The kids’ books we love

And check back every week for Nicolette’s latest pick.

Our book of the week

You’ll Be the Death of Me by Karen M McManus
Penguin £7.99, age 13+
Bestselling US author McManus’s crime thriller for teenagers is the intriguing story of three 17-year-olds who used to be best friends at 12, and the day they spend bunking off high school together. Ivy has super-controlling parents and an overachieving younger brother, and is reeling from a humiliation at school. Handsome Mateo’s good-hearted mother is ill and struggles to make ends meet after disaster befalls the family business. Cal is lonely despite the loving care of his two fathers. The day turns into a dangerous race against time after they find a body and have to identify the murderer to extricate themselves from trouble. As they reveal their own secrets, they realign their old friendship. This is an engrossing holiday read with a touch of romance and lessons about forgiveness.

Watch out for

Tiny Reindeer by Chris Naylor-Ballesteros
Andersen Press £12.99, age 3-6
A simple story of a miniature reindeer who feels purposeless but finds a place to belong. Tenderly executed, with warm and atmospheric images that make striking use of dark and light.

Our books of the year so far

For younger readers (3 to 7-year-olds)

Michael Rosen’s Sticky McStickStick by Michael Rosen and Tony Ross
Walker Books £12.99, age 3+
This exceptional picture book is a tribute to the NHS staff (and the personified walking stick) who helped Rosen after seven weeks in a Covid coma. It manages to be funny as well as moving.

A Tale of Two Dragons by Geraldine McCaughrean and Peter Malone
Andersen Press £12.99, age 3-7
This stunning picture book is one for every child: a story of two imaginary countries who envy each other’s assets, send to China for dragons to defend themselves, and learn that co-operation and sharing are preferable to conflict. It is eloquent and lyrical: the dragons are respectively paid in “plums, pears and pine cones”, and in “ginger, gooseberries and goldfish”. The text conveys the ideas that children will act on what their parents say, that the powerful can be self-interested, and that dragons may be clever and loving.

Gustavo the Shy Ghost by Flavia Z Drago
Walker £7.99, age 3-6
Winner of the Klaus Flugge prize for a debut picture book, this story about a violin-playing ghost, shyness and making friends is busy and sweet and influenced by the Mexican art of the Day of the Dead.

The Christmas Pig by JK Rowling
Little, Brown £20, age 5-9
JK Rowling has shown us the storyteller she is for readers from seven upwards. This Christmas book is the story of Jack, whose loses his favourite toy, a bean-bag pig known as DP. A substitute toy, the Christmas Pig, comes to life on Christmas Eve and takes him to the Land of the Lost to retrieve DP. The ensuing episodic adventure involves a moral choice and a brave rescue.

We’re Going Places by Mick Jackson and John Broadley
Pavilion £12.99, age 3-6
This is a beautiful picture book — in the style of richly patterned woodcuts — about the journeys of a lifetime, from babyhood to old age, with thoughts about travel in the past and future, in nature, in dreams.

Moose’s Book Bus by Inge Moore
Walker £12.99, age 3+
A picture book for anyone who loves libraries, featuring anthropomorphic animals in a picturesque, autumnal village who gather in Moose’s living room to hear fairytales

read, until it is too crowded to do so. Moore creates a world that readers will long to inhabit, but also recognise, because they understand how books can make places happy and cosy.

Sometimes I Am Furious by Timothy Knapman and Joe Berger
Macmillan £12.99, age 3+
Bold, graphic images depict a little girl in a dual-heritage family and instances of happiness and kindness interspersed with circumstances that enrage — when your ice cream falls off the cone, or there are no chocolate cakes left. A book to help small children understand not only their own difficult emotions, but those of people around them, with a comforting resolution.

Mouse & Mole: The Secret of Happiness by Joyce Dunbar, illustrated by James Mayhew
Graffeg £12.99, age 4-7
Mouse and Mole live in a country cottage with roses around the door, their companionship and dress reminiscent of Ratty and Mole. The tales involve everyday incidents and provoke thought. Mayhew conjures up anthropomorphised hedgehogs and rabbits, as well as armchairs and dressing gowns, bicycles and stove-top kettles, flowers and sunshine in charming vignettes, skilfully inked and coloured.

Two Terrible Vikings by Francesca Simon, illustrated by Steve May
Faber £6.99, age 4-7
Francesca Simon, the creator of the multimillion-selling Horrid Henry series, has two new antiheroes in the Viking twins Hack and Whack, sister and brother in a very silly and historically inaccurate world. The premise of the three stories in this anarchic collection is what it would be like if your parents, bringing up future pillagers, wanted you to be awful, so they celebrated your noise and violence.

Once Upon a Tune: Stories from the Orchestra by James Mayhew
Otter-Barry £16.99, age 5-8
James Mayhew has retold and illustrated the tales behind six celebrated pieces of music, such as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Scheherazade and William Tell, in a vibrant collection that shows the influence of the folk art of the source countries. This book is a rich introduction to international fairytales and to classical music.

For 7 to 12 year-olds

Einstein the Penguin by Iona Rangeley, illustrated by David Tazzyman
HarperCollins £12.99, age 6-9
This debut novel is a delight. Its wit and observation put it in the tradition of Eva Ibbotson and Hilary McKay as it tells the story of Einstein, a penguin who can read and write but not speak. Like Paddington he places himself in the care of a London family. Set at Christmas, it would be a joy to read aloud in the run-up.

The Girl Who Talked to Trees by Natasha Farrant, illustrated by Lydia Corry
Zephyr £12.99, age 8+
Seven linked stories are told to Olive, who has seven hours to save her best friend — an oak tree. Each is told by a tree of a different species, all beautifully illustrated. A nature-lover’s treat.

Adventures in Time: The First World War by Dominic Sandbrook
Particular Books £14.99, age 10+
For Remembrance Sunday, Sandbrook recounts the events of the First World War through the stories of the individuals involved, including statesmen, assassins, soldiers, spies and nurses: from Gavrilo Princip to Edith Cavell, Tsar Nicholas to the Accrington Pals.

Sisters of the Lost Marsh by Lucy Strange
Chicken House, 37.99m age 8-12
Six sisters live with their drunken father and loving grandmother in a superstitious time and place given to beliefs in curses and witchcraft. As the tale opens, the eldest sister is to be forced into an arranged marriage with a cruel older man. This is the narrative of the third sibling, Willa, who tries to change fate.

Shadow Town by Richard Lambert
Everything with Words £7.99, age 12+
By the acclaimed author of The Wolf Road, an evocative fantasy about an unpopular boy trapped in a tyrannical world where he finds a friend and learns how to be better than his selfish father.

Lionheart Girl by Yaba Badoe
Zephyr £12.99, age 12+
For Halloween, an unusual witch story steeped in Ghanaian culture and myth. This magic-realist novel is about Sheba, who lives in a family of witches in a hidden village. Written with lushness and lyricism, this is a complex tale of friendships, community and family conflict expressed in fantastical metaphors. Sheba communicates with her wisest ancestor and finds her inner self in the form of a spirit lion.

Bandoola: The Great Elephant Rescue by William Grill
Flying Eye £15.99, age 7-11
Skilfully illustrated by a Greenaway medal winner, full of miniatures and landscapes, this is an elegant, astonishing story of elephants in Myanmar, their human allies and a heroic wartime journey.

Polly Pecorino: The Girl Who Rescues Animals by Emma Chichester Clark
Walker Books £10.99, age 7+
A delightful, old-fashioned story about Polly, a girl who can talk to animals, her companion crow and her friendship with a baby bear in a zoo. It’s a book to entrance young readers with the perennially appealing idea of communicating with other species, and with the message that kindness can triumph.

Splinters of Sunshine by Patrice Lawrence
Hodder £7.99, age 11+
Embedded in the context of county lines drug-dealing, Lawrence’s tale is about race, family and society, and how much we make our own destiny and other people’s, even when circumstances do us no favours. Empathetic and observant, it has powerful voices and compelling storytelling.

Mega Robo Bros: Power Up by Neill Cameron
David Fickling Books, £8.99, age 7-11
This remastered version of Mega Robo Bros, the 2017 graphic novel, is an action story about two adopted brothers who happen to be robots. The fun of this story is how it puts together sci-fi and the entirely familiar — being late for the (flying) school bus, being told off by your (genius scientist) mum, protecting a brother from school bullies (and evil masterminds). It is vivid, well told and made me laugh out loud.

By Ash, Oak and Thorn by Melissa Harrison
Chicken House £7.99, age 7-11
This novel, old-fashioned yet timely, is a nature walk wrapped up in an adventure. It follows the Hidden Folk — three tiny tree-dwellers — on a quest through gardens, countryside and city. Unashamedly didactic about how we should behave not only in relation to the environment but also towards each other, By Ash, Oak and Thorn is a trove of information about what we often disregard all around us.

The Last Bear by Hannah Gold, illustrated by Levi Pinfold
HarperCollins £12.99, age 8+
Eleven-year-old April travels to a remote Arctic island with her meteorologist father, who is tracking climate change with daily readings and is still in mourning for April’s mother. Her father is busy and neglectful, but April finds and befriends a creature who shares the island with them: a lonely polar bear. This book evokes a powerful and tender relationship, and is a roaring call to protect the planet.

The Amazing Edie Eckhart by Rosie Jones
Hodder £6.99, age 9-12
This is the children’s book debut of the TV comedian Rosie Jones, who has cerebral palsy, as does her 11-year-old heroine Edie Eckhart, who starts secondary school and sets out to acquire a boyfriend when her best friend, Oscar, swiftly finds a girlfriend. It is also not only enlightening about living with disability for anyone who has not experienced it, but also inclusive in terms of race and sexuality.

All the Money in the World by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald
Orion £7.99, age 10+
Fifteen-year-old Penny is very bright and lives in one of many damp flats in a big crumbling old house with her mother, who works as a cleaner. Next door, a twin property in mint condition, is occupied by an old lady who introduces Penny to classical music and shares memories of her expensive boarding school. Penny begins to dream of going to such a school. This book explores what it would mean to be transported from penury to privilege, and what you might sacrifice.

The Summer We Turned Green by William Sutcliffe
Bloomsbury £7.99, age 10+
A commune of climate protesters squats in a respectable street threatened by an airport runway. Thirteen-year-old Luke’s elder sister, Rose, decamps from home to live with them. This triggers shifts in the relationships in his family, and between the neighbours. A heartfelt, well-observed, gripping family drama, as well as a call to arms.

Children of the Quicksands by Efua Traore
Chicken House £7.99, age 9+
Twelve-year-old Simi is sent from city life in Lagos to spend the summer with her unknown grandmother in a remote village with a strong sense of magic. This winner of the Times/Chicken House award blends the reality of village life with the fantasy of local myths that turn out to be true. The fantasy creates tension and drama, but the best aspect of this book is the evocation of place.

The Swallows’ Flight by Hilary McKay
Macmillan £12.99, age 10+
Hilary McKay’s superlative The Skylarks’ War seemed to make the Great War new, winning many hearts and the Costa children’s novel award. This compassionate sequel does the same with the Second World War as it continues the stories of kind-hearted Clarry and those she cares about: Rupert, Peter, Vanessa and Violet. Separately and together, The Skylarks’ War and The Swallows’ Flight are pinnacles of children’s literature.

A Girl Called Joy by Jenny Valentine, illustrated by Claire Lefevre
Simon & Schuster £6.99, age 9+
All her life ten-year-old Joy has travelled the world with her family. Now the family have to return to Britain to look after her grandfather. Joy and her easily bored teenage sister have to go to school for the first time. Reversing the familiar plot in which children with ordinary lives burst into an adventure, this book is a delight for its warmth and humour.

Noah’s Gold by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, illustrated by Steven Lenton
Macmillan £12.99, age 9-12
When sat-nav misdirects a school trip to an island off Ireland, Noah tries to prove his usefulness. The disappearance of the teacher turns this into a kinder Lord of the Flies, in which the pupils have to govern themselves. This is a joyous book about the things that are truly valuable.

Moo by Sharon Creech, illustrated by Sarah Horne
Guppy Books £6.99, age 8-12
This is the story of 12-year-old Reena, her little brother, Luke, and their parents, all city dwellers who move to Maine. Conscripted by their parents to help an elderly neighbour, Reena and Luke find new skills, new friends and an important relationship with a bad-tempered saddleback cow. It’s delightful, and infused with understanding of how young and old might behave and feel.

Starboard by Nicola Skinner
HarperCollins £12.99, age 8-11
This is the story of 11-year-old Kirsten, an online and TV celebrity. On a school trip she becomes enraptured by the iron steamship SS Great Britain. The ship and its sea chart, which both have a voice, recognise what is broken in Kirsten, and the vessel carries her away on a quest. The journey teaches Captain Kirsten the fickleness of fame, the importance of childhood and the value of truthful relationships.

Kat Wolfe on Thin Ice by Lauren St John
Macmillan £7.99, age 9-12
Child detectives Kat Wolfe and Harper Lamb are back — this time solving the theft of a diamond necklace, in the snow-covered wilderness of the Adirondacks. The reader feels real tension at the perils, curiosity at the puzzles and pleasure at the cosy moments — hot chocolate and apple crumble by the fire with your best friend.

Maggie Blue and the Dark World by Anna Goodall
Guppy £12.99, age 8-12
An under-confident child who goes through a portal into another world on a rescue quest is a standard formula in children’s fantasy adventures. So too is a talking animal companion. But this well-crafted debut sidesteps clichés. Twelve-year-old Maggie lives with her eccentric aunt, and a cat companion who is elderly and only eventually heroic. Happily, this is the first of a series.

Circus Maximus: Race to the Death by Annelise Gray
Head of Zeus £12.99, age 9-12
This novel, by a Latin teacher and specialist in the history of women in Rome, follows 12-year-old Dido through Rome and Carthage until she realises, at 17, her ambition to race chariots at the Circus Maximus. This is an involving, well-characterised tale that feels original.

The Shark Caller by Zillah Bethell
Usborne £7.99, age 8-12
The author of this adventure grew up in Papua New Guinea, where this book is set, so it has authenticity and fascinating local colour. Orphan Blue Wing lives with a surrogate grandfather, who is a “shark caller”: he can summon the animals to shore, originally for food and now for the entertainment of tourists. This is the story of Blue Wing’s friendship (beginning in hostility) with a visiting Japanese-American girl.

Uma and the Answer to Absolutely Everything by Sam Copeland, illustrated by Sarah Horne
Puffin £6.99, age 7-10
Ten-year-old Uma Gnudersonn lives with her silent father in the village of Tylney-on-Sea, which is not by the sea. With the help of her friend Alan Alan, who lies a lot, and a new pal, an artificial intelligence who knows everything, Uma revitalises her father and saves the day. With slapstick, satire, silliness, fart jokes and, best of all, a voice that tells the reader more than the narrator knows, this is truly cheering entertainment.

The Hatmakers by Tamzin Merchant, illustrated by Paola Escobar
Puffin £12.99, age 7-11
This imaginative debut novel is set in a magical and historical version of London. It opens with the news that Captain Hatmaker, father of young Cordelia, has been lost at sea. She refuses to believe he is dead, and her investigations lead to revelations involving a princess, mysterious thefts, and hidden identities. The storytelling is entertaining, comical and breezy, and the settings are conjured in transporting detail.

When the World Was Ours by Liz Kessler
Simon & Schuster £12.99, age 10+
Leo has two best friends: Elsa, who is also Jewish, and Max, who is not. Their two narratives explore, truthfully and therefore disturbingly, what happened to those who did not escape, and why anyone co-operated with the Nazi regime. An exceptional read.

The Valley of Lost Secrets by Lesley Parr
Bloomsbury £6.99, age 8-12
A story of wartime evacuees sent to a mining village in Wales, Parr’s debut is a beautifully told novel. Jimmy is more resistant than his six-year-old little brother, Ronnie, to the welcome of the couple who take them in, longing for his London home. But the couple’s warmth, a disturbing discovery in the hills, conflict in the village and shifts in his relationships with other evacuees eventually give him a sense of belonging.

The Upper World by Femi Fadugba
Penguin £7.99, age 11+
This sci-fi drama is written by a physicist who has based his ideas about time travel on real science. Set in Peckham, south London, this is the dual narrative of a teenage boy, Esso, affected by a gang culture he doesn’t subscribe to, and of a fostered girl, Rhia, 15 years in the future, who meets Esso when he is older, and blind. Circumstances are largely against the two of them, but they share the possibility of changing their stories.

Oddity by Eli Brown, illustrated by Karin Rytter, cover by Teagan White
Walker Books £7.99, age 11-14
This original fantasy novel is set in the wild landscapes of an alternative America on the brink of a war with France in around the 1800s and follows Clover, a doctor’s daughter, in a world of “oddities” — objects with magical powers. Illustrated with striking woodcuts, this is a book to lose yourself in and come out of with new visions.

The Climbers by Keith Gray
Barrington Stoke £7.99, age 12+ (reading age 8+)
This dyslexia-friendly novella, for any audience, is the narrative of a 15-year-old boy, the best tree-climber in his village, who encounters a rival, an interloper, “Nottingham”, named after the city he comes from. A contest ensues, to reach the top, that is a turning point in both their lives.

The Supreme Lie by Geraldine McCaughrean
Usborne £8.99, age 12+
This latest from double Carnegie medal-winner Geraldine McCaughrean is the story of Gloria, a 15-year-old maid in an alternative 1920s who is obliged to impersonate her employer, the Suprema, the tyrannical ruler of a state in a crisis. The tale, involving rich and poor, refugees and factory workers, reveals how the media can lie to manipulate opinion, how hard it can be in power to make just decisions, and ultimately how we need to look after each other in society.

The Outlaws Scarlett & Browne by Jonathan Stroud
Walker Books £7.99, age 12+
Jonathan Stroud is an exceptional world-builder. The dystopian setting is like Britain as we know it but changed by a climate cataclysm. The two teenage central characters are defiant outcasts thrown together by chance and surviving by bank robberies and their wits. Stroud keeps all plates spinning: adventure, fantasy, humour, mystery.

Shades of Scarlet by Anne Fine
David Fickling £10.99, age 11+
Teenage Scarlet finds her parents very disappointing. Especially when her mother decides to move out and her father does nothing to stop it. She takes small acts of revenge, but as this story unfolds, she learns that their choices do not have to dictate all of hers. As an exploration of relationships — of children, parents and new partners, friends and siblings — this rite-of-passage story is compelling, entertaining, insightful and kind.

Forever Ends on Friday by Justin A Reynolds
Macmillan £7.99, age 11+
This what-if novel about loss celebrates life, asking the questions: what would you do with the rest of your life if you knew you were about to die? And would you want to know? Jamal loses someone but has the chance to bring him back, briefly. Written with warmth and wisdom, it is a lighter read than its theme suggests, notwithstanding lumps in the throat.

For young adults

Endgame by Malorie Blackman
Penguin £7.99, age 15+
This final Noughts and Crosses book is a tense kidnapping story and a murder mystery. The multiple narrative keeps us guessing and ultimately offers some closure of the original romance between Callum and Sephy, and hope for their children.

Grow by Luke Palmer
Firefly £7.99, age 14+
Since Josh lost his father to a terrorist bomb, he has withdrawn from his friends. Because of this he becomes a recruitment target for far-right white supremacists who seek to exploit his anger and grief. Daring to express the arguments that tempt Josh, this novel explores the dangers, the manipulative methods and the appeal of such extremism.

Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock
Faber £7.99, age 14+
This crossover collection of linked short stories set in Colorado, Montana and Alaska is a beautifully crafted exploration of life in small towns, with their baseball teams, summer camps, teenage sex, abusive authority figures and scary disappearances of small children. Revelatory moments accumulate and recurrent names bind the stories together.

First Day of My Life by Lisa Williamson
David Fickling £12.99, age 13+
This young adult novel is about friendship and parenthood in many forms. It involves a distressing mystery — the theft of a baby and another disappearance — and centres on three characters: demonstrative would-be actor Frankie; her super-organised best friend, JoJo; and her handsome ex-boyfriend, Ram. It is a moral story about overcoming self-interest to look after others, and a compelling drama.