Our summer reading guide: 10 terrific books for children

Times

3 hours ago

One of my favourite books of the year so far, this is Adrian Mole for the gaming generation. Nathanael Lessore is a rising star and his latest tale, about a wisecracking introvert who suddenly finds popularity through an online alter ego, has had my 11-year-old son in stitches. The whip-smart dialogue really captures the way he and his friends speak. Beneath the jokes, there's real emotional depth to this cautionary tale about balancing your online life with your real one. It also provides youngsters with the added pleasure of explaining — tweensplaining? — all the slang terms to the adults in their lives. A brilliant read for tween boys (and girls) everywhere. Hot Key £8.99 pp320Buy a copy of What Happens Online
There's no shortage of children's adventure stories set in ye olde London, but this one stands ragged shoulders above the rest. It's the 1830s and street urchins are vanishing. Strange figures are shadowing the markets and something's lurking in the sewers. No one seems to care apart from Cassia Thorne, a debtor's daughter who scrapes a living selling ballads at Bartholomew Fair. Determined to solve the mystery, she teams up with Teo, an orphan based on the children who really were trafficked from Italy to London to work as street musicians. Their world is made vivid in this sophisticated and exciting adventure, inspired by Dickens's Little Dorrit. Outstanding.Simon & Schuster £7.99 pp336Buy a copy of Deep Dark
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Geraldine McCaughrean has been described as 'one of the greatest living children's authors' and this novel — her 170th — is a masterclass in urgent, powerful storytelling. It follows the fates of four young Londoners who forge a close friendship when they make a split decision to avoid evacuation and flee back to the bombed out, rubble-strewn neighbourhood they call home. The world of the Blitz is brought into raw, flaming life. It feels like plunging into one of those black-and-white Pathé film reels and finding everything in colour. Although the setting may be historical, the issues of peace, conflict, forgiveness and revenge are anything but. Brutal, beautiful and wise.Usborne £8.99 pp288Buy a copy of Under a Fire-Red Sky
The words 'blank verse' and 'baseball' don't float your boat? No matter, because Black Star is wonderful whether you like sport or not. It's not really about baseball at all; it's about being a black 12-year-old girl in 1920s Virginia. In this age of shortened concentration spans, blank verse is the perfect format, distilling big ideas into short and snappy stories that deliver plenty of literary bang for their buck. As always, Kwame Alexander's writing zings with confidence. Come for the quick read, stay for the crash course in the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks and Harlem Renaissance pioneers such as Langston Hughes. 'This ball's on fire, better sound the alarm.'Andersen £14.99 pp384Buy a copy of Black Star
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Another blank verse novel, but this time with a very northern English accent. Nate has just navigated a difficult final year of primary school but now a new world of anxieties and expectations lies ahead. It's called … secondary school. 'Teachers with tans wear new start smiles: Welcome, welcome. This way to the hall. This must be how gladiators felt on their way to the arena.' This is a big-hearted book with moments of lyricism and a little bit of grit. It's honest and relatable but never miserable. A particularly good read for primary school-leavers who are about to take their first flight to secondary school.Otter-Barry £9.99 pp480Buy a copy of The First Year
Published just ahead of the Uefa Women's Euros next month, this manual covers 'all the football skills every fan and player needs to know'. Using photographs of the talented young boy and girl players from Oadby Owls, a community club in Leicestershire, each page features how-to tips on different aspects of the game, from perfecting your first touch to placing a shot. Design is the biggest selling point here: the book is light on text and big on photographs and diagrams. According to the author and 'football mum' Katie Daynes, the manual aims to help 'all those parents who spent their weekends supporting grassroots football […] understand and appreciate the game better'.Usborne £7.99 pp104Buy a copy of Football Skills
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Osamu Tezuka, the 'godfather of manga', died before he could give one of his beloved characters an ending. Almost 50 years later the baton has been passed to the American writer Samuel Sattin, and the artist duo known as Gurihiru to complete the tale of Unico. And what an enchanting reboot it is. The artwork does justice to the cinematic sweep of Tezuka's work, and the story of a 'brave, young unicorn' lost in time and space, spreading love wherever he goes, while struggling to remember who he is or where he came from, will appeal to a broad range of age groups, from eight upwards. Spellbinding.Scholastic £10.99 pp224Buy a copy of Unico
As Dolly Parton said: 'It takes a lot of time and money to look this cheap' — and a lot of clever plotting has gone into this ridiculously escapist thriller. Two teenage girls meet on a train. One is a spoilt brat who is being sent to a Swiss rehab centre as punishment for her wild behaviour. The other is a skint backpacker with her own secrets. They hatch a cunning plan to swap identities. Each steps off the train into the other's life — on the condition they will return to the same spot to swap back in six weeks' time. Cue a cat and mouse game between two supremely scheming frenemies that ricochets around Europe until a very unexpected denouement in the … Isles of Scilly. Preposterous, improbable and lots of fun.Penguin £9.99 pp368Buy a copy of The Other Girl
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Giddy up for a pony story with a twist. Forget Follyfoot and My Friend Flicka, this is a surreal and quirky survival story set in the kind of New Zealand you don't usually see in the tourism adverts. A grieving 12-year-old girl runs away from home with her mother's ashes and her most trusted companion, 'a nuggety little bay' named Tooth. There are criminals, a genuine sense of peril, and themes of grief and family breakdown. And did I mention the horse talks? Tender but never twee, it's an indie movie just waiting to happen. I loved it.Andersen £7.99 pp220Buy a copy of Ride North
The Notwitches is a triumph of nonsense. There's no message. There's no big 'ishoo'. It is a celebration of silliness for silliness's sake, and hallelujah for that. (For all the hand-wringing over the reading for pleasure crisis, it's often forgotten that books like this make reading fun in the first place.) Gary Panton earned his comedy stripes writing for The Beano, Hey Duggee and Bluey so knows a thing or two about entertaining little ones. His first children's book features a young girl called Melanda who runs away from her three horrid aunts. It revolves almost entirely around the increasingly surreal conversations with the gnomes, mermaids and sleepy rock monsters she meets along the way. Well, I say mermaids; these ones are reversed: 'Top half of fish. Bottom half of a lady.' They run around on the sand, 'Sounding their siren call, 'hiya!'' Cheeky and refreshing, with an old-fashioned dose of innocence.Chicken House £7.99 pp304Buy a copy of The Notwitches