Reading for pleasure has sunk to its lowest level in two decades. What to do about it? First, put away your phone. Yes, you – because parents reading on screens discourage their kids from discovering books. Second, go to a bookshop and hunt for good stories. Third, do not follow publishing fashions created by money. Be more like Robin Hood!
Bethan Woollvin’s spirited reworking of Robin Hood (Two Hoots, £12.99, 3+) has a rebellious girl with a Rachel Reeves bob. The greedy Sheriff she steals from is himself a thief – preferable to, say, a farmer. Robin fights the Sheriff and nicks back his loot in a lively escapade full of mischief and mayhem.
Pure seaside joy is celebrated in Enchanted Beach, by Esther Freud and Emma Chinnery (Walker, £12.99). A child and a dog’s exuberant delight in playing in all seasons will get anyone age 3 + in the holiday mood.
Chris Riddell’s A Mermaid’s Diary (Macmillan, £12.99) will enchant 7+ beachcombers. Illustrated with a bewitching wit and elegance, and with slippery literary jokes and puns to amuse adults, it recounts how a shy young mermaid, Atalanta, fights plans to develop Sleepy Cove into a luxury seaside golf resort.
There’s more watery action in Becca Rogers’ The Girl with Gills (Zephyr, £7.99), in which people are divided into lubbers (us) and outcast larkers (with gills) who live in secret communities as mudlarkers surviving on their wits. Effra’s brother is snatched, and she must venture into the Rat Queen’s underwater lair to get him back. Suspenseful storytelling and an engaging writing style make this delightfully imaginative fun for 8+.
Piers Torday’s Letters to a Dog (Barrington Stoke, £7.99, 8+) is written in an antique form – that is, letters – as Jamie is in hospital awaiting a heart operation. His mum is dead and his dad refuses to speak to him, so Jamie pours his heart out in letters to the dog he longs for. To his amazement, the dog writes back. This funny, heartbreaking and uplifting short novel brims with the emotional intelligence we expect from a master storyteller and animal lover.
Another delicious fantasy adventure is Sarah Merrett’s A Place of a Thousand Wishes (Everything With Words, £8.99, 9+), centring on a staple summer treat. Mason makes the best ice cream in the world, but when a sinister stranger asks for one, our hero’s means of earning a living is smashed. The mysterious magician Wish Maker might help him beat his enemy. However, magic comes at a price…
So does fame in Hollywood, and the children’s laureate, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, has more experience of it than most. The Blockbusters! (Macmillan, £12.99, 9+) is a captivating blend of comedy, adventure and lunacy as his hero Rafa’s striking likeness to a film star gives him and his friends access to a banquet of doughnuts – and trouble. Meanwhile, his big brother Cilian is missing, and Rafa has to find where he is in a movie wonderland where, happily, no gift is as great as that of the gab.
Ross Montgomery’s Small Wonder (Walker, £7.99) is one of those non-stop tales of epic adventure you long for at 9-11 but rarely get. Tick and his little brother must leave their familiar forest to tell the King their country is being invaded by the cruel Drene – but they have limited time to do so. Galloping on the dauntless and intelligent Pebble, they outwit bandits, escape killers, rescue knights and – look, just buy it. Montgomery’s dynamic prose is magic, setting children up for pure enjoyment.
A rare French novel for 11+ is Clementine Beauvais’s Piglettes (Pushkin Press, £9,99). Mirella, Astrid and Hakima have been voted the three ugliest girls in school by their classmates. Instead of crying, the Piglettes get on their bikes and cycle hundreds of miles to Paris, defiantly scoffing delicious food, bent on finding fame and fortune. If it means that our narrator has to see her dad, a famous philosopher who refuses to acknowledge her existence, then her fabulously rude turn of phrase will be more than equal to it. Witty, empowering and irresistibly bonkers, this is a treat for those dreading secondary school, or puberty.
My top choice for teenagers isn’t marketed for them but is nevertheless perfect for 13+. The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson (Hodderscape, £22) is an utterly engrossing epic fantasy about a poor, despised, young High Scholar, trying to find out who the killer of her rival is and to stay alive in a brutal Hunger Games-style contest. Political intrigue, stupendous world-building and sardonic humour make this one to light up the holidays. The heroine is, of course, an avid reader.
[See also: 150 years of the bizarre Hans Christian Andersen]
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This article appears in the 07 Aug 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Summer Special 2025