City Spies Forbidden City, full STEM ahead in this must-read series

Sometimes we write about all-age comic books. What distinguishes a great comic book from a great all-age comic book is that the latter doesn’t dumb down the content in order to be appreciated by younger audiences. It’s a great read that just happens to not have any content that would prohibit it from being voraciously enjoyed by elementary or middle school readers. City Spies is a book series that’s mglit, middle-grade literature, and one might presume from that categorization that it’s only for grades three through eight. That’s where the catch-all description of leisure reading kicks in and puts the series, including City Spies: Forbidden City, into the age-defying group of mglit without boundaries.

In the way that The Great Movie Ride puts you into great scenes from famous movies, author James Ponti puts you into the action. As you read Forbidden City you’ll have plasticine characters and model sets interacting in your mind’s eye. The story plays out like a teen version of Mission Impossible. For us, the book is also the soul sister book series to Spy School. That series, much like City Spies is a movie that our imagination plays that starts and stops on a dime as soon as we stop reading the pages.

One might be thinking that the concept of teen spies is tough to believe. If you’re looking for an adult thriller that more black operation, then Forbidden City might not be your cup of tea. However, if it’s a great book with exotic locations, grand set pieces, and lots of action then Forbidden City is just the sort of book that you’ll welcome.

Forbidden City is a book that upper elementary and middle school readers will be hard-pressed to put down. As the book opens the team is in the middle of an assignment. They’re smuggling an egg back into the art collection of a world-famous businessman. The team is made up of a handful of different tween and teens, all with different skill sets, personality quirks, and flaws. Their one common denominator is that they all work for City Spies, an experimental group of youths who loosely operate under the M16 umbrella.

The cover story for the team allows them to get into places where a teen would naturally blend in, like a big party where the world’s hottest boy band is playing or a chess tournament. However, since the team is more than one person they have to operate independently and some of them need to discover their own roles. Remember from acting class when there aren’t any small roles? Some of the team members don’t go on the traveling part of this mission, but still end up playing a major part in the book’s climax, thanks to their hard work.

The chapters in Forbidden City are as long at 18 pages or as short as five pages. As the thrust of the plot is established the team splits up and each person or pair of spies, has their own adventure that adds to the final act. Some of the chapters have a sudden stop to the action with a cold intro. This usually happens with another chapter buffering the set pieces or location.

Author James Ponti paces the chapters so well that it’s akin to a written roller coaster with multiple tracks.  Because Forbidden City traverses the globe there are lots of opportunities for the characters to have lots of spy-oriented fun with landmarks that they’re learning about or will discover. That’s one of the big curveballs that’s somewhat revealed in the cover image of Forbidden City. The action sequences in the book are big and build up to something big, even though it may not be what readers are expecting.

Most of all, City Spies: Forbidden City is a fun, edge of your seat book that crosses age groups. Those older groups will want to read it for the story and the action, whereas the key demographic of 8-12 will want to read it due it having the water cooler effect. Granted, elementary students don’t have a water cooler now due to COVID, and even before the pandemic, they might not have gathered around it. But this book has that shareable quality that makes kids want to talk about it, root for certain characters and talk about the adventures.

City Spies: Forbidden City is by James Ponti and available on Aladdin, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing.  

There are affiliate links in this post.