By Robert Muchamore
A twelve-year-old orphan is recruited into a secret agency of child spies, on the theory that no criminal ever suspects a child.
James is twelve when his mother dies, and he lands in a children's home with nothing and no one. That's when CHERUB finds him. It's a secret branch of British intelligence that recruits orphans and trains them as undercover agents, working on the idea that criminals never watch what a child is doing. James has to survive a brutal basic training first, one that pushes him past what he thinks he can take, and then he's sent out on a real mission: getting inside a dangerous group to help bring it down. The pace is fast and the danger is real, and it never once pretends James is too young for either.
An older reluctant reader will actually finish this one, and then tear through the next few. It moves fast, it doesn't talk down, and it hands a twelve- or thirteen-year-old a spy story with real stakes instead of a softened one. The training-then-mission shape keeps the plot pulling forward, and there's a long series stacked up behind it, so a child who's spent years insisting they hate reading can be several books deep before they notice. It's also the edgiest book on this shelf, so read the content note before you pass it over.