Children’s fiction round-up: A crackerjack fantasy adventure

Welcome to Dead Town Raven McKay (Everything with Words, £8.99, 10+) opens with a piece of vivid scene-setting. As foster-child Raven arrives at her new home in Grave’s Pass, she spots “pooka horses chasing goblins in a vacant lot, three banshees on a bus, a zombie in ripped jeans ... a bogeyman walking a labradoodle, a ghost on a ladder cleaning windows, a ghoul sipping coffee at an outdoor cafe.”

In her middle-grade debut, poet Eibhlís Carcione infuses the Gothic setting of Grave’s Pass – a town where half the residents are living and half are dead – with a lyricism and humour that recalls Neil Gaiman’s work for young readers. However, it is the immediacy of the action – driven by Raven’s quest to find her missing parents – that keeps the pages turning in this crackerjack fantasy adventure.

“Adventures are scary, dangerous and uncomfortable”, that’s what Pedro’s father says, but Pedro, a tiny mouse with a big appetite for exploration, isn’t so sure, and he sets off from his cosy home in Hilltop House determined to see the world. He finds his way to the Mouse Islands, where he joins a group of fearless mice for whom adventure is a way of life. Adventuremice: Otter Chaos (David Fickling, £5.49, 5+) is the first in a brilliant new series of short chapter books from Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre, whose blend of high-stakes storytelling, humour and graphic storytelling has proven to be a winning formula for emerging readers. Here, the worldbuilding, which includes maps of domestic environments and the landscape of the Mouse Islands, is particularly imaginative and will be inspirational for young booklovers creating their own stories at home.

In Lindsay Galvin’s Call of the Titanic (Chicken House, £7.99, 9+) another animal is involved in an exciting adventure, which has its roots in a real-life rescue story that middle-grade readers will be familiar with from their school curriculum. Eleven-year-old ranch girl Clara is a stowaway on the RMS Carpathia, the ship that intercepted the sinking Titanic in 1912. With only a Newfoundland hound called Rigel for company below deck, Clara’s high-seas adventure becomes a high-stakes rescue mission, involving one of the Titanic’s actual survivors, a young steward called Sid Daniels. Galvin mixes her story’s fictional elements with factual evidence, including transcripts from Daniels’s testimony, to ensure an engaging historical frame for young readers. With its focus on the Carpathia rather than the Titanic, it also presents an unusual slant on more well-known facts.

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In Jeanne Willis’s The Bear who had Nothing to Wear (Scallywag Press, £11.69, 3+), the teddy bear hero, Albie, arrives into the world with nothing more than the fur on its back. Albie must decide what kind of a teddy it would like to be. Across dozens of double-page spreads, Willis – with illustrator Brian Fitzgerald – tries on various identities: pirate, prince, cowboy, baby. But maybe Albie’s identity doesn’t have to be a fixed thing. A gentle rhyming structure makes Willis’s book a pleasure to read aloud, and children who love playing dress up, or who struggle with getting dressed, will find a particular pleasure in the silly scenarios that Albie finds himself in. Needless to say, the story also provides lots of inspiration for playing opportunities with one’s own teddy bears, as well as a good model for children who find getting dressed difficult.

There are lots of good ideas underpinning the story in Little Big Sister (Little Island, €12.99, 5+), an early reader from Eoin Colfer about two sisters, Starr and Babes. Starr is a big sister and also a little person. Born with dwarfism, Starr is an active and loving girl, but when Babes starts growing up, natural competition between the girls becomes very specifically problematic. Although the book, illustrated by little person Celia Ivey, centres on a particular disability, Little Big Sister bears a message about accepting difference that bears relevance beyond its subject matter, and the climax, which centres on a school sports day, offers a solution to inclusion that schools and social group settings should take on board when considering how to accommodate different abilities and interests while honouring competitive traditions.

In Erika McGann’s charming and playful Standing on One Leg Is Hard (The O’Brien Press, €14.99, 2+), a chick is also determined to overcome its natural limitations. A newborn heron chick – whose downy head feathers stand up in Clive McFarland’s hilarious illustrations – wants to do what its mum does. Mum is tall and graceful, effortless balancing on one skinny leg, but the short, fluffy chick keeps falling over. As the chick keeps trying, using logic to help her balance, the story models coping strategies for frustration and celebrates resilience, while the physical task the heron undertakes leaves room for gentle imitation and interaction at bedtime too.

Finally, for parents looking to encourage children to read as Gaeilge, Futa Fata’s latest translation project brings Dog Man to life in Irish with translator Máirín Ní Mhárta. The graphic style of Dav Pilkey’s work has been celebrated for the way in which it engages reluctant readers, and this release of the first in George and Harold’s canine adventures will be welcomed by parents, teachers and children alike, both those using Irish as a primary language and those only exposed in an educational context. Seiceáil amach é.