Hogwarts casts a long shadow over magical academies. Two inventive new authors grapple skilfully with that heritage by choosing faraway realms for their fantastical boarding school dramas. Debut children’s novelist Laila Rifaat begins a trilogy with Aliya: To the Infinite City (Chicken House). Aliya defies her stern grandfather, who has raised her after the mysterious demise of her parents. Discovering a portal into a parallel world, she swaps their life in modern Cairo for time travel.
Rifaat is half-Egyptian, so has a free hand with wilful magic carpets, genie bodyguards and the rich, post-Pharaonic history of her nation. When Aliya discovers she comes from an illustrious line of time travellers, she ends up learning the ropes at the Citadel. But a rogue figure, presumed dead, may have plans for her. Poisonings, disappearances and the importance of family and friendship keep the plot flying along.
Farther east, Paper Dragons: The Fight for the Hidden Realm (illustrated by Yuzhen Cai, Hodder Children’s) follows Zhi Ging, who becomes apprenticed to the immortals after a series of fortuitous incidents land her at Hok Woh, a secret school hidden underwater.
Irish author Siobhan McDermott grew up in Hong Kong and mixes Chinese legend with her own fertile imagination – the immortals are known as the Cyo B’Ahon, a winking transliteration of the author’s first name. As with Aliya, Zhi Ging’s mettle is tested against a backdrop of rising crisis, with grit trumping impostor syndrome.
Steep learning curves abound in Beastlands: Race to Frostfall Mountain (Bonnier), the fiction debut by Jess French, zoologist, Radio 4 presenter, CBeebies naturalist and nonfiction author. The quest plays out on a dystopian island called Ramoa, where humans stay siloed in cities, fearing the fantastical wildlife they haven’t yet exterminated.
Three young heroes must break free from their backgrounds and brave the wilds. Healer Alethea needs a cure for the Scourge, an illness sweeping her community. Sky cadet Kayla must find her stolen companion, a winged creature called a pangron, while the exiled youngest son of a warrior family, Rustus, battles the shame of having failed his initiation. His horror of the Beastlands turns to fascination as each young questor learns the extent to which they have been misled. Theirs becomes a race against time to stop a monstrous secret experiment from sealing Ramoa’s fate.
Benjamin Dean’s latest, The Boy Who Fell from the Sky (Simon & Schuster), is set in a world like ours – treehouses, mean girls – but where shooting stars rip holes in the sky and deposit demons. Twelve-year-old Zediah’s dad is chief demon-hunter; Zed aspires to follow him. But he too fails an initiation.
There’s little time for regret as Zed accidentally finds a demon – who is a young boy like himself, not a bloodthirsty foe of legend. Deceit and misinformation once again loom large in this compelling story about the nastiness of state-sanctioned othering.
OCD campaigner Lily Bailey has followed up 2022’s When I See Blue with When I Feel Red (Orion), a loose sequel. Even though When I Feel Red is set in year 8, its content is tremendously key stage 2, when some kids put childish things behind them, becoming obsessed with romance, gossip and pop pin-ups.
April, though, still has a vivid interior life as a would-be animal rescuer and struggles at school, particularly when her dyspraxia gets the better of her. Just as her friend Ben begins behaving strangely, April meets an injured stray cat and can’t help but go into rescuer mode. This is a vivid account of being out of step with your peers, not limited to discussions about dyslexia and dyspraxia.
Co-author of the bestselling Adventures on Trains series, and self-described ferroequinologist (train geek) Sam Sedgman is great at the mechanics of plot. His latest solo novel, The Clockwork Conspiracy (Bloomsbury), is a gripping mystery delivered with panache, despite being full of potentially fusty parliamentary procedure and engineering minutiae.
Isaac’s dad is a horologist, in charge of keeping Big Ben bonging. But when he suddenly goes missing, Isaac and his wayward new ally Hattie become enmeshed in a plot with deadly dimensions. Parliament is set to debate the new metric time bill, which will alter everyone’s lives for ever. Can a terrorist group seemingly opposed to the changes have anything to do with his dad’s disappearance? A timely thriller that roots for the democratic process.
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