The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Beast Beyond the Fence; Marcus Rashford & Alex Falase-Koya, illustrated by Marta Kissi

Breakfast Club, a safe place before school where hungry bellies are fed, friendships are made and for Marcus, Asim, Lise and Stacey, where adventures are plotted.

Everyone at Rutherford Secondary School knows what happens when something goes over the neighbouring fence…you never see it again. Nothing that goes over the fence ever comes back so when Marcus kicks his football over the fence, he knows that’s the end of it. Or at least that’s what he thought…

A note from an unnamed source offers him the chance to join the Breakfast Club Investigators (BCI) - a secret organisation whose most recent cases have involved the missing PE clothes, the rattle under the English classroom and the mysterious shadow in the school hall. Now the BCI are ready to go where no school-child has gone before…over the fence to retrieve lost possessions. But what lurks beyond the fence is far beyond what anyone imagined…

A strange creature, an abandoned supermarket, a secret hideout, a confidential society…Marcus Rashford and Alex Falase-Koya have created a brilliant school-based adventure-mystery that celebrates friendship and the joys of Breakfast Club. A little bit spooky, lots of fun and highly enjoyable, the Breakfast Club Investigators are an organisation that every child will be wanting to sign up for.

Rashford clearly enjoyed his time at Breakfast Club and, inspired by his own experiences, has created a story that will be devoured by readers, much like Marcus in the story gobbles up his Weetabix and toast. It is the kind of adventure that children would like to get caught up in - being part of a secret club, formulating plans, trying to keep under the radar of the headteacher, not to mention achieving the impossible and getting the never-returned-items back.

Readers will enjoy diving into the fun-filled adventures and misadventures of the BCI as they try to get their possessions back and in doing so get much more than they bargained for. In a fast-paced and lively read, the friendships are real, the teachers are those that children will encounter in their lives - especially Mr Anderson who is keen to help out his students - and the action is essentially something that could happen to anyone brave enough to venture over the fence to retrieve a football.

The promise of further investigations for the BCI will be warmly received by many readers.

With huge thanks to Pan Macmillan for the copy I received in exchange for an honest review.

Recommended for 8+.