Hodder Children's Books Toto the Ninja Cat and the Great Snake Escape: 1

This seemed like it would be a winner with my seven-year-old daughter and indeed it was!Toto and Silver are brother and sister, recently arrived from Italy and now homed in Camden. They are befriended by the amicable Catface, who offers to be their guide to London. It's only when they go out to explore that they discover a King Cobra has escaped from London Zoo and it's up to them to protect the animals of London. Luckily, despite being blind, Toto is secretly a ninja!This is a well written and beautifully illustrated book. My daughter is a competent reader for her age but there was some vocabulary to challenge her, which was a big bonus. The book has recognisable locations and its possible to imagine all this excitement is happening just out of sight of the humans. My daughter has asked if we can start the sequel immediately, so that's what we're off to do!

I bought this to try to encourage my 6 year old son to read more. We read through it together first and from the very first page my son was hooked. We finished this brilliant book this morning and my son is now lying on the sofa, attempting to read words like 'banished' by himself. Thank you Dermot for this brilliant book!

I had thought perhaps this book was too old for my almost 6 year old. However, he was very interested from day one. He took a keen interest in this book and its characters, asking lots of questions. Then looked forward to reading a chapter a night! It grabbed us from the first chapter. Some of the words were a little difficult to explain the meanings, but that didn't deter us. It even made me Google how to explain some words in simple terms. Even though you know what the word means, it's hard to describe sometimes. Looking forward to buying the next one for a Easter egg hunt gift!

My daughter and I are loving this book.Really well written, great story and great illustrations. Dermot was wasted on children's TV - this is definitely his true calling. Will be ordering the second book for certain. Hope there's more in the pipeline.

I was really, really skeptical of this - I love Dermot O'Leary as a presenter but wasn't sure about how well he would be able to write children's books. And actually, I was pleased to be wrong - this is a great adventure story that is really well written. Toto is a cat from Italy who is almost blind, but also has incredible ninja skills that she puts to use with the help of her brother Silva. There's another fabulous character too called 'Catface' who acts as their guide around London but is clearly hiding a secret of his own. The plot is pacy - an escaped snake from the zoo - and the ending felt quite satisfying (not too predictable but rounded the story off well). There are great details in there too, for example with animals riding on tube trains alongside humans that are well complimented by detailed and interesting illustrations. I'd definitely read more in the series once they are written.