Like fairies, Tollins live, largely undetected, in the bottom of people’s gardens. Importantly, however, for the book’s target audience, Tollins are definitely not fairies: ‘Though they both have wings … Tollins are a lot less fragile than fairies. In fact, the word fragile can’t really be used about them at all. They are about as fragile as a housebrick.’

Tollins contains three interconnected stories, each driven by Sparkler’s need to save his race from dangers such as being used as the secret ingredient in fireworks or being enslaved by the Dark Tollins of Dorset. In Book Two, he must also save himself from execution by curing the High Tollins of gout.

Iggulden’s non-fiction The Dangerous Book for Boys (2006) has sold more than two million copies worldwide, and is now a hugely successful franchise of board games, science kits and instruction manuals for ‘boy’s own’ experiments and outdoor adventures. It is no surprise, therefore, to find his first foray into children’s fiction laden with scientific facts, such as how fireworks get their colour and how to make a steam pump. Tollins’s educational element feels contrived at times, but the book will appeal to the kind of child (or adult) who enjoys watching Mythbusters. Lizzy Duncan’s idiosyncratic illustrations are perhaps Tollins’s most memorable feature. Iggulden’s tongue-in-cheek narration also becomes a bit forced by book’s end.