Remember Victorian ‘invasion literature’? It’s back
In Sarah Merrett’s thrilling debut, The Others, set in 1900, a young boy loses his astronomer grandmother – and finds a wounded alien
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In Sarah Merrett’s thrilling debut, The Others, set in 1900, a young boy loses his astronomer grandmother – and finds a wounded alien
‘Hyperbole’, ‘harried’, ‘onomatopoeia’ – Colossal Words for Kids, by Colette Hiller and Tor Freeman, will have clever young tongues wagging
Tom Percival’s novel, The Wrong Shoes, tells of a stoic young boy and his struggling father. It’s touching, albeit a little too spelled-out
The War Horse author returns with a semi-autobiographical tale about D-Day’s legacy, beautifully illustrated by Michael Foreman
In Dev Kothari’s delightful debut novel, Lena investigates her brother’s disappearance from an overnight express train in India
The children’s classic criticised for its ‘horrendous stereotypes’ was nonetheless made into a film. Then the real trouble began
Critics adored her gritty 1960 debut about a single mother: ‘she can suggest all the indignity of being sick in the Tube in half a sentence’
This edition, abridged by scholar Anjna Chouhan and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, manages to preserve astounding amounts of poetry
Clare Pollard’s first children’s book, The Untameables, puts a fresh spin on the Camelot myth with an adventuring 10-year-old hero
What Rosa Brought, which Jacob Sager Weinstein based on his mother’s childhood, is hauntingly told and sharply illustrated by Eliza Wheeler
The late Kate Saunders, it transpires, left behind A Drop of Golden Sun, a multi-layered story of children working on a war film
The Girl Who Wasn’t There is typically chatty and humorous, and led by a young heroine who sees what adults don’t
Miss Cat, a sleuthing tale by Joëlle Jolivet and Jean-Luc Fromental, blends an old-fashioned crime caper with a wonderfully eccentric mood
If you’re strapped for half-term fun, take some cues from Van Gogh and Hokusai, via Ruth Millington’s This Book Will Make You an Artist
Soren’s Seventh Song, the latest children’s book by the American novelist, is engaging and chatty, but about as subtle as its protagonist
Sam Sedgman’s novel The Clockwork Conspiracy is a thrilling romp that’s also packed with detail for budding horologists
Among new fantasy tales, Tamzin Merchant’s The Troublemakers stands out – sumptuously written and wonderfully inventive
She's sold 45 million print copies of hits like The Gruffalo – but does that fuel the industry, or come at the expense of rival authors?
The Minute Minders, a richly imaginative tale from Mary Murphy, takes the ‘little person’ framework and imbues it with new life
In Pádraig Kenny’s brilliant novel, two creations of Professor Hardacre – Stitch and Henry Oaf – attempt to escape from the lab and survive