Best friends, Jim and Charlie, decide to bug the teacher’s lounge to find out what their teachers really think of them. Instead, they discover that two of their teachers speak a strange language and shoot light beams from their fingers. Charlie decides he has to figure if they’re spies, or aliens, or who-knows-what. When he goes missing, Jim sets out to solve the mystery.

This is a fun, inventive story from a great writer (Haddon is best known for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime). It has bad guys and adventure and surprises and I can’t say what else or it would give too much away. There are a few British words that might be confusing for some readers, but hopefully most will find them interesting (like I did). Roughly ages 8 to 11. ~Lillian