Erica Gomez Books

Zadie and Siddy are best friends who like to find out the truth about things grownups won’t tell them about and are self-labelled detectives. One day, they find themselves invited to enrol at the School for Fireflies, which also means that they’ll get to find out what their magical abilities are. They had no knowledge that such a school existed, let alone about magical powers!

Siddy is desperate to find her dad, who has gone missing and wonders if being a Firefly can help her do that. As well as the usual issues that come with starting at a new school, Zadie and Siddy also have to negotiate learning about their new powers whilst keeping them secret from the non-Firefly side of the school and trying to find out information about the whereabouts of Siddy’s dad even though none of the grownups seem to want them to know anything.

‘School for Fireflies’ is a fast-paced adventure with unusual magical abilities, sinister Swallows attacking Fireflies and plenty of detecting to do. The girls don’t know which grownups to trust, and I enjoyed how the mystery unfolded. The friendship between the girls and their other school friends was lovely, and I enjoyed the unusual setting of a partial magic world existing alongside a normal one.

The book is relatively short at around 260 pages, so ideal for children 9 and up to read alone. The story quickly sucks you in and I hope there are plans for a sequel!