Derek Landy’s Midnight is a creepy, funny and properly dark fantasy for 11 year olds that opens with a skeleton lying in the snow behind a sniper rifle.<\/p>\n
It sits deep in the Skulduggery Pleasant series and carries straight on from the book before, so a newcomer should start with the very first one.<\/p>\n
Skulduggery and Valkyrie have spent seven months hunting a villain called Abyssinia and getting nowhere. Their latest lead takes them to a castle in the mountains guarded by Wretchlings, stitched-together monsters he picks off one by one from a ledge. (Valkyrie wonders if they can feel pain. He thinks not.)<\/p>\n
Inside is Doctor Nye, a very tall, very old scientist who’s done terrible things. Nye tells them about a prisoner who was experimented on in that castle for sixty years.<\/p>\n
Back home, a doorway has opened just outside the city walls into another reality, one where a cruel sorcerer called Mevolent still rules. Thousands of exhausted people are trudging through it with their bags and their children’s dolls. Nobody quite knows what to do with them.<\/p>\n
And at school, Omen Darkly finally plucks up the courage to ask a girl out. He’s rehearsed it in the mirror. It goes about as well as you’d expect (you’ll be wincing with him the whole way).<\/p>\n
That mix is what makes these books. One minute it’s a fight in a castle, the next Skulduggery is offering to stop for pizza because Valkyrie hasn’t eaten since noon. She wants to call the other world Dimension X. He refuses.<\/p>\n
Be warned that it’s grim in places. The Wretchlings fall apart into a heap of steaming body parts. Skulduggery calmly lists Nye’s old experiments, heads kept alive in jars among them. One of the villains used to be a professor who murdered his own students. And Valkyrie stands on a cliff edge and feels a strong pull to step off, which is a quiet moment but an upsetting one.<\/p>\n
For a reader who’s come all the way through the series, it’s a must. For anyone younger, or new to Skulduggery, it’s one to save.<\/p>\n
If the doorway into another world is the bit that grips them, Into the Sideways World might be next. Willa is twelve, the news is full of a war creeping closer, and a new boy called Manny is about to help her find what she calls the Sideways World.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Derek Landy’s Midnight is a creepy, funny and properly dark fantasy for 11 year olds that opens with a skeleton lying in the snow behind a sniper rifle. It sits deep in the Skulduggery Pleasant series and carries straight on from the book before, so a newcomer should start with the very first one. Skulduggery […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14028,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":7752,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Into the Sideways World","lr_seo_hook":"Skulduggery snipes stitched-up monsters in the snow, then stops for pizza.","lr_series_id":392,"lr_series_name":"Skulduggery Pleasant","lr_series_position":11,"lr_series_label":""},"book_tag":[1045],"age_group":[28],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[258],"class_list":["post-14029","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 – Midnight by Derek Landy | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"Skulduggery snipes stitched-up monsters in the snow, then stops for pizza. For ages 11+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n