Big trouble in the Big Apple

Children’s author Peter J Murray says his stories are scaring youngsters into reading.

If the 400,000-plus sales of the former Steeton-based teacher’s books are anything to go by, his books have excited children all over the UK, in the Middle East and now the United States.

It’s a mark of his growing reputation as a children’s author that his fourth Mokee Joe book was launched not in Yorkshire, but in New York.

His latest spine-tingler was this week launched in Harlem’s Apollo Theatre, in front of more than 1,500 children.

The event was part of a literacy drive by Renaissance Learning. Mr Murray has been working with the US organisation in schools in New York and Louisiana.

Mokee Joe is a 7ft-tall humanoid robot with supernatural powers that would destroy the world but for schoolboy hero Hudson Brown and his pals Molly and Ash.

“I think we are literally scaring children into reading books. Children love to feel scared and safe. My mission is to get kids to read,” Peter said.

His trans-Atlantic transformation from a provincial deputy head to an international best-seller explains the presence of both the Union Jack and Stars and Stripes on the cover of his latest psychic adventure, set in England and America.

A derelict hospital in Harlem is the hideout of malevolent maths genius Princess Pi, who plans to bring the monstrous Mokee Joe back from outer space and reconstitute him.

Her aim is to kill the president of the United States, but first she has to get rid of Hudson.

From the depths of the hospital, she turns a big soppy husky dog in England into a snarling attack dog.

And in a scene reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, thousands of avians controlled by a gigantic golden eagle besiege our heroes’ school, known as The Scrubs.

Hudson averts the danger by re-enacting the David and Goliath story, though the weapon he uses to slay the bird is a teacher’s whistle.

Later he humiliates three school bullies, decking them, then covering them in tomato sauce and spaghetti. The Biblical analogy is not accidental; plagues of spiders and frogs also feature.

In Peter Murray’s moral world order, children right cosmic wrongs that well-meaning but flawed grown-ups seemingly can do nothing about.

Hudson and company, all of them 13-years-old, fly to America to stay with a distant relative of Ash’s.

Reactivated Mokee Joe makes his first attack in Central Park. This thrilling episode, written with pace and drama, would be a film director’s joy.

Mokee Joe, mutated into a giant spider by Princess Pi, tries again in a subway. By this time, the intrepid trio have been joined by 11-year-old Nevaeh, whose family they are staying with in East Harlem.

“Hudson, still dazed, staggered backwards. At the same time the monster grabbed both Hudson’s legs and hoisted them into the air. The back of Hudson’s head struck the rail, knocking him senseless – he was out cold.

“As Molly, Ash, Nevaeh and the two security men watched in dumbstruck horror, the creature dragged Hudson by his left leg towards the live rail. Stopping short, it knelt over Hudson and squeezed his throat. With another hand, it reached out and touched the live rail, the power surging through its mutated body and into Hudson’s neck.”

The final attack seemingly occurs in St Patrick’s Cathedral, at an event attended by the President and the First Lady; but that is a distraction. The real threat is scorching its way towards Manhattan from another direction.

The finale is not the end. This enjoyable, well-told story ends with a trailer for the forthcoming Mokee Joe adventure, set in Louisiana.