Fiction for children over 11 has gone from strength to strength, with the climax to J.K.Rowling's series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Bloomsbury, £17.99/offer £16.19), tying up all the narrative strands of her long and complex magical thrillers into one satisfying bow. For those inspired by The Golden Compass, there is a new edition of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy also out from Scholastic (£10.99/£9.89 each), with wonderful maps of Lyra's world (intriguingly similar, yet different to our own).

Stand-alones

Much children's fiction is now composed like the Victorian novel, in series, but the stand-alone books that stand out are plentiful too. For the youngest, Will Gatti's The Greek and the Pimpernel (Orchard, £5.99/£5.69) is a witty and captivating revamp of the Scarlet Pimpernel, set in a school dominated by bullies (a sequel, Rip Runner, is planned for next year). Curiously, the Pimpernel is also echoed in Sally Gardner's The Red Necklace (Orion, £9.99/£9.49). Peopled with thrilling characters, and gorgeously suspenseful in its description of how the gypsy boy Yan and aristocratic Sidonie rescue each other from the French Revolution, this is one of the best books of all for 11-13s.

Mary Hoffman's The Falconer's Knot (Bloomsbury, £12.99/£11.69) is another delightful historical thriller, set in and around a monastery in murderous Renaissance Tuscany. Nicola Morgan's The Highwayman's Curse (Walker, £6.99/£6.64) and Paul Dowswell's Battle Fleet (Blooms-bury, £12.99/£11.69) each take on the evils of Georgian England and the individuals who made it great in memorably well-written adventures.

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For those who prefer modern settings, Siobhan O'Dowd's The London Eye Mystery (David Fickling, £8.99/ £8.54) has mystery, originality and sympathy in a tale of how a boy with Asperger's solves the disappearance of his cousin from a sealed pod on the London landmark. Jenny Valentine's Finding Violet Park (HarperCollins, £5.99/£5.69) weaves touchingly funny teen angst into a detective story about a jar of ashes left in a taxi. Meg Rosoff's What I Was (Puffin, £10.99/£9.89) is one of the best teen books of the year — a mordantly funny tragedy of first love and last rites.

Fiona Dunbar's Toonhead (Orchard, £9.99/£9.49) is about a boy who foretells the future when he draws, and gets kidnapped by gangsters as a result. Steve Voake's The Starlight Conspiracy (Faber, £12.99/ £11.69) blended alien technology, a hunt by the CIA across England and the US and a touching tale about love. Excellent, life-enhancing reads, each one.

There were notable debuts for 11+ from new children's authors, too. Matt Haig's The Shadow Forest (Bodley Head, £9.99/£9.49) had two orphaned children staying with a glum, eccentric aunt on the edge of a forest where sinister magic is at work. Norse myth and nastiness combine in a deliciously creepy adventure. F.E.Higgins's The Black Book of Secrets (Macmillan, £5.99/£5.69) bristles with marvellously macabre details as an urchin teams up with a mysterious stranger and inspires a cowed village to stand up to thuggery.

Sequels

Favourite authors of sequels did not disappoint. Anthony Horowitz's best Alex Rider adventure, Snakehead (Walker, 12.99/£11.69), has the teenage spy recruited by the Australian Government to penetrate a people-smuggling gang and being chased for his body parts by traffickers. Charlie Higson's Young James Bond is really hitting his stride in Hurricane Gold (Puffin, £12.99/£11.69), in a chase through the wilds of South America. Michelle Paver's Torak must survive without his beloved Wolf in Outcast (Orion, £9.99/£9.49), which reveals not just his resilience but his best friend Renn's parentage. Joseph Delaney's Spook's Battle (Bodley Head, £9.99/£9.49) features two exceptionally creepy sisters rising from their coffin-like boxes to defend our hero from the Devil, while Darren Shan's Demon Apocalypse (HarperCollins, £12.99/£11.69) has the final show-down between humans and Lord Loss.

Younger readers will adore the second in Carole Wilkinson's superb Dragonkeeper series, Garden of the Purple Dragon (Macmillan, £8.99/ £8.54), in which the heroine Ping has to bring up the baby dragon Kai and protect him not just from the Emperor, but from his own tantrums. All of these are marvellously enjoyable, thoughtful and well-written, and would make excellent presents to those addicted to earlier works.

Book of the year

One novel stands out above all others — Catherine Fisher's Incarceron (Hodder, £5.99/£5.69). At first confusing, this thrilling novel about people trying to escape from a living, sentient prison in which they are constantly spied-upon is a modern version of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, though given a better plot, people we care about and a prose style honed by decades of writing poetry.

Its imaginative scale and gob-smacking finale make it one of the best fantasy novels written for a long time. Long after it's finished your child will be asking questions about the nature of reality, trust and good Government — as well as enjoying the heroic quest that only children's fiction now bothers to give readers.

Bestsellers 2007

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

J.K. Rowling

Bloomsbury, £17.99

Bookbuyers give the bespectacled wizard a fitting send-off.

2. High School Musical

Parragon, £3.99

3. The Girls' Book

Juliana Foster

Buster, £7.99

4. Princess Megan and the Magical Tiara

Vivian French Orchard, £1

5. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

J.K. Rowling

Bloomsbury, £7.99

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