My 6 year old and I loved Help! I smell a Monster back in the Summer and were over the moon to get our hands in a copy of the follow up because Alice’s adventures in the Supernatural side of Scotland are genuinely a fantastically engaging, empowering and funny read with vibrant, fully rounded characters and meaningful inclusion too.
Alice is back to spend some time with Uncle Magnus and his Secret Monster friends, but this time Alice is going to receive a special award for her bravery (no spoilers but it involves book one) and she is a bit nervous but excited to know her favourite Vlogger is going to be presenting the ceremony.
That is until they sneak into the press event and find out she’s not as kind and sweet as she is on ScreamScreen. In fact there’s something strange going on as suddenly Alice can no longer smell anything and her doppelgänger is terrorising Edinburgh eating raw meat- and no one will believe Alice is a vegetarian! Whatever can be happening?
Perfectly aimed at the older early chapter lower middle grade this series has an appeal across ages to engage both younger capable independent readers without anything too scary or mature and older reluctant or weaker readers without patronising them.
The humour is well pitched, thoughtfully placed and doesn’t punch down, in fact this is such a warm-hearted series encouraging courage and resilience even when it seems everything is going wrong we love it and fingers are crossed hard for more!!
“Did you just smell me?’ asked the boy
There is Super LGBTQ+ inclusion with the affirmation of Uncle Magnus & Doogie’s relationship without it being a ‘discussion point’ and tales of Social Media crazed characters alongside Drag Race references makes this a book with much to smile about.
But there’s also an great struggle to uncover the truth going into hiding accused of a crime she did not commit and a race against the clock and vampires towards an absolutely brilliant confrontation between our heroine and the bad monster involving potions, howling and battle to save the world that had a little echo of the film Kingsman for me!
Kim Geyer’s illustrative style has a wonderful gentle and youthful quality which really helps bring this to the target audience as playful and fun adventure even if it might have scary bits you know you’re safe with this story if it gets a bit perilous as Davies plays it right up to the wire with peril upon peril torturing his darlings dispelling that natural expectation to whether this will end on a positive note, which is SO great to see in this age group- honestly my 6 year old wasn’t sure that things were going to be ok and that is so great on the part of Davies to achieve in this age bracket!
Overall, a fantastically funny, yet gripping Supernatural series both Littlefae and I want to see more of!
Whoa! I spy a Werewolf by Justin Davies & Kim Geyer is published by Orchard Books
Lily and the Fae 
This sounds like a really fun book – you had me at ‘the supernatural side of Scotland’! Would you recommend for Year 3, 4 or both? I’d really like to get some more of the light-hearted funny books on our library shelves.
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Tabitha can read this easily, but she is admittedly a precocious reader. I would say both, it’s longer than say a Holly Webb early chapter but far shorter, more illustrated and lighter hearted than a Middle Grade. I would put it around Boy who grew Dragons in stamina and complication of plot but Alice is a bit older than Tomasz so maybe Year 4.
It’s also good for a school library anyway because Alice being a bit older means reluctant UKS2 even KS3 might enjoy it for an easy fun read it also LOOKs like a MG in thickness but font and spacing reveals it to be shorter.
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Thank you! I’ll pick this one up the library – and I’m sure I’ll give it to read too!
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They are really fun and you could tenuously link the first one in to Greek mythology as a few figures from it appear!!
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Another good series to know about 😊x
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Yes, I do not think this is one for you, but it is certainly one to recommend for the playful contemporary monsters!
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