Books published by publisher Chicken House

Review Blistering humour, mortal danger & immortal heart, epically clever. Loved it. (Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of Girl of Ink & Stars)Evans' debut novel is a breathless roller-coaster ride ... Reminiscent of Rick Riordan with a hint of Neil Gaiman's Stardust ... fans of Percy Jackson will devour this and hope that the gods send a sequel. (Kirkus)[A] relentlessly witty, fast-paced middle grade adventure ... This book is a page-turner l

Winner of the 2019 Costa Children's Book Award!In contemporary India, 12-year-old Asha will journey across the dangerous Himalayas to find her missing father and save her family's home -- guided by a mythical bird and a green-eyed tiger who she believes to be the spirits of her ancestors. This is an incredibly unique debut about loss, family, buried treasure, and hope.Asha lives on a family farm with her mother in rural India in the foothills of the Himalayas. Life would be perfect if her father were with them instead of working at the factory in the faraway city. But she knows they wouldn't be able to afford their home without the money he sends home.When four months go by without a single letter, a ruthless debt collector arrives with a warning, and soon the entire world that Asha has known is threatened. Determined to save her home, Asha and her best friend must swallow their fears and set out on a dangerous journey across the Himalayas to find her father.As desperation turns to peril, Asha will face law enforcement, natural disaster, and the wild dangers of the Himalayas. But with a majestic bird and a green-eyed tiger as her guides, who she believes to be the spirits of her ancestors, she's determined to keep faith in order to save her family.

The New York Times bestselling Mysterious Benedict Society series returns for a triumphant fifth adventure!After starring in three adventures, the inimitable quartet of Reynie, Sticky, Kate, and Constance haven't had a mission together in some time. But with the arrival of a new Society member - and a new threat - they must reunite to face dilemmas more dangerous than ever before, including the return of the villainous Mr Curtain and his Ten Men and a formidable enemy with a mystifying ability to track their every move.

A "knockout" that will "get your adrenaline pumping"! Listen, can you hear it? The explosive sequel to THE ROAR, now in paperback.From a whisper...to a scream!Telepathic twins Mika and Ellie are together again. But they're not free. If they're ever to liberate the brainwashed, microchipped army of children, they must pretend to play along with the tyrant Mal Gorman's maniacal plan -- even as they mind-read all his evil thoughts.The cadaverous Gorman foresees a future in which he'll be forever young...that is, as long as the brother-sister fighter pilots fly over the wild side of The Wall and steal a top-secret age-reversing serum.But Ellie and Mika have a master plan of their own. They can hear The Whisper. And it's telling them to lead their elite squadron of mutants in a revolt that will either save the world -- or start a war.

London. Present day. Girls are disappearing. And strange things are roaming the streets.When sixteen-year-old Lily is attacked by a two-headed dog, she's saved by hot, tattooed, and not-quite-human Regan. As Guardian of the Gates, it's his job to protect both halves of the City--new and old--from restless creatures that threaten its very existence. But an influx of these mythological beasts has Regan worried that something terrible--and immense--is about to happen.The missing girls may have something to do with the monsters wandering around London, but what do they have in common? Can Lily and Regan find the girls and discover the truth in time to save London from being torn apart?

Darkus and his friends continue their unforgettable adventure in this final installment of the Beetle Boy trilogy.The final installment in the Beetle Boy trilogy!Cruel beetle fashionista Lucretia Cutter is still at large with her yellow ladybird spies. And now that she's brainwashed Darkus's father to stay by her side -- he, Virginia, and Bertolt are determined to stop her... once and for all. The final installment in the Beetle trilogy flies readers to Lucretia's secret Biome hidden in the Amazon rain forest. If they can't stop Lucretia, she will release her hoard of giant Frankenstein beetles, and the planet will never be the same again...Hope rests on an army of beetles and three determined children. Can Darkus and his friends, human and beetle alike, find it before it's too late?

Taking it down a whole 'nother level, Will and Chester journey to the deadly center of the earth in FREEFALL. By the authors of the NYT Bestseller TUNNELS--soon to be a major motion picture!DEEPER ended with Will and Chester head over heels in FREEFALL-- tumbling through the subterranean Pore with the evil Rebecca twins in hot pursuit, toting phials of the toxic Dominion virus. When, where, will they ever land? Just when the drop seems infinite, the boys hit bottom, and find themselves in a realm of near-zero gravity atop a giant spongy fungus stuffed with flesh-eating spiders. But the true threat lies closer; dangerously close to Will's heart. And above ground, black-clad Styx are sprouting like poison mushrooms, dead-set on spreading their plague!

Just a few chapters into Inkspell, Mo (a.k.a. "Silvertongue") sagely says to his daughter, "Stories never really end, Meggie, even if the books like to pretend they do. Stories always go on. They don't end on the last page, any more than they begin on the first page." A fitting meta-observation for this, the unplanned second installment in Cornelia Funke's beloved now-trilogy. Of course, it's that sort of earnest, almost gushing veneration of books and book-loving that made the absorbing suspense-fantasy Inkheart so wonderful in the first place, with that lit-affection getting woven integrally into the plot (Inkheart being both Funke's first book in the series, and the fictitious book within that book, authored by the frustrated Fenoglio, now trapped within the book, er, within the book. Fenoglio, perhaps not surprisingly, self-referentially wishes in Inkspell that he had written a sequel to Inkheart.) Inkspell should serve as a special treat for fans of the first book, as characters from Inkheart who have found themselves in the "real world" (if there is such a thing) find themselves read back into their own mythic, word-spun world--along with some of our favorite "real-world" characters. As with the previous book, Funke's greatest accomplishment here is telling such a rich and involving (and fun!) story, while still managing sweet, subtle commentary on the nature of words and meaning. Expect a tantalizing finale, too--as Funke says, "No reader will forgive me the ending, though, without a part three." (Ages 8 and up) --Paul Hughes

Tygo, a locksmith's son, is forced by the Nazis to loot abandoned Dutch homes for valuables. Known as "The Ferret," everyone despises him, but helping the Germans is the only way he can stay alive. When he discovers a girl with a diamond in a chimney, he refuses to give her up. Instead, he turns spy and uses the jewel to find out information about Hitler's ultimate weapon. He has one shot to stop the war. Can a ferret become a hero?

After the success of his first assignment from the UNICORNE agency, fourteen-year-old Michael Malone is given another unexplained mystery to solve. When UNICORNE detect strange goings-on in a comic book shop, Michael is sent to investigate - a task which is made all the more difficult by allies he can no longer trust, and an enemy he can't actually see .