Children’s and teens roundup – the best new chapter books

Edge-of-your-seat-type books are trickling further down the age range – not quite horror, but certainly creepy and thrill-laden. Two gripping summer reads stand out, probably best serving the key stage 2s on up.
The Last Life of Lori Mills (HarperCollins) by debut author and inveterate gamer Max Boucherat recalls a number of books and films that have blurred reality and virtuality, but Boucherat’s breathless voice and granular world creation zings off the page. Eleven-year-old Lori is unexpectedly home alone and determined to play Voxminer – her obsession – after her bedtime. Soon, she spots her own bedroom door inside the game. What follows, in reverse-order chapters, is a hair-raising romp through a swampy netherworld where her alter ego RoaryCat11 must use in-game ingenuity and IRL guts to outfox the scary Shade Girl and get back to her own room alive.
Poet and short fiction writer Mary Cathleen Brown’s The Tall Man (Everything With Words), meanwhile, is mired in weird old legends. Tom’s mother has finally left Rick, which means they must move to the only house she can afford – one with extra-high ceilings and doorways and weird lore attached. As his mother sinks into depression, Tom is forced to contend with a challenging new school and strange dreams of a trapped boy and his domineering tormentor. The past soon bleeds into the present, as our wry hero unravels the house’s historic secrets, in this highly inventive, beautifully written yarn.
Renowned sci-fi author Alastair Chisholm knows all about pacy plots. Reek (Barrington Stoke) is his latest, for a notable publisher breaking down accessibility barriers. Edinburgh’s air has become toxic and a tech bro controls the supply of oxygen. Young Sparrow works as a courier to support her family, and when a friend lends her an illicit air tank prototype she is both thrilled and worried. When that inventor ends up in hospital, she charges Sparrow with a message to take to her billionaire ex-colleague by any means necessary. This all-too-pertinent dystopian thriller is not just for so-called “reluctant” readers.
Further from these isles lie more adventures. The award-winning MT Khan’s second book, Amir and the Jinn Princess (Walker), traces the awakening of pampered Pakistani industrialist’s son Amir, locked in an unwanted Succession-style battle with his two siblings. The stray cat he is feeding, meanwhile, is actually a jinn – a trickster spirit with serious sibling troubles of her own. Pakistani folklore informs this twisty, fantastical tale of dynastic pressures and internecine strife, in which Amir’s eyes are opened to extractivist [removal of natural minerals from the earth] wrongdoings and the imperative to trust in those who share your values.
Surfer girl Maya, meanwhile, has to swap her familiar life on Britain’s rugged coast for a faraway tropical island when her father’s fishing boat is wrecked and the family seeks to rebuild anew. The power of the sea and the fallibility of grownups are just two themes running through Storm Child (Pushkin), Ele Fountain’s latest insightful look at the inner life of kids undergoing unwanted change. Culture shocks and hardships are balanced by the unexpected kindness of strangers and some terrific, show-not-tell writing.
If you see kids literally leaping on books this summer, you’ll know why. Grownup novelist Chibundu Onuzo’s debut for children, Mayowa and the Sea of Words (Bloomsbury), finds a new way to spin the power of a good read. Half-British, half-Nigerian Mayowa knows eccentrics run in her family. When she is unexpectedly sent to stay with her grandfather, she learns that the book-jumping antics unleash mysterious powers that channel a book’s emotions – an ability Mayowa shares. But others unknown are “logosaltering” to poison people’s thoughts. Mayowa must join forces with her reluctant grandfather on the eve of a vote in parliament on the refugee crisis to find out who is channelling all the fear and hate. The first in a trilogy, this inventive book brims with a sense of fun and possibility while tackling some of the major themes of our day.