A fantasy, quirky read for readers from 11+ 'UnLunDun' by China Mieville is a really clever read with quite bizarre images and lots of humour. You have to concentrate, particularly on the word play. It's really clever-sometimes you need to read, assimilate and cogitate for a little bit because there's lots of detail to take in. The story is about two girls who stumble upon another world, the world of UnLunDun where bad things are happening and need to be stopped. The jumping Ninja dustbins are just a small part of this very eclectic mix of characters. 
There are lots of favourite parts but I really liked the clever idea of words being in charge of themselves and how we are not necessarily in charge of their meaning even though we've said them:
"Or even,' Deeba said, 'like some words that mean something but they've got like a feeling of something else, so if you say them you might be saying something you don't mean to. Like if I say someone's really nice then I might mean it , but it sounds a little bit like they're boring. You know?'
'Yeah,' said Hemi. 'Yeah'.
'The thing is,' Deeba said, eyeing Mr Speaker, 'you could only make words do what you wanted if it was just you deciding what they mean. But it isn't. It's everyone else too. Which means you might want to give them orders, but you aren't in total control. No one is.'
It's a good read for the holidays-you can escape into a different world and you have the time to give to it too. I think ti's one you need to read in big chunks so you are in the swing of all the clever quirkiness :-)