Helping young readers find their literary legs

Children's Books:Starting to read alone should not mean the end of being read to. Sheila Waymanrounds up books for seven- to 10-year-olds that will also appeal to parents

Parents punish children for learning to read by withdrawing all the warmth and intimacy of reading aloud to them, says the creator of Horrid Henry, Francesca Simon. She's right - especially when there's at least one younger sibling, it's too easy to leave ones who can read to fend for themselves.

Just finding their literary legs at ages seven and eight, younger readers need to find books instantly appealing if they're going solo. And putting a great big picture of a mobile phone on the cover of Sandra Glover's latest, Message from Mia (Andersen Press, £4.99), guarantees attention from any 21st-century child.

But they won't be disappointed when they delve behind the cover. It's a story full of suspense as Jack tries to find out what really happened to his older sister, who had a terrible accident. That chronicler of people's private lives, the mobile phone, seems to hold the key to the mystery. With a smattering of teen romance, it's risqué enough to appeal to the inquiring mind but make a parent wonder if it's too much too young.

Even one mention of a suicide chat room on the internet in Vanishing Village, by Hazel Townson (Andersen Press, £4.99), does seem one too many for readers aged still in single figures. One of the story's strands, the fear that moody teenager Vern might kill himself to help highlight the lack of amenities for young people in the village, is disturbing. As is its cover, depicting a "falling man" from a burning church tower while other figures stand at the windows. But it's a moral tale in the end, with the youngsters collaborating to get results through political action.

A contemporary concern without such dark undertones is the theme of the delightfully funny Eco-Worriers: Penguin Problems, by Kathryn Lamb (Piccadilly Press, £5.99). The narrator, Lola, and her friend, Evie, despair of their families' indifference to global warming. Lola's embarrassment at her mother going blonde is compounded by the fact that she used a dye containing bleach rather than organic lemon juice, while Evie is mortified by her dad's 4x4. The discovery of a penguin in Evie's garden leads the two serious-minded girls on an adventure which no parent should miss enjoying reading with their child.

Speech bubbles are tedious to read aloud, so you might want to skip those pages if you embark on the third book in the Abadazad series by JM De Matteis and Mike Ploog, The Puppet, the Professor and the Prophet (HarperCollins, £6.99), with your child. But the copious colour illustrations should sustain a competent young reader. It's the continuing diary of truculent 14-year-old Kate Jameson from Brooklyn who, in searching for her kidnapped brother, finds out that the storybook world of Abadazad is in fact a real place.

Wonderful black-and-white line drawings - with a splash of red - by Observer cartoonist Chris Riddell make his Ottoline and the Yellow Cat (Macmillan, £8.99) a joy to look at. The quirky illustrations and one-line asides are entertaining bonuses in a story of missing lapdogs, burglaries and one precocious young heroine.

In this age group, where readers are usually more attracted to exploits of their own gender, Garth Nix is hedging his bets in a new book of four stories, One Beastly Beast (HarperCollins, £5.99), with two featuring boys as the protagonist and the other two girls.

Young Stanley Wells, who is spirited off a train as he travels to his father's new home, is the hero of illustrator Joel Stewart's debut novel, The Trouble With Wenlocks (Doubleday, £7.99). The boy encounters a weird world where fantasy creatures absorb people's sadness, worries and fears.

For 10-year-old William Popidopolis, the result of a holiday romance, a trip to meet his father in Greece turns out to be a race to save the world in The World's Bellybutton (Walker Books, £4.99). Drawing on Greek myths, Tanya Landman has created an entertaining adventure story.

Dick King-Smith, the creator of Babe, travels back a century for his latest book, Ninnyhammer (Doubleday, £7.99). Animals are bit players in this gentle tale of young Peter, who sees the true qualities of the village idiot.

Finally, it's all action in an exciting first children's book from Tim Walker, Shipley Manor (Faber, £6.99). The enchanted world of a country house, run like a ship by its once seafaring owner, is threatened by a greedy bank manager and corrupt town council chief executive working in cahoots as property developers. It's a magical story laced with reality that works for both adults and children - certainly one to be enjoyed reading together.

Sheila Wayman is a freelance journalist