The Spy Who Loved School Dinners

Story

Izzy has been asked to look after the new, French girl in school. Izzy and her friends warn Mathilde not to touch the school dinners (poison) but Matilde loves them. That’s how Izzy and her friends realise that Matilde must be a spy who is trying to find out their secrets.

Why we chose it

A laugh-out-loud school adventure, loved by the children who voted it Blue Peter Book of the Year in 2015.

Where it came from

Pam Butchart is a secondary school philosophy teacher. She gets much of her inspiration from her childhood – she was convinced that her school was haunted. The Spy Who Loved School Dinners is the second in a series of novels all of which revolve around school life with a difference. Baby Aliens Got My Teacher! was the first book in the series.

Where it went next

The Spy Who Loved School Dinners won the 2015 Blue Peter Best Story Award

Associated stories

The series continues with My Head Teacher is a Vampire Rat, Attack of the Demon Dinner Ladies, There’s A Werewolf In My Tent, The Phantom Lollipop Man and There’s a Yeti in the Playground.

Butchart has written two Secret Seven novels, continuing the series written by Enid Blyton until 1963. Butchart’s two books (16 and 17 in the series) are called, Mystery of the Skull and Mystery of the Theatre Ghost.