With thrilling new novels by Eoin Colfer, Eva Ibbotson and Anthony Horowitz already out this summer, can children ask for any more books to keep them happy? Yes, if they are as good as this month’s crop of fantasy fiction.

The first, Darren Shan’s Lord Loss (Collins, £12.99; offer £10.39), should come with a health warning. It is not for children under 12, and those who do read it should be immune to nightmares.

Grubbs, a surly teenager, returns home and finds his parents and sister eviscerated by three demons out of Hell, but his troubles have only just begun. Nobody believes in Lord Loss, and it’s only when his uncle Dervish rescues him from a lunatic asylum that Grubbs begins to understand the nature of the ancient curse on his family — forcing them to play chess for the souls of those they love against a demon. Utterly unputdownable.

Garth Nix’s new series, The Keys to the Kingdom, has seven magical adventures, each corresponding to a day of the week. Modest and asthmatic, Arthur faces the herculean task of reuniting the Will of all creation, and wresting it away from the Days who are letting in Nothing. In Drowned Wednesday (Collins, £5.99; offer £4.49), animals on stamps struggle into life to transport letters, an immortal is transformed into a ravenous whale and Arthur is given a most useful pair of Immaterial Boots to keep his feet dry. Pinocchio crossed with Treasure Island makes for a rip-tide of adventure to sweep kids of 9-plus on to the high seas.

Here they may also encounter Justin Somper’s Vampirates, a grisly crew who save Grace while she is escaping with her twin, Conor, from an orphanage. Conor must learn to be a pirate but Grace stays locked inside her cabin until dawn, for if anyone but her saviour discovers that there is fresh meat on board, then she will join the fate of the other human beings. Although it ends on a maddening cliffhanger, the first in the Vampirates series, Demons of the Ocean (Simon & Schuster, £5.99; offer £4.49), is a clever combination of two genres that could make it as popular as Pirates of the Caribbean among bloodthirsty under-12s.

Catherine Fisher’s remarkable Oracle trilogy, whose first book, The Oracle, was short-listed for the Whitbread, comes to its conclusion in The Scarab (Hodder & Stoughton, £5.99; offer £4.49). Set in a desert land where rain comes through intercession with the Rain Queen goddess, and a small, mad boy is the god Archon incarnate, it uses Greek and Egyptian myth with forceful intelligence.

Here the dictator Argelin is tearing down ancient statues and trying to kill the female priesthood. Only the criminal underworld defies him, and Mirany, the heroine, must go through death to save them all. Especially appealing to girls of 11-plus.

There is more to life and children’s literature than Harry Potter or, indeed, any of the more heavily hyped children’s books. Try these.

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