For the child gripped by spies, codes, and secret missions, the one who leaves you notes in invisible ink and wants a gadget watch for their birthday. This is the shelf of great spy books, from giggle-out-loud secret-agent capers to a do-it-yourself codes handbook to one older, edgier thriller. Pick by what fits your child right now, whether that's a brand-new reader chasing a museum dinosaur or an older one ready for a real MI6 mission with teeth.
The books really do range from silly to serious, so it's worth knowing which is which. At the light, funny end are the secret-agent capers: Mac B., Kid Spy, where an adult swears the Queen of England once made him a spy and tells it dead straight, and Secret Agent Jack Stalwart, a nine-year-old racing a countdown clock to stop a museum dinosaur. Two of these are not stories at all but tools for a code-mad brain: Top Secret is a working handbook for making and breaking real ciphers, and DK Eyewitness: Spy is true spy history in photographs, both to keep and use rather than read once. Then come the two real novels: Spy School, a funny-but-tense CIA-academy thriller, and Harriet the Spy, the classic where the spying is really about friendship and what happens when your secret notebook gets read. At the very top sits Alex Rider: Stormbreaker, the one older, edgier book, a James-Bond-style thriller with real danger and real deaths. Hand over whichever one matches the child in front of you.