Embattled as we are by the unintelligent prescriptions of the national curriculum, we desperately need good history books. Yet while nonfiction is storming ahead with series such as Terry Deary’s Horrible Histories, historical fiction has never regained the heights it achieved in the 1960s when books by Geoffrey Trease, Roger Lancelyn Green and Rosemary Sutcliffe made us all history boys and girls.

One writer who is helping to fill the gap is Caroline Lawrence, whose Roman Mysteries series deserves its devoted following. The Colossus of Rhodes takes our quartet of multicultural detectives out of the city and across the sea towards Greece, into danger at the hands of a brutal slave-dealer. Though its dialogue lacks subtlety, it compensates with a lively, detailed knowledge of classical history.

Eleanor Updale’s burglar-turned-gentleman, Montmorency, is now middle-aged, and anxious for the safety of his friend’s nephew, Frank. The rise of both trade unionism and the Mafia in Italy, England and America put the young aristocrat at the heart of a conspiracy in Montmorency and the Assassins, and he has to use every scrap of acting ability learnt from our hero to survive. A complex and satisfying thriller, its enjoyable features include advances in Victorian radiology, and the intertwining of real-life people such as Edison and Puccini with a fictional cast.

There is even more derring-do with Michael Molloy’s Peter Raven Under Fire, a Hornblower for youngsters that will make them experts on Napoleonic naval techniques in the wake of a terrific, rip-roaring adventure about slaves, piracy and the Caribbean.

K. M. Grant’s Green Jasper, the sequel to her excellent debut, Blood Red Horse, is set in the time of Richard the Lionheart. The crusades feature heavily in Key Stage 3 history, and this swashbuckling romance about a kidnapped bride and a noble horse loved by both Christian and Muslim is a romping read.

For students of the Victorian era, Dorothy Edwards’s A Strong and Willing Girl is also captivating. It is based on her aunt’s experiences of being in service as a 10-year-old in 1887, and displays an artless authenticity that charms.

Of nonfiction books, Paul Dowswell’s Introduction to the Second World War, written under the auspices of the Imperial War Museum, is superb. It lays out information in clear, vivid paragraphs, lavishly illustrated by dramatic, period photographs. The Battle of Britain, the defeat of Japan and the role of the Resistance are covered in detail, and the book offers recommendations for film and TV, plus valuable links to the internet. Highly recommended.

Book House has had the inspired idea of turning the lives of great leaders into graphic novels. Each has four pages of biographical overview, then plunges into Marvel comic-style action accounts of the lives of such figures as Queen Elizabeth I, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Hernán Cortes and Spartacus, with battles and murder looming large. It isn’t Art Spiegelman, but an amazing amount of information is packed into this dramatic format, which will persuade reluctant junior historians to keep reading.

The most enchanting history book of all, however, is Egyptology. Purporting to be the diaries of Miss Emily Sands, an archaeologist in 1926, its pages contain a mysterious curse, a game of senet, fabulous foldouts and much information. The burnished gold cover, with its jewelled Horus, enthrals children even before they open it and fall in love with the past — which is what all history books should make us do, but seldom manage.

The Colossus of Rhodes (9+) by Caroline Lawrence (Orion, £8.99; offer £7.64, call 0870 1608080).

Montmorency and the Assassins (10+) by Eleanor Updale (Scholastic, £12.99; offer £10.39).

Peter Raven Under Fire (10+) by Michael Molloy (Chicken House, £12.99; offer £10.39).

Green Jasper (10+) by K. M. Grant (Puffin, £4.99; offer £4.24).

A Strong and Willing Girl (9+) by Dorothy Edwards (Jane Nissen, £6.99; offer £5.94).

Introduction to the Second World War (11+) by Paul Dowswell (Usborne, £12.99; offer £10.39).

Book House graphic nonfiction series (9+): Hernán Cortes: The Life of a Spanish Conquistador; Elizabeth I: The Life of England’s Tudor Queen; Spartacus: The Life of a Roman Gladiator; Julius Caesar: The Life of a Roman General; all £6.99 each, offer £5.94 each.

Egyptology (7+) by Emily Sands, Templar, £17.99, offer £14.39

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