Operation Gadgetman!

Name: William Joseph
Price range: $

by Malorie Blackman

Interest age: 9 to 11
Reading age: 8+

Published by Random House, 1998

Adventure
Classics
Funny

About this book

Beans's Dad is a bit of an eccentric. When he's not embarrassing her in front of her friends with his strange behaviour, he's in his workshop inventing ridiculous things like exploding shortbread (and irritating the neighbours while he's about it). But one day, Beans comes home from school to find that he has been kidnapped! She and her friends set out to find him using only their wits and the extraordinary 'Gadgetman Spy Kits' he has given them, and in the process uncover a sinister criminal conspiracy…

Beans is a likeable lead, and despite the unlikely series of events that the story relates, her relationships with her friends and family are warmly and believably portrayed. A lively (if not madcap) adventure that will find fans amongst younger readers.

About the author

Malorie Blackman is acknowledged as one of today's most imaginative and convincing writers for young readers.

The novels in her Noughts & Crosses sequence have won several awards, including the Children's Book Award, and she has won many other awards for her books for the Random House list. Both Hacker and Thief! won the Young Telegraph/Gimme 5 Award – Malorie is the only author to have won this award twice – while Hacker also won the WH Smith Mind-Boggling Books Award in 1994.

Her work has appeared on screen, with Pig-Heart Boy, which was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, being adapted into a BAFTA-award-winning TV serial. Malorie has also written a number of titles for younger readers. In 2005, Malorie was honoured with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her distinguished contribution to the world of children's books.

In 2008, she was then honoured with an OBE for her services to Children's Literature. She was the Waterstones Children's Laureate for 2013-2015.