Myles and the Monster Outside

2017 Silver Birch Express Award Honour Book • 2017 Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award — Shortlisted • 2017 Diamond Willow Award — Shortlisted

The second instalment in a series of scary tall tales from acclaimed children’s novelist Philippa Dowding.

I will never leave this car, the back seat reeks of everything my little brother has ever eaten, and that thing is still out there …

Myles and his family have been driving for four days. It’s their final night on the road, but Myles knows they will never arrive at their new house. It will never stop raining. And even if they do get there (which is doubtful), he knows he will never have friends again.

He also knows that something is following them in the dark, rainy fields outside their car. Something monstrous.

Once the monster arrives, things go very wrong. Myles and his family get lost, their car keeps breaking down, and a strange old man and his dog turn up, again and again. Then things get really weird. Myles is pretty sure it’s all his fault: he’s the only one who can see the monster. He’s the only one who can hear the monster.

And hardest of all? He’s the only one who can make it go away.

Philippa Dowding is an award-winning copywriter, poet, and children’s author. Her YA books in the Lost Gargoyle series were shortlisted for the Diamond Willow, Hackmatack, and Silver Birch awards, and The Gargoyle at the Gates was named a White Raven Book 2013 by the International Youth Library in Munich. Philippa lives in Toronto.