| "STORMBREAKER" Book Description
Interest Level: Older Middle Grades (5-8)
ATOS Reading Level: 5.1
AR Points: 7.0
Author: Anthony Horowitz
Grades: 5-10
Publisher Recommended Age: 10+
Publisher: Penguin
Book Type: Paperback
Pages: 234
They told him his uncle died in a car accident. Fourteen-year-old Alex knows that's a lie, and the bullet holes in his uncle's windshield confirm his suspicions. But nothing prepares him for the news that the uncle he always thought he knew was really a spy for MI6—Britain's top secret intelligence agency. Recruited to find his uncle's killers and complete his final mission, Alex suddenly finds himself caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse.
This is the first book in a series of 7 books. An overview of the series is below. A list of the additional books is under the "Learn More" tab above.
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.
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. |
