'They were different because you weren't the one left behind. ''Or were you upset when we all went to London to break into Reginald Banks's house but Rio stayed home with Monty?' ''Well, that was because it involved computers and - ' ''Were you upset when we had a mission in Paris and you were given the lead role, even though you had the least experience?' Along the way, they're also helping each other with a lot of relatable life issues, as here, where Brooklyn (Puerto Rican computer genius) is bumming at being left behind on a mission, and Nepali math prodigy Kat, who's usually not known for her social skills, weighs in with a bit of wisdom.

As their travels take them to the Forbidden City in Beijing, all their skills come into play, from chess to math to strategic planning. In their latest perilous outing, James Ponti's diverse, multitalented young spies take on several governments and a crime syndicate, infiltrating a chess tournament to help a scientist and his son defect. In between thrilling spy adventures, characters deal with regular life issues, like misunderstandings between friends and how to fix them, and also how to be a family. In the process, there's lots of chess lore that will especially interest chess-loving kids. Fifteen-year-old Rwanda-born Paris is a chess prodigy whose skills become part of the mission, taking the team to international tournaments in Moscow and Beijing. There's peril aplenty, but also strong teamwork and clever use of skills.

North Korea's perfectly prepared to kill them both to keep them away from the many agencies - including a nuke-stealing crime syndicate - who want them. The mission here involves a heavily guarded nuclear physicist from North Korea, and MI6's plans to help him defect to the West, along with his teen chess prodigy son. Parents need to know that Forbidden City is the third installment of James Ponti's City Spies series, which features a diverse cast of 12- to 15-year-old characters with an equally diverse range of talents, working as a special team for British spy agency MI6. Occasional scenes of gun-brandishing and other weapons as kid and adult characters face danger and imprisonment.ĭid you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

They are heavily guarded and face death if returned to North Korea. Besides the theft of six nuclear warheads by a crime syndicate, the story involves a North Korean nuclear physicist and his chess prodigy son, who want to defect and are being pursued by the crime syndicate as well as several governments.

City spies forbidden city