Middle Grade Must Reads – August 2026 (Part Two)

Questers Academy: The Box of Locks

• Written by Sam Hay
• Published by Firefly Press

Twelve-year-old Tom Friday was never meant to be a museum-guarding, artefact-finding, super-brave explorer. But he gets embroiled in an adventure with twelve-year-old Lisha and her aunt, who is a special agent working for the Natural History Museum to protect and retrieve powerful mythical objects.

The Questers Agency run a network of international agents tasked with locating and safeguarding treasures from around the world. And Lisha is determined to be the youngest ever agent, but first she’ll need to prove her worth. That’s where Tom comes in. Tom is a super-recognizer, someone with the ability to pick out people from a crowd after barely glimpsing them for a moment. Together Lisha is sure they can solve a complex and intriguing problem to find the key to the mythical Box of Locks, before it falls into the wrong hands.

Faced with a bunch of complicated cyphers and coded clues, the new friends must learn to trust each other in order to beat the forces of darkness and save the world from potential apocalypse.

This was such a fun read.

The characters in this book were the sort that you could identify with straight away.

This is full of history, magic ,thriller and adventure, not sure who to trust. Everything a young reader wants in a book, and the storyline was fun from the very first page.

I really liked how the setting was the national history museum, a place where thousands of kids can identify with.

The author has written it full of description so those of us who haven’t been there can clearly see the places in their mind’s eye.

And the dialogue was written in a way that children speak.

I am hoping there will be another book involving these characters.

Tickets for Murder

After solving the murder of Mrs Kostas the previous summer, twins Ani and Riri have moved past tolerating each other to a budding friendship. But with Riri and their mum living in LA and Ani and their dad living in Yorkshire, it’s hard to stay close. Especially since Ani seems to have gone off sleuthing all together . . .

When they all meet in LA for an exclusive trip to Deadwood Manor theme park, tensions start to rise. Why has Riri’s best friend Adora, their older sister and her boyfriend come along when it’s a family trip? What has caused Ani to stop sleuthing? Who is Riri always on the phone to?

Then their personal tour guide in the Deadwood Manor park is murdered and it’s clear that the time for games is over. There’s only one question: whodunnit?

Personal experience has taught me that children love nothing more than a good old murder. I have a copy of the first book in this series and honestly it’s never in the library, as soon as it comes back into school it disappears into someone’s bag. So I got a copy of book 2, but I told the children that the perk of being the librarian is that I get to read it first.

It was so much fun being back with these characters, and it’s a fun read.

The siblings are true to life – nothing alike and argue like cats and dogs.

Even though these characters are twins they are portrayed as their own person and their talents and qualities shine through.

North Child

• Written by Edith Pattou
• Published by Usborne

This book is one that I had wanted to read for a long time, so when I saw it at school I just had to bring it home.

Rose is an unusual child, a North Child. For Rose was born facing north, and the old stories say she is destined to travel far from home on a dangerous journey. Making a pact with an enormous white bear, Rose travels on his back to a mysterious castle that holds a dark enchantment, a darker temptation, and the key to her true destiny…

This book reminds me so much of the MG book Echo North, 

The setting of this book is so well described that you can clearly picture everything, the woods, the farm, the castle and all that snow. And the world building was in a league of its own.

The way the author wrote this book with multi POV was great and I liked seeing the story unfold in their eyes.

The Characters in this book were fantastic. It was a delight to meet all the characters throughout this journey as each had a distinctive personality that gave this book a great cast of memorable characters. 

Beastopia

I had never read this author before, but I had heard so many good things about her writing, I couldn’t wait to read this book.

Magical creatures exist. You just need to know where to look…

Everybody knows one thing about Digby Griffin. Wherever you might find him, you’ll also find his pet mouse, Cheddar.

Unfortunately, The Curse of the Tenth Birthday is about to strike. Family pets ALWAYS disappear when their owners turn ten, and Digby is terrified of losing Cheddar.

But where do all these lost animals go? Digby, along with his sister, Mog, and his best friend, Tai, are about to discover the magic of Beastopia.

This was a great read, younger children who are leaving picture books and starting their independent reading journey will find this perfect.

There is something for everyone, cute animals, magical animals, magic, and a good old laugh out loud.

I am looking forward to reading the next in the series.