Booklist

Jon Berkeley
The Palace of Laughter
Simon and Schuster (413 pages) 9781416910718
After a strangely lulling opening comes a somewhat different and gripping story about Miles Wednesday, an orphan who lives in a barrel. His life is disrupted when an odd circus visits and he rescues a small girl with wings, leading into a long, hazardous quest. There's a large cast of characters. The humans vary from a lady with an abundance of cats to a gang of children gone wild; then there's a tiger, a caged beast, a couple of angels and more. The style is witty and becomes quite poetic in places but the intriguing progress of the story carries all before it.

Luc Besson translated by Ellen Sowchek
Arthur and the Forbidden City
Faber (188 pages) 9780571226054
The author comes to writing with experience in film and has created a miniature people, the Minimoys. Ten-year-old Arthur follows his granpa by apparently disappearing and shrinking down into this world and the complexities of society there. An evil ruler, a princess and her brother, a journey to a forbidden city and a Great Book of Ideas are all elements in the saga that follows. While all this is happening, Arthur's parents are involved in an impending crisis which interlinks with his own adventure. It's all lively and suspenseful with the attraction of the sort of shrunken world which many young readers do seem to find enticing.

Philip Caveney
Sebastian Darke: Prince of Fools
Red Fox (377 pages) 9781862302518
In this medievalish fantasy Sebastian has inherited his father's role as a jester but unfortunately he has none of the necessary skills. Setting out to seek his fortune, with a caravan hauled by his talking buffalope, he meets the small fighting warrior Cornelius. Goodies and baddies are very obvious and the light-hearted action keeps moving from one episode to another with daring, luck and some determination. A number of very funny scenes occur with this odd assortment of characters and Sebastian is well served by the loyalty of his companions as evil is overcome and right wins through. There's a fast pace but an almost relaxed feel too for this highly enjoyable tale. A sequel is Sebastian Darke: Prince of Pirates.

Zizou Corder
Lee Raven: Boy Thief
Puffin (290 pages) 9780141322902
The two authors with one pseudonym who brought us the marvellous 'Lionboy' trilogy have come up with a book with the focal point of - a book! This book speaks and can adapt to being any book at all from the Beano to Shakespeare. A dishonest, unscrupulous writer of books for children plans and plots to obtain the book and plunder it for plots. But there's an unlikely boy hero who is illiterate and so just loves the words of the stories the book tells as he cannot read any for himself. The setting is the year 2046, which gives rise to some fine humorous touches and references to current bestsellers. The story is revealed through a number of voices. Lee Raven is a super creation, and although the focus of the book is the act of reading and enjoying story, it is fast and very engaging which makes the point in itself. A brilliantly original read indeed.

Julia Golding
The Ship Between the Worlds
Oxford (238 pages) 9780192754837
In just a few years an amazing number of really good books have arrived from this prolific writer, including a very popular 'The Companions Quartet'. In this story the solitary, but harmless, making of a ship in a bottle turns into a real situation as bullies' victim David Jones finds himself press-ganged aboard the very ship he's modelled. Pirates and buccaneers are all the rage and young David is caught in the middle of exciting times, as he is marooned, rescued and trapped inside a maritime adventure. He is also caught between times and worlds with no way back until someone really cares, and that seems increasingly unlikely and impossible. There's a lot going on in this book, so much in fact that sequels must follow, but those who enjoy a complex mix will love this.

Matt Haig
Shadow Forest
Corgi (396 pages) 9780553555630
Following the deaths of their parents in an unusual motor accident, in the opening chapter, Samuel and Martha end up being sent to an aunt in Norway. Living hard by a forbidden forest is asking for trouble and sure enough it comes in bucket loads. All the lurking folk and beings of the darkest woodland play their part in this mix of frights, adventure and some humour. Old mysteries are revealed as the evil Changemaker gets his comeuppance.

F E Higgins
The Black Book of Secrets
Macmillan (298 pages + information) 9780330444057
In a most unusual opening Ludlow Flitch flees the cruelty of his parents and by chance and at night meets the pawnbroker, Joe Zabbidou. What Joe pawns are the innermost secrets the village folk of Pagus Parver tell him, during the hours of darkness, and he records these in his strange black book. Individual tales of thieving, murder, body-snatching all mount up but in the end lead to the demise of the bullying businessman who has held folk and their lives in thrall for years. This very different book with a wonderfully appropriate cover demands that anyone glancing at a page or two has to read on - and on.

Erin Hunter
Warrior Cats: A Dangerous Path
HarperCollins (352 pages) 9780007140060
This is the fifth of this series in which tribes of cats seem to be constantly in conflict over both territory and honour. In one form or another, animals in armour or in fighting bands are always finding a certain ready readership and the adversarial nature of cats has been adapted into a good strong series with many fans. In this story Fireheart has great responsibility for the Thunderclan owing to the illness of the leader, Bluestar. But the threat of Tigerclaw and awful renegade dogs proves all too real and disaster seems inevitable.

Katherine Langrish
Troll Blood
HarperCollins (398 pages) 9780007214860
The Troll Fell saga reaches a third volume with this dramatically covered and gorgeously scary book. Peer and Hilde are growing older with each book and now they board a Viking ship bound for the distant Vinland. The thrilling tale of loyalty, artifice and daring is supported, reinforced and strengthened by the author's knowledge of Norse life and lore and specific research into the landings on American soil. Much informed detail is very skilfully incorporated into events making each of the three of these terrifically compelling books into most satisfying reads.

Michael Lawrence
The Iron, the Switch and the Broom Cupboard
Orchard (339 pages) 9781846164712
The delightfully punning title leads into one more story of the effervescent Jiggy McCue who is transported to a warped version of his familiar world through hiding in a broom cupboard. Some experience of previous books would be a help here where our hero has become Juggy and meets recognisable variants of his friends, but the book does stand alone. In the extreme but very well-paced silliness poor Jiggy - Juggy has to enter an Extreme Contest involving - ironing! Will he ever escape from endless piles of ironing? Read on with wholesale laughter all round.

Paul Magrs
Doctor Who: Sick Building
BBC Books (256 pages) 9781846072697
There is such a multiplicity of books linked to The Doctor that I suspect only the most ardent fan knows how to keep track of them all. This example is listed as 'New Series Adventure 17' and is one of the crop of novels published in 2007 and featuring, as the cover montage shows, the David Tennant Doctor with Martha as his companion. It is not written for the young but will be thoroughly enjoyed by many. When lots of tie-in books appear in such quick succession it might mean a shoddy approach to quality but some excellent writers have been commissioned for these editions and there's some really good reading to be found in the books. Paul Magrs is quite rightly a much praised and admired novelist but I doubt if many knowledgeable followers of books for children would associate the title 'Sick Building' with his recent works. The story is set on a planet with a wintry climate and beasts including sabre-toothed tigers. The inhabitants, the Tiermans, live in an automated isolated Dreamhome but this idyll is threatened by the approach of an alien, the Voracious Craw. There are new characters alongside the Doctor and Martha as things get increasingly, and inevitably, desperate and their predicament appears to be impossible.

Graham Marks
Kai-Ro
Usborne (256 pages) 9780746078884
Graham Marks is a master at devising brilliant plotlines. He's written some superb books for very much older young adults as well as some short thrillers, such as Faultline, currently being republished by Catnip. This fantasy is set in a future year of 2499 but awakens gods and powers from times ancient in our own day. Across from where an ominous new city is being built, the sort of self-glorification that dictatorial regimes impose, lives a rubbish scavenger lad, Stretch Wilson. His only companion is his dog as his father had been taken into slavery. Deep inside a veritable mountain of waste he finds something extraordinary that leads him into the new city with its half-finished pyramids. The forces his discovery unleashes are astonishing and lead to a complete reversal of the known order of things. This is a tremendous read as we follow the boy on his incredible, hair-raising journey out of the dust and despair of poverty and with the hope of the joy of being reunited with his father energising his efforts.

Graham Marks says: 'Boys do read - they often just choose to read and get their stories from things other than books, and there's nothing wrong with that. I believe there is a 'story fiend' somewhere in every boy, and the trick, it seems to me, is to entice, lure and tantalise it out. A great cover, it has to be said, does help a lot.'

Joshua Mowll
Operation Typhoon Shore
Walker (288 pages) 9781406305463
In the 1920s Rebecca MacKenzie and her brother Douglas are aboard the research ship of their uncle in far eastern seas. This drama is strictly in the Boys' Own mould with a shipwreck, a harshly run mining company and a continuing hunt for the children's missing parents. The whole thing is dressed up in so much very well-printed pseudo-scientific information and mechanical details with plans and diagrams that it is all very much part of the fantasy. For those to whom this sort of techno-tale appeals this is perfect.

Jenny Nimmo
Children of the Red King: Charlie Bone and the Wilderness Wolf
Egmont (384 pages) 9781405233168
This is Charlie Bone's sixth book. He has found his father and lost him again but knows full well he is safe and well. An odd mist with a tang of salt is in the air, the night silence is rent by weird howling, and Charlie's house has been searched by someone seeking something. There's a new boy at school, someone who gets under people's skin and gives them the shivers, someone with pale lips and eyes. Once more it is down to Charlie and his bravado to sort things out through the course of another of the sort of stories that have made this a very popular series.

Kjartan Poskitt illustrated by Philip Reeve
Urgum and the Seat of Flames
Scholastic (294 pages) 9781407104331
Urgum the Axeman made his debut in a previous book. He is a savage: very big, very strong, very smelly and very, very proud of it. He has seven savage sons, a resourceful daughter and 'the wifiest wife' in Divina. The surroundings are filled with monsters and enemies and over and above it all are vultures hoping for something dead to feed on as combat is frequent. The book is a non-stop laugh egged on by the small drawings of Philip Reeve. There are a lot of odd creatures to contend with, a 'Savage of the Year' award, and much fun with painful underwear. Altogether this has every element to reach out to boys with 'read me' writ large. Extremely clever codswallop rules!

Philip Reeve
A Darkling Plain
Scholastic (533 pages) 9780439943468
Mortal Engines was the first book of this superb sequence and it certainly is worth reading them all in order. Together they are a magnificent achievement with this book as the crowning glory. Comprehension of the geography and physics of movable towns is achieved with ease by writing of such quality; the two central characters of Tom and Hester are just wonderful; the twists and turns of the plot, the dangers, the short-term obstacles and the longer-term consequences are fascinating, and the way in which disparate pieces slot one into another is breathtaking.

Philip Reeve illustrated by David Wyatt
Starcross
Bloomsbury (347 pages) 9780747589136
The drawings of David Wyatt are a fully integrated element of the storytelling in this sequel to Larklight. The setting is a Victorian-type age but with extraordinary space travel and complex machinery of all kinds. It is all non-stop action, witty invention, crazy opposites clashing, and has a habit of bursting into songs of the popular music-hall persuasion. Everything is brim-full with a wonderful sense of being seriously ridiculous, of melodrama and of dangers galore around every planet and in every domestic utensil. There are dryly off-beat remarks and a roundabout approach to all manner of matter and incidents. Phenomenally grand, but totally unpretentious, knockabout fun.

S F Said illustrated by Dave McKean
The Outlaw Varjak Paw
Corgi (266 pages) 9780552551564
Here is a new adventure for 'The Kung-Fu Cat' and it is just as exciting and as full of twists and turns as the first book, Varjak Paw, a Nestlé Gold Award-winner. The adversary Sally Bones is after Varjak and his close companions Holly, Tam and Cludge the dog cannot help him. Good old strength of character is the key to success here and a tremendous story it is too. The stunning drawings are by Dave McKean who is well respected for much high quality graphic work. 'I think this book is fantastic', says a Chatterbooks reader. Precisely right!

Justin Somper
Vampirates: Blood Captain
Simon and Schuster (538 pages) 9781416901020
Two genres of endless fascination are mixed into one for a gripping series which began with Demons of the Ocean and continued with Tide of Terror. This title is the third. The seafaring and horror mixture and the way the tremendous plotline doesn't let up for a moment seem to sustain readers' persistence through the sheer bulk of these award-winning long books. The setting is 500 years hence and twins Conor and Grace are battling once more against Captain Diblo's objectionable nephew, Lorcan's blindness and a guru, Mosh Zu Kamal. The complexity of the plot, the intrigues and the situations simply do not lend themselves to a brief summary.

Ali Sparkes
The Shapeshifter: Stirring the Storm
Oxford (416 pages) 9780192754691
This is the fifth and final book in a sparklingly successful series that began with Finding the Fox. Dax is a boy with the highly enviable facility to metamorphose into a fox or a falcon. The thrills of these adventures are partly because this ability leads him into dangers as well as helping him to cope with them. In this story he has to choose between the opportunity to discover more about his dead mother and aiding his friends, all extraordinary in their own way, who seem to disappear in mysterious circumstances. Only Dax can save them from exploitation in this fitting climax to the series. Some touching moments are made all the more effective by the surrounding action.

Alex Williams
The Storm Maker
Macmillan (308 pages) 9780330450027
This story starts off as a little odd but rapidly exerts enormous charm and becomes irresistible. In a countryside ruled by a tyrant and his tyrannical mother who has everything in the grip of a constant bitter winter, the Breeze family craft of making and selling cooling fans suffers somewhat. But their clever mechanical skills prove all to the good as a journey further afield proves crucial, and eventually there are just deserts for all. Among all the action is the roguish, but far from bad, Sebastian Silver, and there is a multitude of fanciful technological devices integrated into the plot.