PICTURE BOOKS

Encyclopedia Pre-historica Dinosaurs: The Definitive Pop-up (Candlewick) is the best pop-up book I’ve seen this year. Matthew Reinhart inserts dinosaur facts, written in a breezy style, with Robert Sabuda’s “wildly successful reptiles” lunging out of page with ferocious energy, before flying off as birds. Ideal for 4+.
For slightly older children, Lauren Child’s version of The Princess and the Pea (Puffin £12.99), photographed by Polly Borland, will delight. The author of the adored Clarice Bean series has turned her quirky wit to creating a miniature 3-D world of dollshouse interiors in which a prince “a nice boy and not unpleasant to look at” searches for a true princess, aided by his parents who “did all the traditional fairy-tale things in order that their son might be bowled over by the right girl.” This arch but captivating re-telling of the tale is matched by Vermeer-like sets in which graceful cut-out dolls walk, dance, sleep or talk. One of the most original fairy-tale books to be published, it is a perfect present for girls of 5+.
Those who prefer the more traditional kind should save up for The Fairy Tales, illustrated by the great Jan Pienkowski (Puffin). David Walser has translated Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel and Cinderella for a new audience but what makes this collection ravishing are Pienkowski’s illustrations, all elegant ink-black silhouettes. Every page reveals a new drama, from a skeleton caught in the brambles of Sleeping Beauty’s castle to Hansel and Gretel left in the dark wood with a bright orange fire as their parents wave them goodbye, knowing they are going to die. Pienkowski’s pictures bristle and swarm with authentic fairy-tale menace, comedy and beauty: if you have a child between 4 and 7, don’t miss it.
The two most beautiful picture books for older children of 10+ are Robert Ingpen’s version of Treasure Island, (Templar) and Roberto Innocenti’s version of Pinocchio, translated by Ann Lawson Lucas (OUP). Hardly any modern child reads these classics, alas, but if anything can drag them into the darkness and power of treasure maps and wooden boys, it is these two illustrators. Ingpen’s drawings of villainous pirates emerge like real faces from the coloured mists of myth; Innocenti’s have the sophisticated detail of medieval illuminations.
Ted Hughes’s Collected Poems for Children, illustrated by Raymond Briggs (Faber £12.99) is the jewel of this year’s picture books. Hughes’s grasp of what children find funny, scary, interesting and strange is perfectly matched by Briggs’s gentle, surreal wit. Intensely satisfying and satisfyingly intense, it will make children dream.

FACT BOOKS

Stephen Biesty’s Egypt (OUP£12.99) is endlessly fascinating and entertaining, as well as being an authoritative source of information on a culture children love to study. The king of cross-sections produced his book on Rome two years ago and this is long-awaited although the text, an eye-witness account of a journey down the Nile in 1230 BC, is pretty leaden. Clear, minutely detailed scenes of activity are revealed and explained as if a child were looking into the past as if through a section of an ants’ nest. For those who want a more light-hearted approach, Richard Platt’s Egyptian Diary (Walker £14.99) is consistently lively and appealing, as its hero Nakht journeys to Memphis and saves a tomb from robbers.
Eight year olds may prefer Wizardology (Templar £17.99). Like the gorgeous Dragonology and Egyptology, this is a mock-scholarly account of wizards and their spells, with maps, flaps, fortune-telling cards, booklets on working with familiars and “a genuine Phoenix feather and Dragon pendant.” Detailed drawings and luscious borders make this a classy gift, half-way between book and toy, but there is quite a bit of history in there too.

Kids of 9+ who love Anthony Horowitz’s super-slick Alex Rider spy stories will no doubt have raced through both Ark Angel and the start of his splendid new supernatural series, Raven’s Gate (Walker £5.99). For these, no greater bliss can be imagined than Alex Rider The Gadgets (Walker £7.99), purporting to give them the blueprints for the teenaged spy’s secret Geiger counter games console, a bicycle armed with a missile system or the Pizza Delivery Assassin Kit. Be warned: the next step will be making them, in which case Mary and John Gribbin’s Big Numbers (Wizard Books £4.99) may also be needed. An entertaining yet crystal clear exploration of quantum physics, maths, nanotechnology and the Gaia concept it is ideal for bright 10 year olds.

The best book of all for 8-12s is HE Marshall’s Our Island Story, republished at last in stirringly patriotic glory. The history of Britain from the Roman invasion to Queen Victoria it is precisely the kind of old-fashioned, sequential, kings and queens, history-as-story approach which the National Curriculum has jettisoned so disastrously. Clear, vivid, dramatic narrative will inspire a new generation of historians. Every child should have this book.

FICTION

The irresistible anti-hero and his brother Perfect Peter wreak revenge on each other in Horrid Henry and the Mega-Mean Time Machine (Orion), an especially clever collection which may just deflect fights under the Christmas tree for 6-9s. Hiccup the Useless and his dragon Toothless have become an annual feast eof thrilling adventure, rude jokes and mad drawings. They make their third outing in Cressida Cowell’s How to Speak Dragonese (Hodder), when they come up against the might of Ancient Rome and an ancient enemy. Michelle Paver follows up the first of her Chronicle of Ancient Darkeness books, Wolf Brother, with Spirit Walker (Orion), which for boys of 9+ is a must-read. Torak is on a quest to save the Forest clans from a mysterious disease, plunging into even greater danger from an evil mage which only Wolf, and his burgeoning magical gifts can save him from. I adore this series, with its numinous feel for Bronze Age hunting and survival. If there is any child on the planet who has not yet read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Bloomsbury) then the penultimate adventure, diving into the twisted childhood of Harry’s arch-enemy Voldemort, will ensure hours of post-prandial joy.

Anne Hallam’s Siberia (Orion), Sally Gardiner’s I, Coriander (Orion) and Susan Price’s Odin’s Voice (Simon & Schuster) are remarkable blends of fantasy which girls of 11+ will find wholly engrossing. Each features a heroine battling against grim, totalitarian regimes with courage, initiative and loyalty. Siberia is my favourite, for depicting not only the love between daughters and mothers, but the passion children feel for animals – in this case, the DNA of the last animals left alive on earth - but any one will make a memorable, thought-provoking gift.
If I have to choose one novel above all to recommend this year, however, it would be Kenneth Oppel’s Skybreaker (Hodder, 10+). It features a hero whom boys, girls and adults will fall instantly in love with. Matt Cruse, a poor but bold teenager, is trying to make the jump from cabin boy to Air Academy officer in a parallel world traversed by airships. After spotting a legendary lost airship said to be loaded with gold, Matt and Kate race against pirates and deadly altitudes to discover the secrets of the Hyperion’s inventor. Funny, captivating, intelligent and stylish, this is the kind of old-fashioned Jules Verne/Indiana Jones–style adventure that feels new-minted for the next generation. Don’t miss it.

The Times, December 2005