Anthony Horowitz (2017)Readers were introduced to Alex Rider in the year 2000 when, as a 14-year-old, he implemented tricks and talents nurtured by his uncle to fight evil and save the day. Seventeen years and nine books later Alex is now 15 years old and still using his ingenuity and uncanny good luck to get the better of criminals and their dastardly plans.
The opening paragraph in Never Say Die sets the scene for 380 pages of action, danger and international espionage. "Fifty thousand people had come to the Suffolk Air Show on the east coast of England. But only one of them was there to commit murder." In his previous adventure, Alex's close friend and housekeeper, Jack Starbright, had been ‘blown to smithereens’ in an attempt to escape captivity. In following a cryptic clue that suggests to Alex that she is not actually dead, he gets caught up in an attempt by ex-Mafia twin brothers to pull off a massive money-making plan. Further details would involve a serious 'spoiler alert' so will not be provided here. Alex is fantastic under pressure, using tools and tricks provided by MI6 and is the intelligent, quick-witted likeable teenager that we all secretly wanted to be.
The Alex Rider series is a wonderful hook into reading for thrillseeking young readers who need fast-paced action, and independent teen heroes. Although each volume works as a stand-alone story, to read them as a series is to get a stronger picture of characters and contexts that reappear and develop throughout the books. Reading the first book, Stormbreaker, as a class serial to a year five or six class will inevitably lead to a long waiting list at the library for the other nine books. It is a long time since we first met Alex Rider and this new volume is a wonderful reminder that there are some treasures in our past that today's young readers may have missed along the way.
Robyn English – Principal Rolling Hills Primary School, Victoria