Pax and the Missing Head

 Written by David Barker

What I love about MG books is the fact that authors are very clued up to what children want to read.

They want certain things in a book. They want adventure, mystery amongst other things, but they also want to learn something from the book. Authors realise that they have the power in their books to teach children things and they do it in amazing ways. And this is one such book.

In a country beset by civil war, New London defends itself behind a giant wall. Inside the city, children are forced to work from an early age, except for the lucky few who train to be leaders in the repurposed Palace of Westminster. 12-year-old orphaned Pax is brilliant at recycling old tech. He enjoys working on the verti-farms and just wants a bit of peace and quiet. But when that is taken away from him, his only hope is to pass a near-impossible exam and join the other students in Scholastic Parliament. There he’ll make new friends and new enemies. He’ll get tested like never before. And he’ll discover that not everything is quite what it seems under the mayor’s harsh leadership.

This was such an inspiring book which makes you take a good look at yourself.

This has a great environmental message, and I love how author’s are now highlighting this.

Pax is such a great character and the dialogue is so relatable, and children everywhere will love this book. There are a lot of children who love peace and quiet and they will be able to relate to Pax. Personally I loved Megan.

I liked the idea of Pax being an orphan, it always changes the relationships of the characters. From personal experience children like books set during a war, as they find this subject interesting.

I always research author’s I’ve never read before I read their book, as I’d never read anything by David before I did this, and now my library list has got longer as I really need to read his other books.

This is an amazingly good MG book, and this will have children queuing to read. I really hope that there will be more MG books from David to come.