Eleven-yearoldszoom forward

FOR KATE’S 11th birthday, her uncle gives her a train — a real train — on which she and her brother Tom steam around the world, picking up animal passengers, from a pugnacious porcupine to a surprisingly civil snake. The Silver Arrow by Lev Grossman (Bloomsbury, £10.99) has the dreamlike charm of E Nesbit’s Five Children and It, and is narrated with a similar dry wit. It also delivers some amazing animal did-you-knows, such as Shakespeare is (sort of) responsible for North America’s starling population. An empowering environmental message gradually emerges. Age eight to 14.

Pete, too, is 11 and his interests include five-a-side football and cake. But his mother thinks it’s time he considered marriage. Well, royal weddings take a long time to arrange. So she begins to search for a princess; then one turns up at the door. But she must take the traditional test — does she bruise if a pea is put beneath mattresses on her bed? The Peculiar Thing with the Pea is Kaye Umansky’s uproarious, updated version of the fairy-tale, amusingly illustrated by Claire Powell (Barrington Stoke, £6.99). Age seven up, contains sprouts.

When the error-prone wizard Ripplemintz lets an extra-strong spell escape, his apprentice Twig is sent out to catch it in a jar. Instead, Twig captures it in his body — and becomes The Accidental Wizard, by Kimberley Pauley, illustrated by Jason Cockcroft (Scholastic, £6.99). But Twig’s new powers put his life in danger, as he must now compete in a fearsome magical tournament. So he and his friend, Vile (who longs to be a hag, but is too pretty) set off on a quest to avert their destinies. A joyously inventive tale, full of exploding warts and unicorn milk ice-cream.

Age seven to 11.

Does Your Dog Speak Hebrew? by Ellen Bari, (Kar-Ben, £6.10) is a fun, educational board book juxtaposing English animal names and sounds with transliterated Ivrit equivalents – a dog says “bow-wowwow”; a kelev, “hav-hav-hav”. Holly Clifton-Brown’s whimsical illustrations show animals visiting key landmarks (though the English-speaking animals are in America). Age up to five.