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  • Published: 16 January 2024
  • ISBN: 9781761343186
  • Imprint: Puffin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $16.99

Kensy and Max 1: Breaking News

The bestselling spy series




Introducing Kensy and Max – an action-packed spy-adventure series for girls and boys from bestselling author Jacqueline Harvey!

What would you do if you woke up in a strange place? If your whole life changed in the blink of an eye and you had no idea what was going on?

Twins Kensy and Max Grey’s lives are turned upside down when they are whisked off to London, and discover their parents are missing. As the situation unfolds, so many things don’t add up: their strange new school, the bizarre grannies on their street, the coded messages they keep finding and the feeling that, all around them, adults are keeping secrets . . .

Things can never go back to the way they were, but the twins are determined to uncover the truth!

  • Published: 16 January 2024
  • ISBN: 9781761343186
  • Imprint: Puffin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $16.99

Other books in the series

About the author

Jacqueline Harvey

Jacqueline Harvey worked in schools for many years but has had a passion for storytelling since she was a child.

She is the author of the popular Alice-Miranda, Clementine Rose, Kensy and Max and Willa and Woof series, which have sold almost two million copies in Australia alone. In 2022, she released a picture book, That Cat, illustrated by one of her former students, Kate Isobel Scott. Jacqueline's books have received numerous shortlistings and awards while her picture book, The Sound of the Sea, was a CBCA Honour Book.

Jacqueline speaks to thousands of young people at schools and festivals around the world, and says the characters in her books are often made up of the best bits of children she’s met over the years. While she is not a twin, like Kensy and Max she does have excellent powers of observation and has always thought she’d make a great spy.

Jacqueline lives between Sydney, Australia, and Queenstown, New Zealand, and is currently working on more Willa and Woof adventures, several picture book projects and an exciting new middle-grade story.

Also by Jacqueline Harvey

See all

Praise for Kensy and Max 1: Breaking News

Breaking News is an exciting and engaging novel that draws readers in as the story unfolds, leaving them eager to see what Kensy and Max get up to next. Overall this new series will have great appeal to retail markets as well as schools and libraries.

Natalie Crawford, Junior Books + Publishing

This new series has both memorable characters and believable circumstances which will thoroughly intrigue readers from around 8 years upwards. I don’t need to use my considerable powers of ESP to predict that this will be as big a winner as Jacqueline’s other series.

Sue Warren, Just So Stories

With suspicious characters, codes to break, hidden agendas and missing parents, Kensy and Max: Breaking News is the perfect opener to what will no doubt become a fast favourite amongst primary school students.

Better Reading

Kensy and Max: Breaking news is a suspenseful, intriguing and finely crafted story perfect for readers who enjoy action-packed spy stories. Jacqueline Harvey's initial novel introduces exciting characters, mysterious settings and family secrets waiting to be uncovered. Here the author teases us with little clues, snippets of information, curious conversations with people instrumental in their future plans, and this builds an air of excitement and promise for future stories.

Rhyllis Bignell, ReadPlus

Upper primary readers are going to fall in love with Kensy and Max. This book is full of mystery and adventure, codes, clues and is really fast paced. The twins have very distinct personalities, as do all the supporting characters.

Michelle, Lamont Books

There is an adventure here, and something for the twins to solve, but at the heart of the story is family – for Kensy and Max, as they wait and worry for their parents, while finding new allies here. There’s an easy camaraderie among these characters that makes this book a joy to read, and made me enjoy the idea of the adventures on which the twins and their friends and allies are embarking.

Verushka Byrow, CBCA Reading Time

As well as writing another cracking story that will engage independent readers who love a good mystery, Harvey also invites the reader into the story by enabling them to try to solve the clues as they read and using the mysterious Caesar code to encrypt the chapter headings.

Barbara Braxton, The Bottom Shelf blog

The Kensy and Max books are highly entertaining with their pace-filled plots and highly developed characters who show amazing resilience in the face of danger and uncertainty.

Better Reading

Awards & recognition

Sisters in Crime Davitt Award

Longlisted  •  2019  •  Best Children's Crime Novel

WA Young Readers Book Award

Shortlisted  •  2020  •  Young Readers Award

Reading and Enjoying Australian Literature (R.E.A.L.)

Shortlisted  •  2023  •  Fiction for Older Readers

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3 reasons why readers love Jacqueline Harvey’s Kensy and Max series so much

Learn more about Kensy and Max, Jacqueline Harvey’s series that has sold over 100,000 copies.

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Video
Kensy and Max 1: Breaking News

Introducing Kensy and Max – an action-packed spy-adventure series for girls and boys from bestselling author Jacqueline Harvey! Kensy and Max 1: Breaking News is out March 2018 https://www.penguin.com.au/books/kensy-and-max-1-breaking-news-9780143780656