There’s nothing as two-faced as a summer book, filled with blue skies, new experiences, happy holidays and freedom — or darkened by bad weather, exam results, family tension and anticlimax.
For very young children, given a parent’s undivided attention for a fortnight, a summer holiday is often the time when a huge leap forward is made in understanding the world. And Alison Murray’s One Two That’s My Shoe! (Orchard, £10.99 £9.89) is highly recommended as both a counting book and a simple rhyming story about a puppy and a little girl. Murray’s crisp, clear designs and use of primary colours gives the book a timeless appeal, and alert expressions and playfulness will make children of 2+ crow with laughter.
Mini Grey’s latest, Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey (Jonathan Cape, £10.99 £8.99), is a seaside classic for 3+. The heroic Traction Man and his faithful Scrubbing Brush go on holiday, to be slobbered over by a dog, swept out to sea and, worst of all, brought to the Dollies’ Castle, where they must endure humiliation until masculine pride is restored. The pictures are brilliant and the text hilarious — dads especially will love doing the voices.
Michael Morpurgo’s Little Manfred (HarperCollins, £12.99 £11.69) is also set on a beach, and inspired by a toy dog in the Imperial War Museum. A gentle, good-hearted tale about finding friends even in war, it’s soothing for 7+.
The outstanding book for 8+ is Eva Ibbotson’s posthumously published One Dog and His Boy (Marion Lloyd Books, £10.99 £9.89). When Hal’s rich, neurotic parents hire Fleck for the day, then return him, the pair run away — followed by a troop of other dogs looking for better homes. A perfect story, gloriously illustrated, it rivals the classic 101 Dalmatians.
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Caroline Lawrence is off to a spanking start to her new series, The Western Mysteries, for 9+, with The Case of the Deadly Desperados (Orion, £9.99 £9.49), purporting to be the diaries of P. K. Pinkerton, the future famous detective. Armed with a seven-shooter and various disguises, but unable to read other people’s true feelings, Pinky is bent on avenging the murder of his foster parents in a fast, funny adventure that cracks along as smartly as a cowboy’s whip.
Joseph Delaney’s hero Tom Ward now has the Fiend on the young exorcist’s trail, with only six drops of blood to protect him. The Spook’s Destiny (Bodley Head, £9.99 £9.49) has our hero in Ireland, gaining a magic sword from the legendary Cuchulain, but tormented by the Morrigan and dark magic. Fabulously dark, this series is an annual summer treat for 10+.
The Chameleon in Stephen Davies’s Outlaw (Andersen Press, £5.99 £5.69) has a mysterious Arab rescuer who uses horses, slings and conjuring tricks. Jake the tearaway and his Goth sister, Kas, find themselves kidnapped by African bandits. Pure good-hearted fun for fans of Anthony Horowitz and 10+.
For boys who are reluctant readers, Anthony McGowan has produced another perfectly paced story in The Fall (Barrington Stoke, £6.99 £6.64), which is equally appealing to 8+ and dyslexic teens. Mog is a loser in a school full of misfits; drawn to cool, tough Chris, he’s jealous when another boy, Duffy, joins them. As terse and powerful as a Greek tragedy.
For 11+, two recommended novels are Moira Young’s Blood Red Road (Marion Lloyd Books, £7.99 £7.59), a gripping breakneck Mad Max adventure for girls, and Aurora (Macmillan, £6.99 £6.64), the conclusion to Julie Bertagna’s extraordinary, visionary trilogy about a drowned future world which began with Exodus. Both are set in different dystopian futures — one arid, the other half-drowned — and both are thrillers as thoughtful as they are filmic, with a strong focus on love, courage and family loyalties.
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N. M. Browne’s Wolf Blood (Bloomsbury, £6.99 £6.64) is a return to the era depicted so thrillingly in her time-traveller trilogy Warriors, in which Celts and Romans clash in Ancient Britain. A Brigante warrior, Tristra embraces her second sight, but her Roman ally rejects his own ability to change into a wolf. Wolf Blood has all the vividness, violence, passion and strangeness of a first-rate historical/fantasy writer on top form.
So, too, is Mal Peet, though Life: An Exploded Diagram (Walker, £7.99 £7.59), set in the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, is a million miles away from the new X-Men film. A love story set across the class divide, it’s a painful, passionate novel that will break the hearts of 13+.
Mary Hoffman has set many books in Italy, but David (Bloomsbury, £10.99 £9.89) is about Gabriele, the teenager who modelled for Michelangelo’s famous statue. A handsome stonecutter, he comes to Florence and is robbed, seduced and set up in an engrossing political murder-mystery for budding art historians of 12+.
My top choice for summer, however, is Meg Rosoff’s There Is No Dog (click here to read an interview with the author) — an astounding crossover novel, positing the theory that the reason why the world is such a mess is because it has been created and managed by a teenage God, instead of the quiet, kindly middle-aged one who should have got the job. Profoundly funny, it’s a masterpiece and not to be missed (Penguin, £12.99 £11.69, published next month).
Retro read: A Necklace of Raindrops
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Joan Aiken’s classic collection of eight original fairytales is a classic from a master storyteller for 3+. When Mr Jones rescues the North Wind from a holly tree, his baby daughter, Laura, is given a magic necklace enabling her to make rain start or stop. When a mean girl steals it, Meg must get it back — with the help of animal friends. Other tales feature a wishing-mat and a cat the size of a whale. Illustrated by Jan Pienkowski. Jonathan Cape, £12.99 £11.69