EMILY BEARN on books for all ages
Forget Maisy Mouse. Ambitious babies are making an early start on Homer and Dickens thanks to the latest craze for classical board books. The essential pre-school reading list now includes The Odyssey (Gibbs, 22pp, £6.99) and A Christmas Carol (Campbell Books, 10pp,
£5.99), tailored for readers aged one to four. (‘Ebenezer Scrooge found Christmas a bore, “Bah humbug to all of it!” the old man would roar.’) And this spring, babies can start on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (Familius, 16pp, £9.99), in a special edition with pullout flaps. Elsewhere in picture books, mental health and the environment have been dominant themes. Out of a Dark Winter’s Night (Thames & Hudson, 40pp, £11.95) by the artist Flora Mcdonnell is an exploration of depression, told through the eyes of a young child: ‘Day has to end and give way to night./surely something can be done to put this right?’. Mcdonnell describes the book as her autobiography: ‘A journey since childhood to harness the sun and stop the darkness of the night.’ On a less poetic note, Why do I Feel Like This? (Thames & Hudson, 32 pp, £8.95) by Shinsuke Yoshitake follows a child’s train of thought as she walks home in a bad mood. ‘There are lots of people in the world that I like. But there are some people that I don’t like at ALL,’ the heroine huffs, in a sentiment likely to resonate with readers of any age. And The Last Tree (Pavilion, 32 pp, £6.99) by Emily Haworth-booth tells the story of children trying to save a forest from developers. (‘Soon it seemed that the more wood they took, the more they needed.’) The author is an activist with the famously zealous Extinction
Rebellion – and yet the charm of this story lies in the gentleness with which its moral is conveyed.
Any child who thinks old age is dull should read Duncan Versus the Googleys by Kate Milner (Pushkin, 224 pp, £7.99). Set in the grisly retirement home Arthritis Hall, this roller coaster of a crime story sees children attempting to outwit a gang of octogenarian criminal masterminds. And in The Boy Who Fooled the World (Scholastic, 300pp, £6.99), the bestselling Lisa Thompson tells the story of a young boy whose life is turned upside down when an unwitting lie catapults him to precarious fame in the art world. Thompson skilfully weaves serious themes into a deceptively simple narrative.
In historical fiction, A Cake for the Gestapo by Jacqueline King (Zuntold, 256pp, £7.99) is set on Jersey during WW2, and follows a group of children plotting to defeat their German occupiers. This is a touching and suspenseful story that will whet appetites for classics such as Carrie’s War. For those in search of a more contemporary plot, Nothing Ever Happens Here (Usborne, 272pp, £6.99) by Sarah Hagger-holt is the story of a provincial schoolgirl who finds herself thrust into the limelight when her father comes out as a woman.
In non-fiction, as with picture books, the environment has dominated, with titles such as Questions and Answers about Plastic (Usborne, 14pp, £9.99) and Kate Pankhurst’s Fantastically Great Women Who Saved the Planet (Bloomsbury, 32pp, £6.99) among a slew of new spring titles. But the surprise bestseller is David Attenborough (Frances Lincoln, 32pp, £9.99) by Maria Sanchez Vegara, the first child’s biography of our seemingly indestructible broadcaster. ‘When he visited Antarctica, he was introduced to all the members of a penguin family,’ we are told, in a text that condenses Attenborough’s first 93-years of life into a refreshingly brisk read.