Escape from the screens

Age 6-8

Indigo’s explorer parents have filled the house with weird and wonderful creatures, from goblins to dragons and yetis. Then they send the children a creature that eats its way out of its box before they can open it, disappears and wreaks havoc around the house.

What is the creature? Can Indigo catch it before the neighbours learn how wild the Wildes are? Indigo Wilde And The Creatures At Jellybean Crescent by Pippa Curnick (Hachette, £9.99) is creative, colourful and full of beans.

Callum is crestfallen to receive a birthday present of an “adopted” zoo panda – until Pudding the Panda escapes and appears on his doorstep. In Panda At The Door

(Chicken Shed, £6.99) by Sarah Horne, Pudding channels her inner Mary Poppins to turn Callum’s collapsing life around. An upbeat read full of lively illustrations.

Pamela Butchart returns with A Monster Ate My Packed Lunch

(Nosy Crow, £6.99). Izzy and pals take an overnight school trip and learn about terrifying local legends. They decide to investigate – but are soon out of their depth in this lively comic caper.

In Sally Nicholls’ An Escape In Time (Nosy Crow, £6.99), Ruby and Alex’s time-travelling mirror transports them to 1795 to help a French Revolution survivor – but their mission is not what it seems.

Sohal deals with anxiety by drawing his worries as cartoon characters. When they come to life, how can he control them? The Worries by Jion Sheibani (Puffin. £6.99) is amusing but empathetic too. Four-year-old Nadim gives an eloquent child’s-eye view of the world in Take Off

Your Brave (Walker, £12.99), an evocative collection of poems on subjects close to a child’s heart.

Age 9-12

Homeless orphans Jess and Jude are taken in by a wealthy family – but why? As they navigate hostile treatment and bewildering rules, they must unpick a web of lies to uncover the truth of their identity. Wave Riders (Macmillan, £7.99) is a deliciously engrossing mystery from Lauren St John.

A Kind Of Spark by Elle McNicoll (Knights Of, £6.99) recently won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. Addie is appalled to learn about 16th-century women killed in witch trials just for being different. As she campaigns for a memorial, can she also change perceptions of autistic people like her?

The Secret Detectives by Ella Risbridger (Nosy Crow,

£7.99) was inspired by Frances Hodgson

Burnett’s The Secret

Garden. It’s 1892 and

Isobel is aboard the SS Mariana, sailing to England, when she sees a person thrown overboard – but nobody is missing. Can she solve the mystery of who died – and why – before the ship docks?

The David Walliams juggernaut keeps rolling and, in the darkly inventive and very funny

Megamonster (HarperCollins, £14.99), Cruel School pupil Larker discovers science teacher Doctor Doktur is conducting monstrous experiments. The pupils are in danger – can Larker save them?

Stephen Mangan joins the ranks of celebrity children’s writers with

Escape The Rooms, illustrated by his sister Anita. Jack is mourning his mother when a bungee jump catapults him into a series of traps and, to escape, he and surly companion Cally must solve bizarre challenges and outwit fantastically peculiar people. It’s poignant, wildly unpredictable and laugh-out-loud funny.

Anxious Stan is forced out of his comfort zone when he goes on holiday with his fifth best friend Felix. Worst. Holiday. Ever by Charlie Higson (Puffin, £6.99) shows the power of confronting your demons in a novel as touching and observant as it is warm-hearted and sharp-witted.

Faith lives in a house on the edge of a cliff but it’s becoming dangerous with the crack on the edge getting bigger every day. Then her father goes missing, followed by her brother. Can Faith solve the mystery of their disappearances before her home falls into the sea? Tense and gripping, The House On The Edge by Alex Cotter (Nosy Crow, £6.99) is a fabulous read full of twists and turns.

In William Sutcliffe’s The Summer We Turned Green (Bloomsbury, £7.99),

Luke’s sister has left home to live in a commune where people are protesting against the airport expansion.

His mum is always at work so, after his dad joins his sister, Luke must learn to be alone. Will he ever feel part of a family again?

This tale of rebel climate protestors is an engrossing and relatable emotional rollercoaster, full of drama and vividly written.