Some celebrities are, shall we say, more suited to writing children’s books than others. Hold the eye rolls then, for TV historian and academic Alice Roberts. Wolf Road (Simon & Schuster), her debut, is set in a landscape she conjures expertly: prehistoric Europe, where tween girl Tuuli and her tribe follow the reindeer across wild, changing landscapes – illicit wolf cub in tow.
Roberts is treading in big footsteps here. Michelle “Wolf Brother’” Paver is the don of paleolithic wolf-quests. But Roberts acquits herself admirably, bringing the lives of ice age hunter-gatherers to vivid life while juggling evergreen themes: the alarming climate, the treatment of outsiders, and the young questioning the old ways.
Children’s writing has plenty of its own A-listers, of course, out in force as summer considers becoming autumn. Near the top of the pile is Katharine Rundell, another academic who doubles as an award magnet. Her latest is Impossible Creatures (Bloomsbury, out 14 September), the first in a series: young Christopher uncovers a portal connecting rural Scotland to the Archipelago, where mythical creatures still dwell.
Naturally, all is not well: someone is trying to kill Mal, a girl with a pet griffin and a coat that lets her fly. The quest the pair embark on – to save magic itself – has all the standard tropes: shady allies, various perils, a double-take when they discover who the chosen one is. But Rundell remains original, fully fleshing both her human characters and her storied beasts: manticores, ratatoskrs et al.
Ratatoskr is, of course, the squirrel of Yggdrasil, the Norse myth World Tree. He crops up again in Old Gods, New Tricks (David Fickling) by Thiago de Moraes, illustrator and author of Myth Atlas, a compendium translated into 18 languages.
About to be expelled from school for putting fart powder in the ventilation system, half-Brazilian Trixie dos Santos is saved by a global blackout. As everything electrical stops working, the canny schoolgirl has a lightbulb moment: maybe the ancient gods have taken the power back. Her parents remain unconvinced.
Enlisting a motley crew of trickster gods who Trixie cons into helping her – Loki, the Monkey King (China), Huehuecóyotl (Aztec myth) and Exú (Yoruba myth) among others – her mission to steal back electricity takes her on a romp through world legends. It’s a hoot, with a message: humans are full of hubris. Myth tells us that doesn’t end well.
Yoruba legend is also the setting for Kòkú Àkànbí and the Heart of Midnight (Hachette) by newcomer Maria Motúnráyò Adébísí, at the upper end of the age range. In the British Museum, Koku, a snarky 13-year-old, accidentally unleashes a demon. (He’s in good company: Rick Riordan and the TV series Moon Knight have kickstarted adventures that way.)
Koku’s Uncle Tunji sends him “home” to the land of Olori, which Koku, already laid low by his sickle cell anaemia, finds oppressively bright. It’s not just the longitude: night is in retreat. Everything is dying. The descendants of Ògún, god of iron and war, want to destroy night-time, ostensibly to stop demons crossing over and stealing children’s souls. As our reluctant hero discovers, however, very little is what it claims to be in this densely packed, shape-shifting world. Adébísí’s innovative debut mixes Yoruba, west African pidgin, Jamaican patois and London slang without missing a beat.
With appetite for fantasy at an all-time high, spare a thought for writers reflecting everyday life. Hats off to Simon Packham, much-shortlisted, whose latest, Worrybot (UCLan) tackles anxiety. Post-pandemic, school refusal is also on the up.
When Josh was younger, his confidence was upended by a bully. The bully left and Josh is fine – until his mother gets a new job and they have to move. Unexpectedly, Josh meets a robot in his new classroom: the eyes and ears of Charlie, a kid who can’t (or won’t?) come to school, and participates remotely. What unfolds is a gentle, but profound story about friendships, confidence and school refusal – with an absolutely audacious plot twist.
Another A-lister to wrap things up: like Katharine Rundell, the award-winning Kiran Millwood Hargrave is a class act embarking on an engrossing fantasy trilogy with In the Shadow of the Wolf Queen (Orion, out 31 August). Unlikely heroine Ysolda is made homeless by an earthquake and the arrival of the Wolf Queen’s feared Ryders. Catapulted into a quest to rescue her imprisoned healer sister, she has to connive and plot to get near the answer to why everything is dying. Nuanced and varied female characters power this gripping, evocative plot about power-lust and the natural world in disarray.
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