twelve-year-old who isn’t remotely fazed by a hidden magical world, try Artemis Fowl. Artemis is hunting for a mysterious Book, with an enormous bodyguard carrying far too many weapons, and the trail leads him to a fairy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Derek Landy’s Skulduggery Pleasant is a spooky, very funny adventure for 11 year olds about a girl, a creaky old house and a detective who turns out to be a skeleton. Stephanie Edgley is twelve. Her uncle Gordon wrote horror stories, and he dies at his desk seven words into a sentence of his new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14002,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":6832,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Artemis Fowl","lr_seo_hook":"A stormy night alone in a dead writer's house, and a rescuer with no face.","lr_series_id":392,"lr_series_name":"Skulduggery Pleasant","lr_series_position":1,"lr_series_label":""},"book_tag":[1045],"age_group":[28],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[258],"class_list":["post-14003","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-adventure-books","age_group-books-for-11-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-derek-landy"],"yoast_title":"Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A stormy night alone in a dead writer's house, and a rescuer with no face. For ages 11+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n