| "ALEX RIDER: THE GADGETS" Book Description
Author: Anthony Horowitz
Interest Level: Middle Grades (4-8)
ATOS Reading Level: 9.1
AR Points: 1.0
Publisher Recommended Age: 10+
Publisher: Penguin
Book Type: Hardcover
Pages: 56
As fans of teen spy Alex Rider know, nothing is more fun or mind-boggling than the gadgets that time and again help free him from tight spots. Such as the Game Boy that doubled as a Geiger counter in Skeleton Key. Or the CD player with the fast-spinning saw blade in Point Blank that helped free Alex from a steel-barred window. Now, for the first time, readers everywhere can glimpse the secret files and blueprints that detail each gadget. It’s almost as much fun as actually owning these techno-toys. . . .
Series Overview:
Alex Rider is a series of spy novels by English author Anthony Horowitz about a young spy named Alex Rider. Seven novels have been published to date. The first novel, Stormbreaker, was first released in the United Kingdom in 2000 and was adapted for a motion picture in 2006. The novels are published by Walker Books in the United Kingdom and by Puffin in the United States. Due to primarily being spy fiction, the series is compared to James Bond, the CHERUB series by Robert Muchamore, or the Six of Hearts books by Jack Heath.
The story opens with a 14 year old orphan Alex Rider learning that his guardian and uncle, Ian Rider, has died in a car accident. Suspicious about the circumstances of his uncle's death, Alex decides to investigate his uncles death and discovers that Ian was a spy working for MI6. Alex is then told that his uncle was investigating Herod Sayle, a Lebanese businessman and computer entrepreneur, who is donating a revolutionary computer system to every secondary school in the United Kingdom.
MI6 forcibly recruit Alex and place him in a grueling SAS training camp, where he is the youngest and is treated as an outcast, before moving him into Sayle's factory. Alex discovers that Herod Sayle is planning to wipe out Britain's school children, through a lethal virus of smallpox, contained in the Stormbreaker, the computer he is manufacturing. Alex must use all of his skills to try to stop Herod Sayle and save the world.
Series Reviews:
School Library Journal: "Alex is a strong, smart hero...With short cliff-hanger chapters and its breathless pace, it is an excellent choice for reluctant readers." Grades 5-10.
About the Author:
Anthony Horowitz has been called “the busiest writer in Britain” by a major British newspaper—and with good reason. He is passionate about his work, often writing ten hours a day as he tries to balance multiple careers as a popular novelist, playwright and screenwriter for television and movies. He is also the author of The Devil and His Boy and the Diamond Brothers mysteries.
Anthony Horowitz was born in Stanmore, Middlesex, England, into a Jewish family. He has described his father, a businessman, as a "fixer for Harold Wilson" and as a very secretive man. Facing bankruptcy, Horowitz's father removed his wealth from his Zürich bank accounts, hiding it away under a false name. He then died, leaving his wife searching for but never finding the money.
In 1963, at the age of eight, Horowitz was sent to a boarding school (Orley Farm in Harrow, London) where his childhood unhappiness intensified. He recalls the headmaster of the school "flogging the boys until they bled". The memories have never left him. Horowitz later attended Rugby School and the University of York.
Anthony now lives in North London with his wife Jill Green, whom he married in Hong Kong on April 15, 1988. Green produces Foyle's War, the series Horowitz writes for ITV. They have two sons, Nicholas Mark (born 1989) and Cassian James (born 1991). He credits his family with much of his success in writing, as he says they help him with ideas and research. |
