Home › Find a book › Crater Lake
Crater LakeJennifer Killick
Crater Lake
by Jennifer Killick
The Year Six residential goes wrong when the staff start behaving oddly, and the children realise they must not fall asleep.
A story about children, spooky and funny in tone. We would put it with children of 9–12, and at a reading age of about 9 for reading alone.
Worth knowing before you buy
- Frightening scenes
- Mild peril
None of this makes it a bad book — often the opposite. It is here so you can decide whether it is right for your child now or in a year or two.
Our take on this book
A Year 6 residential trip turns to horror when the coach passes a crashed car with a terrified man warning them to stay awake — and the children arrive at Crater Lake to find the adults behaving very strangely indeed, and falling asleep is the one thing they must not do. Jennifer Killick writes proper scary-funny horror for this age, pitched like a children's Invasion of the Body Snatchers: genuinely tense and creepy, but shot through with humour and driven by a gang of squabbling, believable classmates who have to work together to survive the night. There are frightening scenes and real jeopardy, so it suits a child who actively wants a scare rather than one who is easily spooked. For a nine- to twelve-year-old who loves a horror story, it is a page-turning, heart-thumping read that schools have found brilliant for hooking reluctant readers, and it launches a series they gulp down.
If they like this, try these
Chosen by matching age, reading age, tone and subject — not by what is selling.
Awful AuntieDavid Walliams
Billionaire BoyDavid Walliams
Demon DentistDavid Walliams
Dial a GhostEva Ibbotson
Dork DiariesRachel Renée Russell
Or let them write their own.
Nothing gets a child reading like a story they invented themselves. Your child plans the characters and the plot, and we write, illustrate and print it as a real book with their name on the cover as the author.
Find another book
Tell us the age, the reading age and what they like, and we will suggest a handful.