Sesame Seade Mysteries 2: Gargoyles Gone AWOL by Clementine Beauvais and Sarah Horne

Sesame Seade Mysteries: 2: Gargoyles Gone AWOL by Clementine Beauvais and Sarah Horne
Buy Sesame Seade Mysteries 2: Gargoyles Gone AWOL by Clementine Beauvais and Sarah Horne at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: Robert James
Summary: Excellent follow-up to the brilliant Sleuth on Skates means Sesame Seade is becoming a must-read series.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 224	Date: October 2013
Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
External links: [www.clementinebeauvais.com/‎ Author's website]
ISBN: 978-1444912531
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Sesame Seade is in trouble. So much trouble that our intrepid heroine has already started planning her epitaph. Sesame Seade, sensational supersleuth. Sufficiently scolded, seldom scared. Even with danger around every corner, her stunning voice can't be silenced. But what is the danger lurking in the university? Is it to do with the disappearing gargoyles, or is there something even more worrying going on?

I was hooked on this series from the first few pages of book 1, as mentioned in my review of that novel. It's a fun light read with clever plots, wonderful characters, and an excellent narrator. I really like the back-up Sesame's friends Gemma and Toby provide for her, while her relationship with Jeremy Hopkins, who perhaps didn't quite realise what he was letting himself in for when he first asked Sesame to investigate for his UniGossip website, is hilarious. Additionally, there's a really nasty - and memorable - villain here again, while the relationship Sesame has with her parents develops well. Her mother, in particular, is becoming an intriguing character.

As good as Clementine Beauvais's writing is, though - and she's definitely an author to watch out for with a wonderful vocabulary and a great voice - Sarah Horne's illustrations are just as important a part of the book. I particularly loved the first chapter's picture of Sesame's hornet terrorising a room full of children, but all of them are gorgeous - to the point where I'm planning on buying a print for my wall!

Overall this is up there as one of my favourite series for younger readers at the moment, and I know from the amount of talking we do about it whenever I get together with friends who love children's books that there are an awful lot of adults enjoying it as well! Highly recommended.

I think fans of this one would adore another series with a brilliant heroine, the Kat Stephenson books which start with A Most Improper Magick by Stephanie Burgis.

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