CHILDREN’S

TIME TRAVELLING WITH A HAMSTER by Ross Welford (HarperCollins £6.99)

On Al’s 12th birthday, his mother gives him a letter from his father, Pythagorus, who died when Al was eight.

It contains detailed instructions about Py’s time machine, hidden in a bunker below their former home which they left when Al’s mother remarried.

Byron, Al’s eccentric Indian paternal grandfather, warns him against following in Py’s footsteps but the still-grieving boy works out that, if he travels back in time, he could prevent the accident that would, years later, lead to his father’s death.

Unfortunately, things go chaotically wrong but this clever, original and funny story explores complex notions of time and fate as well as being a poignant portrait of childhood grief and love.

The characters are memorable, the plot fizzes with energy and tension and, oh yes, there’s a hamster named Alan shearer.

Age 9+

BEETLE BOY by M.G. Leonard (Chicken House £6.99)

If YOU’VE always regarded beetles as something unpleasant to be chased away from picnics, then this romp of a mystery thriller may change your attitude.

When Darkus’s father, Dr Bartholomew Cuttle, disappears from inside his locked office at the natural History Museum, the boy’s unshakeable belief that his widower dad would never abandon him convinces his Uncle Max to help him investigate, assisted by Darkus’s pet rhinoceros beetle Baxter, who understands human speech.

Max’s next-door neighbours are a hideous, squalid pair who hap- pen to have thousands of different beetles living in their rubbish.

enter the menacing lucretia Cutter, a Cruella De vil- like former colleague of Dr Cuttle’s, who has a fondness for jewelencrusted insects…

It’s all a bit mad but engagingly so, and by the end young readers will have absorbed a huge amount of information on this most resilient of species. Age 8+

PAX by Sara Pennypacker Illustrated by Jon Klassen (Harper Collins £12.99)

PETER rescued Pax, a tiny fox cub, from the wild and the intense bond they developed helped Peter cope with his mother’s death.

But five years later, Peter’s harsh father has volunteered to fight in an unspecified war and insists they dump Pax in the woods before Peter is driven to stay with his grandfather, 300 miles away.

Heartbroken, the 12-year- old boy runs away to find his domesticated pet, convinced it can’t survive alone.

The story, written in chapters alternating between Peter and Pax, builds a powerfully emotional fable about love, belonging, loyalty and forgiveness, yet never veers into sentimentality.

An injured, angry Peter is helped by a reclusive woodswoman, emotionally and physically damaged by her past war service, and they heal each other, while Pax reconnects with an animal world endangered by human aggression.

It is beautifully written, deeply affecting and Klassen’s black and white illustrations are pitch perfect. Age 9+