HOWZAT

For 7-9s who think that wee, bums and farts are funny, Anthony McGowan's The Bare Bum Gang and the Football Face-Off (Red Fox £4.99) is the thing, about a gang that is useless at football but has to win a match. Likely to appeal even to reluctant readers because it is funny and uninhibitedly improper, it is also well observed about boys and their attitude to girls. Shame about the boring illustrations.

Also better than its pictures is Marcus Chown's Felicity Frobisher and the Three-Headed Aldebaran Dust Devil (Faber £4.99), a slim volume, sadly illustrated in the style of Cartoon Network, that, as the title suggests, requires quite a sophisticated reading level. The wacky story of a girl who takes an alien into school, and is taken into space in return, is underpinned with real science.

What you want in the holidays is a laugh, and Kaye Umansky does the business. Clover Twig and the Incredible Flying Cottage (Bloomsbury £5.99) chattily tells a story of triumphant silliness about Clover, who answers a witch's ad for a “Storng gril to cleen”, and opens a cupboard she shouldn't. Fun to read out, especially if you are good at voices and could do a dim cat called Neville.

9- to 11-year-olds
A book to last a lifetime and not just a summer is Trick of the Tale (Templar £19.99), John and Caitlin Matthews's stunning, slip-cased volume of 20 compellingly told trickster tales from around the world, from Brer Rabbit to Ananse. It is lavishly illustrated with astonishing skill: Tomislav Tomic's minutely detailed, decoratively composed, black-and-white drawings of animals are both accurate and spookily anthropomorphic. For 7-10s.

Primary-school children should not miss Allan Ahlberg's Collected Poems (Puffin £14.99), illustrated by Charlotte Voake, which is assembled from five earlier volumes, and is full of observation and wistfulness, rolling rhythms, wordplay and humour. The point is fun, but some move one to tears. One to take turns reading aloud on lazy days.

The prolific Diana Wynne Jones has produced another inventive extravaganza in The House of Many Ways (HarperCollins £14.99), about an overprotected girl who house-sits for a wizard, and finds herself having to deal with laundry and lubbocks (deadly purple creatures) while helping a king. Fertile, funny and satirical, it is perfect for children who like to lose themselves in other worlds.

A wonderful debut for readers of 10+ that hooks you from the first page is Ingrid Law's Savvy (Puffin £5.99), about a small-town girl who acquires a magical talent on her 13th birthday. A quirky feel-good narrative with the homespun warmth of Garrison Keillor or Sharon Creech, it has a read-on plot mostly involving a bus journey, plus arresting metaphors, engaging characters, and a charming romance. It will make readers believe in their own talents.

Meanwhile, few talents in contemporary children's books match Philip Reeve's, and Starcross (Bloomsbury £6.99), the sequel to his story of Victorian space travel, Larklight, proves his quality once again, as Myrtle and Jack take a train to the Asteroid Belt. Delighting in orotund Victorian diction and enhanced by David Wyatt's fabulous Mervyn-Peakeish illustrations, it is, as the book might put it, “truly first-class, cunning, most intriguing and a trifle dark”.

And two unmissable books already reviewed on these pages: Eva Ibbotson's two-pronged tale of an experimental school in Devon and a European monarchy under threat from the Nazis, The Dragonfly Pool (Macmillan £10.99), and Frank Cottrell Boyce's comedy, Cosmic, about theme parks, space exploration and fatherhood (Macmillan £9.99).

12+
The Island by Armin Greder (Allen & Unwin £11.99) is a picturebook, but is not beneath the attention of teens. It is an extraordinary parable about refugees. A naked man is washed up on an island, where the inhabitants treat him with suspicion, won't give him a job, and, finally, work themselves up into a state of fear and hatred and send him to his death, turning their island into a fortress that won't accept strangers. The dark, expertly drawn, charcoal images, with references to Munch and Fuseli, would stimulate teenagers interested in art and anyone interested in society.

By contrast, The Luxe by Anna Godbersen (Puffin £6.99) is sumptuous and glossy like the ball gown on its cover. It is Edith Wharton meets Desperate Housewives, a tale of convoluted relationships in New York society at the turn of the century. About rivalry in love and a mysterious death, it has just enough neatness of phrase to make it the better kind of schlock.

Tanya Landman's Apache told the story of the Wild West from the point of view of the Native Americans. The Goldsmith's Daughter (Walker £6.99) does the same with the Spanish conquest of Mexico, seeing it through the eyes of an Aztec girl. The story can be shocking, and there are modern attitudes in its account of a girl who is secretly allowed to be a goldsmith and falls for a conquistador, but the place and culture are vividly imagined.

Sarah Singleton writes intense stories in prose that manages to be both richly textured and colloquial. The Amethyst Child (Simon & Schuster £6.99) is an edgy story, full of threat (and some romance), about a lonely 14-year-old who takes up with an alternative “community” that puts her in serious danger - especially when she finds herself locked in a cellar with a man who puts a gun to her head. Yet the experiences she survives teach her to take risks.

Keith Gray is an exceptional writer for teens. In Ostrich Boys (Definitions £5.99) he applies his light touch to big themes, as a bunch of 15-year-old youths take revenge on the people who made the life of their friend Ross a misery and then showed up at his funeral. Funny, page-turning and profound.

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