The Nothing To See Here Hotel

Story

The Nothing to See Here Hotel, on Brighton seafront, is run by Frankie Banister and his family. Hidden from human view, the hotel is the perfect spot for mermaids and ghosts and all sorts of magical creatures. When a messenger arrives through the sky door to warn of the imminent arrival of the goblin prince Grogbah, the whole place is thrown into panic, and the chaos only gets worse when Prince Grogbah arrives...

Why we chose it

A hilariously funny story with a cast of eccentric and usual characters.

Where it came from

Aside from being a writer, Steven Butler is an actor, voice artist, and trained circus performer. His first book, The Wrong Pong, was shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. His primary school headteacher was Jeremy Strong, author of the The Hundred Mile An Hour Dog series, and both had stories included in the short story collection Holiday Ha-Ha! (2016).

Steven Lenton is based in Brighton and is an author, illustrator, and animation director. He posts regularly to his Draw-Along-A-Lenton channel on YouTube, where he teaches how to draw his most popular characters.

Where it went next

In 2018 The Nothing to See Here Hotel won the Sainsbury’s Children’s Fiction Book Award and was chosen for the Tom Fletcher Book Club. In 2020 it was shortlisted for the Lollies.

Two sequels followed, Sea-ing is Believing and You ain’t Seen Nothing Yeti.

Associated stories

Steven Butler has written the popular The Diary of Dennis the Menace series, and wrote a special World Menace Day edition for World Book Day in 2015.

Steven Lenton has worked with a number of other authors, including David Baddiel, Frank Cottrell-Bryce and Tracey Corderoy on the Shifty McGifty series. Most recently, he was one of over 100 authors and illustrators to contribute to The Book of Hopes (2020), a free online book published to support and comfort children during the Covid-19 lockdown.