Sometimes, things are not as they appear. In middle years, magic is often to blame – or the supernatural. But some of the most effective kids’ books play on the queasy disconnect between what should be and what is.
First, though, aliens. In Polly Ho-Yen’s latest book, The Day No One Woke Up (Simon & Schuster, £7.99), all the adults are sound asleep. Young Ana and her neighbour Tio are the only people awake, a disquieting situation for a kid. Ho-Yen milks the strangeness: city streets deserted, two former best friends, now seemingly enemies, problem-solving on the hoof. Ho-Yen was nominated for awards for her first book, 2014’s Boy in the Tower, and these are more ordinary kids trying to solve extraordinary problems. This big sleep is all the fault of “monoctohogs”, monkey-octopus-hedgehog-like aliens who are studying humanity and becoming too close to their subjects.
