Middle-years books are often the last bastion of the goofy adventure, before sexy teen vampires and Robert Muchamore kick in. Two of this spring’s caper-thrillers are particularly great exemplars. The Deadly 7 (Macmillan £6.99) is director Garth Jennings’s first foray into kids’ books after making pop videos and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The plot of the book is so outlandish you struggle to see how anyone could film it: a child called Nelson lands on an archaic machine built by Christopher Wren to extract deadly sins from the soul.
Nelson’s sins manifest themselves as a gang of mischievous monsters and together they set off to rescue Nelson’s beloved half-sister, Celeste, who has gone missing on a school trip. Hunted by a zombie in a sunhat who can teleport itself, they end up in Brazil and discover the river of life itself. Worried Catholics should note that lust is rendered here as a graspier kind of greed and love conquers all in this zany page-turner.
Even better is Frank Cottrell Boyce’s latest offering The Astounding Broccoli Boy (Macmillan £10.99). Rory Rooney’s arch-nemesis is school bully Grim Komissky, with whom he reluctantly forges an alliance when they both turn bright green and are confined to a hospital isolation unit. Convinced they have super-powers, Rory and Grim go on a rampage through London, itself gripped by a cat flu epidemic. Boyce’s writing is both original and accessible and often laugh-out-loud funny, paying homage to Marvel comics with its in-depth analyses of heroics.
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Nelson’s sins manifest themselves as a gang of mischievous monsters and together they set off to rescue Nelson’s beloved half-sister, Celeste, who has gone missing on a school trip. Hunted by a zombie in a sunhat who can teleport itself, they end up in Brazil and discover the river of life itself. Worried Catholics should note that lust is rendered here as a graspier kind of greed and love conquers all in this zany page-turner.
Even better is Frank Cottrell Boyce’s latest offering The Astounding Broccoli Boy (Macmillan £10.99). Rory Rooney’s arch-nemesis is school bully Grim Komissky, with whom he reluctantly forges an alliance when they both turn bright green and are confined to a hospital isolation unit. Convinced they have super-powers, Rory and Grim go on a rampage through London, itself gripped by a cat flu epidemic. Boyce’s writing is both original and accessible and often laugh-out-loud funny, paying homage to Marvel comics with its in-depth analyses of heroics.
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