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.
Further up the age range (but not too scary) is PJ Canning’s debut thriller, 21% Monster (Usborne, £7.99). It stars a 14-year-old misfit whose bewildering school life and anger management problem mean he’s being chased by police – and more obscure agencies. Plucky, sensitive Darren meets Marek, a sneering tech genius (19% alien, also on the run) who explains they were part of a genetic experiment that went wrong. Canning is a sure-footed storyteller, not sacrificing character to his fiendish plot. Both boys are very human, too, and brawn and brain bounce off each other in unpredictable ways.
The Mystery of the Missing Mum (Pushkin, £7.99) looks innocuous enough: cartoony front cover, lots of lists. First-timer Frances Moloney’s protagonist Jake SPEAKS IN BOLD CAPS A LOT. But what seems like a lighthearted romp – has his mum gone Christmas shopping? – gradually unfurls into something more subtle. Through the use of flashback, Moloney evokes Jake’s bewilderment while gently feeding us detail. His mum has, in fact, been sectioned, and Jake has repressed the memory. It’s an age-appropriate ode to “perfectly imperfect” families.
Age appropriateness is one of those sliding scales in kid-lit, with books sometimes proving younger or older than they first appear. Generously illustrated and with big print, The Little Match Girl Strikes Back (Simon & Schuster, £12.99 hardback, out 15 September) is a feminist reworking of the Hans Christian Andersen tale by Emma Carroll, with instantly recognisable art by Lauren Child. It’s too gritty for picture-book ages, with the hardscrabble life of a Victorian child eloquently evoked by young flame-haired Bridie, who sells the matches her mother makes in the Bryant & May factory. Spoiler alert: it’s 1888 and the women go on strike: a timely summer read that might prompt discussions of why people are forced to take industrial action.
Similarly, the award-winning AF Harrold’s latest, The Worlds We Leave Behind (Bloomsbury, £12.99 hardback), is luxuriantly illustrated by the fabulous Levi Pinfold. But Pinfold’s images get very creepy, matching the fairytale subject matter. Young Sascha follows Hex and his best friend Tommo to a rope swing in the woods; something bad happens. A mysterious figure gives Hex a tempting choice: he can face the music or reset the past, obliterating people and relationships so that the event never happened. What ensues is a take on alternative universes in which moral quandary plays off against philosophical inquiry: who are we all, really? This exceptional book about friendship and paths not taken should rake in awards.
Carnegie-shortlisted Chris Vick’s latest outing, The Last Whale (Head of Zeus, £14.99 hardback), is officially 12+, but that YA designation is contradicted by much younger cover art. This is a story untroubled by sex or drugs; the bleak future of the planet is spelled out, though. Activist Abi is stuck on a Norwegian island for the summer, hoping to see whales. Unbeknown to the authorities, she has borrowed a powerful AI with which she monitors natural populations and, clandestinely, tries to divine ways to disrupt international conventions.
Soon, appalled by her ancestors’ whaling pasts, she sets the AI on cracking whale code. Vick’s generation-spanning eco-thriller zooms around up-to-the-minute themes as the AI becomes sentient, Abi’s little sister Tig makes friends with it and the AI’s makers send in the drones. Another apposite book for this summer, with its record temperatures.
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