A new children’s series reimagines James Bond as a retired spy training teenage recruits.
It’s not quite From Russia With Love — but a new Bond is coming, and he’s heading back to school.
James Bond and the Secret Agent Academy, a forthcoming series of books for children aged 8 to 12, sees 007 in unfamiliar territory: not globetrotting with a Walther PPK, but mentoring the next generation of teenage spies. The books are being written by MW Craven, best known for his award-winning Washington Poe crime novels, and the first entry in the series is due in June 2026.
This new Bond is no longer licensed to kill. He’s retired, grounded, and—for perhaps the first time—answerable to kids who aren’t afraid to challenge his outdated views or show him up with their technical know-how.
Craven, who left school at 16 to join the army, brings both experience and grit to the project. But writing for younger readers has required a shift. His usual prose, more at home with serial killers and dark alleys, has had to make room for gadgets, mentorship, and the occasional sausage roll joke (though he admits the Greggs reference might not survive the final draft).
While Fleming’s Bond often wrestled with doubt and disillusionment, Craven’s version promises a different kind of reckoning. “If Fleming were writing today,” he says, “he wouldn’t write Bond the same way.” The old-school swagger remains—but this time it’s confronted, questioned, and sometimes outsmarted by the teenage spies he’s training, who are just as sharp with technology as they are with ethics.
These books are firmly in the literary camp. Nothing from the films can be used—those rights remain under Amazon’s control—but Craven is free to play with Fleming’s canon, provided he doesn’t contradict it. The series is set in the near future and promises to bring in characters from the books while carving out new paths in the world of espionage.
So far, Craven is contracted for two books, but he’s said to be hoping for seven—shades of Hogwarts in that. Whether this new Bond reaches the same iconic status as the original remains to be seen. But for a generation growing up in the shadow of Craig’s brooding 007, this could be their first step into the Bond universe.
And if nothing else, it’s a timely reminder: while the films remain on ice, the literary Bond is still very much alive—and evolving.
