Alice with a Why is a spin-off of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1865), here illustrated by John Tenniel - Getty

It’s often said that we’re living in a Golden Age of children’s literature. There are 10,000 or so new titles published each year in the UK, accounting for an astonishing one in three books sold.

And as the numbers have boomed, the genres have multiplied – a change particularly evident in the last 10 years, since I began reviewing children’s books for The Telegraph. Whereas once a novel might simply have been labelled a “fantasy”, today the sub-divisions range from “eco-fantasy” to “romantasy” and all things in between.

Emerging authors have never faced so much competition. While the first Golden Age of Children’s Fiction, which took off in the 1850s, was dominated by a handful of authors (JM Barrie, Robert Louis Stevenson and Lewis Carroll among them), today there are hundreds of household names in the field. With dozens of stunning new novels and picture books appearing each week, it’s only frustrating that we can’t give even more of them the coverage they deserve.

So, with apologies for any omissions, here’s our list of the essential new books to buy for today’s young reader.

Alice with a Why &starf;&starf;&starf;&starf;&star;

by Anna James

It takes a brave author to meddle with Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland, but Anna James has reason to feel confident. Her debut novel, Tilly and the Bookwanderers, the first in the Pages & Co series, was nominated for the Waterstones Children’s Book of the Year. Her second fantasy series, the Chronicles of Whetherwhy, was a New York Times bestseller. James describes Alice with a Why as “my love letter to Alice in Wonderland”, with which she has been fascinated since childhood. So she’s set herself the most dangerous of Carroll-lover’s tasks – to re-enter Wonderland, and imagine it differently.

James’s story is set in 1919, and the heroine is Alyce, the granddaughter of Alice Liddell, who inspired Carroll’s Alice. The young Alyce has been sent to stay with her grandmother, following the death of her father – Alice’s son – who was killed in the final months of the war. “The war ended very shortly after [his death], which made sense to Alyce, as she did not understand how anything could keep going without her father.” Alice will not discuss her dead son with her granddaughter, and relations are strained: “Alice and Alyce looked at each other from either end of the room and had nothing to say that would reach across the empty library.”

Alice with a Why is illustrated by Matthew Land, and features Alice’s granddaughter visiting Carroll’s beloved cast of characters in Wonderland - Matthew Land

But Alyce’s adventures begin when she stumbles across a mysterious “Noitativni”, asking her to come to an unspecified place, bringing sugar and a teapot. “How curious,” Alyce comments, unwittingly echoing her grandmother – and next thing she falls into a knee-deep pond; and sinks “down and down and down”, until finally landing in a small, circular room where she is greeted by the Dormouse, the Hare and the Hatter. James sensibly resists any temptation to meddle with Carroll’s original characters. But she adds a small supporting cast of her own – including the Sun King and the Queen of the Moon, who are at war over a stolen hour. Can Alyce help them to resolve their differences, and restore harmony to Wonderland?

As James explains in an author’s note, she wanted her reimagined Wonderland “to feel like the Wonderland you’ve visited before”. This is a daunting task, for Carroll was an extraordinarily inventive writer, and attempts to imitate him tend to fall flat. But James’s story is the product of years of immersion in his work, during which she has picked over every reference and riddle. And like all true disciples of Carroll, she’s learned that nonsense is seldom nonsensical. “‘You’re certainly not our Alice,’” the Hatter comments on seeing the heroine for the first time. “‘No, I’m my Alyce … Alyce with a Y.’ ‘A why?’ ‘Why yes.’ ‘Do you have a where or a who?’”

It might not feel quite like the Wonderland we’ve visited before. But this is an extremely confident retelling, in which James has managed to adopt some of Carroll’s most beloved characters, and use them to tell a story that is thoroughly her own. Carroll scholars might reach for the smelling salts. But if this charming story whets appetites for Carroll’s original text, then it is all the more to be cherished.

Alice with a Why is published by HarperCollins at £12.99. To order your copy at £10.99, call 0330 173 0523 or visit Telegraph Books

The Wood Where Magic Grows &starf;&starf;&starf;&starf;&starf;

by Andy Shepherd

The tree has become the damsel in distress of children’s fiction, with a slew of new books warning readers about the dire consequences if we do not preserve our woodlands. But environmental lessons tend to be more memorable when they’re less trenchantly enforced – as demonstrated in Andy Shepherd’s new book The Wood Where Magic Grows, a charming fantasy about two children saving an endangered forest.

Shepherd’s first novel, The Boy Who Grew Dragons, was the story of a child who finds a dragon-fruit tree in his grandfather’s garden. (“When people ask me what we grow in Grandad’s garden, I think they expect the answer to be cucumbers,tomatoes, or runner beans … [But] we grow dragons. And they’re A LOT more trouble.”) Her latest book is aimed at the same target readership of seven-plus, and returns to the idea of a child finding magic within the natural world of his own garden.

The Wood Where Magic Grows is published by Bonnier - Ellie Snowdon

This time, the narrator is Iggy, who has just moved into a rambling cottage with his mother, her new partner Mitchell, and Mitchell’s son Cal. “My mum and Cal’s dad had what they called a ‘whirlwind romance’, and me and Cal had been flung together in the whirl of that wind and now we were here in this house, sharing a room.”

Blended families have become a popular theme in children’s fiction – but Shepherd belongs more to the school of Enid Blyton than Jacqueline Wilson; and in her story there’s no time for family dysfunction or domestic argy-bargy. Instead, Iggy and his new younger brother swiftly become inseparable, amusing themselves by exploring their cottage’s overgrown garden.

The further they go, the wilder the garden becomes; until eventually they find themselves in a dense woodland, where the trees seem to have a magical life of their own. “The way [the tree] was moving made me feel like it was properly waving at me. And this might sound even weirder, but before I could stop myself, I actually waved back.”

The Wood Where Magic Grows is published by Bonnier

In the days that follow, the trees behave ever more strangely – one night extending their branches through Iggy’s bedroom window. “You know the picture book with the Wild Things and the kid Max who wakes up and finds grass and trees growing all round his bed? Well, that was my room.” When Iggy realises that the wood is in danger of being destroyed by the council, he and Cal make their heroic race to the rescue.

Shepherd says that she wrote the novel “to rally [children] to protect these green guardians that we walk among”. Such rallying cries, however noble, can make a narrative feel a bit heavy. But Shepherd is a natural storyteller, who never lets the morals get in the way of the plot. Instead, her message is conveyed by a tale of enchantment, which will encourage readers to consider trees in a whole new light: “Have you ever looked at a tree and seen a face staring back?… Well, next time you do, stop staring and say hello.”

There was a Roman in Your Garden &starf;&starf;&starf;&starf;&star;

by Bettany Hughes

Historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes’s blockbuster books on classical antiquity – including The Hemlock Cup, her biography of Socrates – have been praised for their painstaking scholarship and research. But There Was a Roman in Your Garden, her first book for children, is a different beast. “Hi there! My name is Bettany Hughes,” she begins, establishing the book’s fashionably colloquial tone. “I’m a historian, and for my job, I get to travel across the world uncovering the truth about the past.”

In this case, however, we do not need to travel very far. What follows is an enlightening history of the Romans, told by examining 20 pieces of treasure that could be found buried in an English garden: “Let’s imagine you’ve gone out into your garden one day and spotted something you’ve not seen before sticking out of the ground… WOW! It really is an ancient Roman chest… a massive, full-to-bursting TREASURE CHEST!” Hughes envisages that such treasure belonged to a Roman child; by examining each item, she sets out to show the reader “what life was like for children thousands of years ago. Children just like YOU.”

Bettany Hughes, author of There was a Roman in Your Garden - Sandstone Global

The most successful history books tend to be the most accessible, condensing vast subjects into jaunty narratives – be it 1066 and All That or Bill Bryson’s perennial bestseller, A Really Short History of Nearly Everything. Hughes deploys the formula to superb effect, using each item in her treasure chest as a vehicle for potted history lessons and scintillating anecdotes. The first curiosity she scrutinises is a necklace or “bulla” worn by an affluent Roman child: through this single item, we learn about everything from togas to Roman attitudes towards magic (“Pliny the Elder wrote that Roman sorcerers used bloodstones to make themselves invisible!”); and the reality of life as a gladiator, fighting against tigers and lions. (“Just imagine how terrifying that must have been…”)

A section on a piece of crescent-shaped jewellery is equally informative, illuminating everything from the concept of Roman patriarchy to the origins of the Roman calendar. (“There are so many clues leading back to the ancient world in our own everyday lives!”)

In contrast to her books for her adult readers, Hughes wears her research lightly. Dates are kept to a minimum; and there are neither footnotes nor a bibliography. In a section on the heroes of Roman mythology, Romulus and Remus are covered in a single paragraph. But she narrates with a highly infectious enthusiasm (“There are always new questions to be answered, new riddles to be unravelled, new mysteries to be solved!”); and the reader will come away feeling they have learnt far more about the life of a Roman child than they would have done from any textbook.

There Was a Roman in Your Garden is published by Puffin at £8.99. To order your copy, call 0330 173 0523 or visit Telegraph Books

A Box Full of Murders &starf;&starf;&starf;&starf;&star;

by Janice Hallett

There was a time when children’s detective stories focused on crimes such as stolen chocolate bars and missing pets. But the stakes have recently become higher: when Pamela Butchart recently wrote two new books for Enid Blyton’s The Secret Seven series, the story lines included the discovery of a human skull; and in Robin Stevens’s Murder Most Unladylike books (aimed at readers as young as nine), a maid is found murdered in a lift shaft with a hairpin stabbed in her throat.

For young readers with an appetite for more serious crime, this debut children’s novel by Janice Hallett, A Box Full of Murders, will not disappoint. Her first book for adult readers, The Appeal (2021), was a murder mystery told through a series of letters and documents, designed to enable the reader to identify the culprit; Hallett deploys the same format here, and to equally good effect. The story opens in the present day, when two siblings, Ava and Luke, stumble across a box in their father’s attic containing documents dating from 1983. As an anonymous note inside the box explains: “Read this stack of documents… Within the pages, between the lines, are all the clues you need to solve a mystery. Can you?”

The siblings – who in keeping with the epistolary nature of the novel, communicate by text message – are intrigued. (“Wow! Who wrote that?” Ava demands. “And who was it for?”) But there are more than 400 pages of documents to wade through – and they’re not all light reading. The first is a planning application, from a property company seeking to destroy a woodland to build a processing plant for toxic waste. Then comes the council’s response, granting the developers partial permission; followed by copious pages of meticulously detailed rules and regulations relating to the scout groups who used the wood for their camping expeditions.

As with all the best detective writers, Hallett does not shy away from mundane detail. “MORNING. Arrival: 7.30am. No activities are scheduled. Finish putting your tent up. Make sure all kit is stored INSIDE. Decide on your tent name,” reads a typical extract from one of the girl guide itineraries. But even the dullest seeming documents are cleverly contextualised by the children’s chatty narration: “Wow! The 1900s… And as many rules as SCHOOL!” And as the pair slowly work through the box’s vast jumble of papers, they find themselves involved in a race against time to solve a 40-year-old murder – whose perpetrator they fear might be still at large.

The novel is aimed at readers of eight-plus, some of whom will find the novel’s fragmentary nature demanding. But anyone who perseveres will be rewarded. For Hallett unravels her case with the precision of Agatha Christie, ensuring that each scrap of evidence fits into a meticulous puzzle that the budding detective will relish piecing together. They will also learn about the “ancient” world of the 1980s, when girl guides danced to Duran Duran, and made 999 calls from something called a “phone box”.

Robin Hood &starf;&starf;&starf;&starf;&star;

by Bethan Woollvin

These days, children’s authors seem largely agreed that rich people are a bad thing. Any successful businessman, for instance, is typically cast as a dastardly villain, plotting to build a car park over the local wildlife sanctuary. In such a climate, it’s hardly surprising that the legend of Robin Hood holds such appeal, with stories by Michael Morpurgo and Rob Lloyd Jones among a growing shelf of modern retellings.

This picture book version by Bethan Woollvin is the latest addition to the canon. Woollvin is known for her bold interpretations of some of our best-known fairytales. In Little Red (2016), a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, the heroine outwits the wolf and saves her granny. (As the author explained: “As a child I found Little Red Riding Hood very naïve: how could she not tell it was a wolf in a nightdress?” In her version of Rapunzel (2017), there is no prince. This time, in a fashionable instance of gender subversion, Robin Hood is a girl. “Nifty with a sword and quick with an arrow, her name was Robin Hood.”

Robin Hood is published by Two Hoots - Bethan Woolvin

Robin Hood is aimed at readers as young as three, and Woollvin sensibly keeps to the basics, using short, simple sentences, embellished by expressive and highly engaging artwork. There’s no Maid Marian; just a nasty Sheriff, who lives in an enormous castle, ruthlessly exploiting the local people. “‘He’s the reason we have so little,’ Robin said. ‘That Sheriff is greedy, rotten, rich!’”

So our plucky heroine takes matters into her own hands, and starts taking things back from the Sheriff, and giving them to those in need. In a skilful dramatic twist, the Sheriff appears to get the better of her when he snatches her bow and arrow: “If I catch you stealing again, I’ll hunt you like a deer!” But Robin retaliates by slipping through one of his castle windows, and making away with all his treasure. And when the incandescent Sheriff attacks her in the forest with a huge sword – “You thieving little outlaw!” – she outwits him again, and sends him fleeing for his life with an arrow poking from his posterior.

The legend of Robin Hood has provoked fierce disagreement, with some scholars arguing that it was cultivated in the households of the gentry and can be seen to embody societal standards, while others see it as a plebeian literature hostile to the feudal order. In Woollvin’s version, the fact that the heroine is stealing from someone who has himself stolen lends the story a clear moral framework; and the simple, sing-song suspense makes for a satisfying bedtime read. But by the end of the story – as the rich Sheriff runs for the hills – I wonder if any young reader will have noticed the uncanny resemblance between Woollvin’s bob-haired Robin Hood and our very own Rachel Reeves.

The Secret Lives of Women Spies &starf;&starf;&starf;&starf;&starf;

by Charlotte Philby

As Charlotte Philby explains in the introduction to her fascinating new book The Secret Lives of Women Spies, her interest in espionage was kindled by childhood visits to her grandfather, Kim Philby, when he was living in Moscow with his Russo-Polish wife. “On those family trips to Russia,” she writes, “he and my dad played chess for hours on the sofa in the living room with a pair of musket guns hanging on the wall behind them. Grandpa Kimsky was both my grandpa and the most infamous spy in history. He was two people at once.”

Yet Charlotte’s book isn’t about her grandfather. For, years later, when she started researching his life, it struck her that the spying stories “all seemed to be about men… Could it be true, I wondered, that the women were never really part of the action?” The Secret Lives of Women Spies is her answer to that question, exploring the role that female spies have played over the last hundred years.

Charlotte Philby is the granddaughter of the Soviet spy Kim - Puffin

The entries range from the Dutch dancer Mata Hari, who was convicted of spying for Germany during the First World War, to the American cryptanalyst Elizebeth Smith Friedman, who worked as a codebreaker in both world wars. Philby wears her research lightly, telling each story as a swift narrative history, with few dates and no footnotes. “It is almost midnight in Edith’s prison cell on the outskirts of Brussels, and soon, they tell her, she will be killed by firing squad”: thus begins the entry for the British nurse Edith Cavell, who was executed by German soldiers in 1915 after helping Allied troops escape from German-occupied Belgium.

Much of the emphasis is on the women’s feats of derring-do, be it Cavell ferrying British soldiers to the Dutch frontier, or the “gorgeous rule-breaker” Krystyna Skarbek (later known as Christine Granville) being smuggled out of Hungary in the boot of a car. But some of the most interesting passages concern the women’s motivations. One of the entries is for Edith Tudor-Hart, an Austrian-born photographer who was brought up in a family of Viennese socialists and spent the Second World War in England spying for the Soviets. As Philby explains, her ideology was influenced by her student days studying photography at the Bauhaus school in Germany. “Modernists believed in the power of the future, rather than always looking to the past. This reflects how Edith viewed the ideas of communism and how she believed those ideas could change the world.”

The Secret Lives of Women Spies will provide plenty of vehicle for classroom discussion, with a glossary providing explanations on everything from conscientious objection to schizophrenia. Philby’s skill, however, is to condense meaty themes into digestible ideas, appropriate for the intended readership of eight-plus. Girls’ espionage stories are all the rage today, with titles such as Ruby Redfort and Alice Éclair, Spy Extraordinaire! among the current bestsellers. But few fictional adventures can outdo those recounted here.

The Secret Lives of Women Spies is published by Puffin at £8.99. To order your copy, call 0330 173 5030 or visit Telegraph Books

Heir of Storms is published by Penguin - Buauna Ball

Heir of Storms &starf;&starf;&starf;&starf;&star;

by Lauryn Hamilton Murray

Romantasy novels are publishing’s latest commercial sensation, with sales rocketing faster than any other genre – and for all its steamy plotlines, it is teenagers who are reportedly among the biggest consumers. The phenomenon is loosely defined by publishers as a hybrid of fantasy and romance. But much of romantasy’s appeal lies in its rigid formula, and this debut novel by Lauryn Hamilton Murray does not put a foot wrong.

The story is narrated by 17-year-old Blaze, who is “a pure-blooded descendent of the Fire Goddess Vesta” (strong feisty heroine, tick) and a member of the most powerful family in the fantasy kingdom (tick) in which the story is set. Such is her power that her birth is believed to have caused a ferocious flood, killing thousands. “Those who died, died because of me… Storm Weaver. That is what they call me. The girl who wove the storm that shook the world.” All her life, Blaze has been reviled and feared for the havoc she has wrought; and even her father has barely seen her since her mother died seven years ago. “Grief changes people… he couldn’t bear to look at me anymore, because I reminded him too much of her.”

But Blaze alone knows that her infamous powers are long faded. “Whatever power I might have possessed, it’s gone. And I am empty… Losing it meant losing part of my identity. Without it I’m… Well, that’s the thing. I’m not quite sure what I am.” Her Voyage of Self-Discovery (tick) begins when she and her twin brother Flint are selected to compete in the “Choosing Rite” to elect the future rulers of the empire. Then comes the classical romantic plotline, in which Blaze finds herself contending with two broodingly attractive male suitors (tick), whose motives she must discern.

So far, so romantasy. But the plot is only part of it. For the successful romantasy novel must also be written in melodious romantasy prose, at which Hamilton Murray excels. “My birth meant death,” reads a typically poetic passage. “Corpses were sent away in a ceaseless flood, left to bloat and rot, or devoured by sea creatures or wayward sirens… Every Harglade inherits fire flickering at their fingertips, tearing through their veins… Harglade fire is ancient fire, rare and pure and uncontaminated, preserved down the generations by the careful crossing of Ignitia bloodlines.”

Romantasy is not intended for boys. As one publisher puts it: “These stories have attracted huge numbers of female readers who may previously not have felt particularly welcome or catered for in the fantasy market.” I suspect many female readers, including me, will have felt just as welcome in Narnia. But if romantasy is your cup of tea, this book will not disappoint.

Recommended

The future of romantasy plots? Fewer hunks, more nerds

Emily Randall-Jones, author of The Scream of the Whistle - Stephen Daly

The Scream of the Whistle &starf;&starf;&starf;&starf;&star;

by Emily Randall-Jones

Any child who has raced through Roald Dahl’s The Witches, waiting to see if the Grand High Witch will succeed in her plan to turn all the children in England into mice, will tell you that young readers have a healthy appetite for the macabre. And Emily Randall-Jones will not disappoint them. Her first novel, The Witchstone Ghosts (2023), told the story of a young girl who can see the ghost of every dead soul, save for that of her father.

The heroine of the story is Ruby, who is miserable following her parents’ separation. Until recently, the family lived in a house with sheet glass kitchen doors and a “games cupboard that stretched to the ceiling”. But now Ruby and her mother and her older brother Sam have to move in with their grandmother, ‘Gram’, who lives in a cramped cottage in the run-down village of Melbridge. The local station is long closed, and the houses resemble “ghosts of the long-dead railway village, made from stone as grey as storm clouds… The heart had long gone. Melbridge was a ruined shrine to something dead. The houses were its mourners.”

Ruby longs to escape – and when she discovers that the disused railway line runs from Melbridge to her old home in Little Hampton, she decides to follow it on foot. An ancient steam train appears out of the mist, and a benevolent-looking Conductor offers her a free ride. (“Come along, miss. The Green Lady is waiting.”) Ruby cannot resist. But The Green Lady is not all it appears – and no sooner has Ruby stepped on board than she finds herself transported on a ghostly journey back in time, where she’s forced to confront her family’s long-buried secrets. Was Gram’s grandfather really to blame for the fatal train crash in 1925 that resulted in Melbridge’s station’s closure? And can Ruby turn back the curse that has shrouded the village ever since?

One of the pitfalls of children’s ghost stories is that the supernatural elements are so fantastic that they overwhelm the plot. But there’s no such danger here. The action is brisk, and Randall-Jones keeps the focus firmly fixed on our nervous young narrator, ensuring that every ghoulish image is filtered through her eyes. (“In the dim light, the Conductor’s eye sockets seemed to sink into themselves. As if they were empty. As if his head were only a skull… [then his] bony face turned human again. It did funny things, darkness.”) The result is that this is more a story of derring-do than “paranormal horror” – and all the better for that.

The Scream of the Whistle is published by Chicken House at £7.99. To order your copy, call 0330 173 0523 or visit Telegraph Books

Recommended

The beautiful ghost story that every child should read

Mike Rampton, author of Become a Genius in a Year

Become a Genius in a Year &starf;&starf;&starf;&starf;&star;

by Mike Rampton

The most popular non-fiction books for children tend to be triumphs of enthusiasm over expertise. In his best-selling Big Science for Little Minds series, the Irish illustrator John Devolle cheerfully introduces four-year-olds to the concept of microbiology; in A Really Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson analyses “everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilisation” in 176 pages.

Mike Rampton’s Become a Genius in a Year, as its title suggests, is another example of a book that sets out to equip the seven-to-nine-year-old reader with an air of instant erudition, while going into no depth on any subject at all. But can such books teach us anything worth knowing?

In his previous book, There’s No Such Thing as a Silly Question, Rampton’s subjects leapt from from the structure of the human skeleton, to how knights in armour used to relieve themselves. (“With as much time as possible.”) This time, the sweep is similarly broad. “Hello, I am the world’s most incredible genius,” Rampton writes in the introduction, explaining that there are so many facts inside his skull that if he doesn’t share them, he fears his brain might explode. He’s therefore offering us this year-long course, by which the young reader can read a fact a day and turn “from a regular person to a full-on intellectual powerhouse”.

The budding intellectual might find some of the material frustratingly brief. An explanation of the decimal system, for example, takes up only one paragraph, and all we learn about Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses is that “he wrote almost all of it while sitting on the toilet”. Similarly, an entry on Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, tells us about his 1781 essay on flatulence – but doesn’t mention the Declaration of Independence.

And yet, for all its emphasis on matters lavatorial, the book is deceptively informative. The entry for June 8, for example, succinctly explains the complex giant-impact theory, according to which the hypothesised planet Theia collided with the Earth 4.5 billion years ago with some of the ejected debris coalescing to form the Moon. There is plenty for the geographer – “The mouth of the Catatumbo River in Venezuela, where it enters Lake Maracaibo, is the site of more lightning than any other place on Earth” – and, in an entry for January 14, there are instructions on how to milk a cow.

Some of these facts will be more useful than others. But by the end, we’ve skimmed the surface of atomic and evolutionary theories, and galloped through a brief history of everything from the signing of the Magna Carta to the invention of contact lenses. The seven-year-old who manages to remember the entire contents of the book might still not be a “full-on intellectual powerhouse”. But they will be in a very good position to show off.

Become a Genius in a Year is published by HarperCollins at £7.99. To order your copy, call 0330 173 5030 or visit Telegraph Books

Recommended

Breezy, bolshy, bizarre – a fun science primer for kids

The Doughnut Club is the first novel by London-based writer Kristina Rahim - Jo Mieszkowski

The Doughnut Club &starf;&starf;&starf;&starf;&star;

by Kristina Rahim

The Human Fertility and Embryology Authority recently predicted that by 2030 there’ll be an average of “one or two donor-conceived children in every English state primary school”. And yet while there are plenty of picture books on the theme of donor conception – My Mummy Made Me; Happy Together; You, Me, We – stories for older readers remain relatively thin on the ground.

Kristina Rahim is the mother of two donor-conceived daughters, and The Doughnut Club, her engaging debut novel, was written with the intention of helping donor children of nine years old and above to feel better understood. The story, aimed at readers of nine and above, is narrated by Quinn, a 12-year-old who has two mothers. “You probably know that to make a baby, you need a sperm and an egg. Mum and Mama were missing the sperm part, so they needed a donor for that,” Quinn explains. And while Quinn and her brother Olly have the same sperm donor, she’s the biological child of “Mama” and Olly’s the biological child of “Mum”. “I call Olly my brother,” Quinn tells us, “because that’s what he is. Technically he’s my half-brother, but I’d never call him that.”

Theirs is a secure, loving family – but at home, Quinn sometimes feels like the odd one out. She’s the only one with red hair and green eyes; and while her mothers and her brother enjoy daredevil sports, she would always sooner be reading a book: “I appear to be the only one who likes things slow and steady instead of fast and furious!”

When the story begins, the family is setting off on holiday to the North Devon coast, where Quinn fears she’ll be forced to spend her time rock-climbing and surfing. “Holidays are meant to be relaxing aren’t they? Not when you’re a member of the Parker family.” So when Mum and Mama choose the holiday to reveal that she and Olly have 16 donor siblings, spread around the world, Quinn determines to track them down, hoping to find a soulmate. “Who knows, some of them might agree with me that scrambling across a bouldering wall will be zero fun.” But as she begins her detective work, she starts to fear the most extraordinary coincidence: could one of her donor siblings be the priggish Monika, whose family is staying at the same hotel?

For some young readers, not even Quinn’s no-nonsense explanations will fully demystify the idea of donor conception. But Rahim weaves those complex matters into a mystery with an absorbing plot, driven by its plucky, warm-hearted heroine. “It’s annoying sometimes, having to explain the two-mum thing to new people, but apart from that, our family is our family,” says Quinn – and that’s all we need to understand.

The Doughnut Club by Kristina Rahim is published by Nosy Crow at £7.99. To order your copy, call 0330 173 5030 or visit Telegraph Books

Recommended

A heartbreaking story to help teach children about grief

The late RA Montgomery, writer of Journey Under the Sea - Pushkin

Journey Under the Sea &starf;&starf;&starf;&starf;&star;

by RA Montgomery

The Choose Your Own Adventure books had a cult-like appeal in the 1980s and 1990s. Between 1979 and 1998, they sold 250 million copies, making them one of the bestselling children’s series of all time. The novels were written by 30 different authors, but one of the names most keenly associated with the stories is RA Montgomery, a publisher from Vermont who was involved in the series’s initial launch, and went on to contribute an astonishing 49 of the 184 titles. Journey Under the Sea (1979) was his first – and this new edition by Pushkin, one of six books in the series that the publisher is resurrecting, will make you wonder why these enthralling tales ever fell out of print.

For the uninitiated: the appeal of the novels lies in their pioneering “game book” format. Each story is narrated in the second person, with the reader – a seemingly gender-neutral “YOU” – assuming the role of protagonist, and being required to make decisions that determine the outcome of the plot. “You and YOU ALONE are in charge of what happens in this story,” we’re warned on each book’s opening page. “The wrong decision could end in disaster – even death.”

It sure can. Each book offers the reader 40-odd possible endings, and during the series we risk almost every conceivable form of catastrophe, from falling down mineshafts to being eaten by intergalactic meatpackers. In Journey Under the Sea, the stakes are predictably high. “You are a deep-sea explorer searching for the famed lost city of Atlantis,” the book begins in a tone of motion-picture suspense. “‘This is your most challenging and dangerous mission. Fear and excitement are now your companions.”

The scenarios are not for the faint hearted. “It’s no use. The whirlpool has you in its grip. You feel your arms and legs being torn in every direction. There is no way out. Round and round you go” – this is the sort of fix in which we continually find ourselves. But Montgomery alloys suspense with understatement. The reader can either blast a hole in the whirlpool wall (turn to page 96) or “continue to struggle” (turn to page 97).

By the end, everyone will have achieved the ending they deserve, though fortune invariably favours the brave. Pity the reader who opts to “rest a few days” after a near-death diving experience: “You are all alive, but there are no replacements for the damaged equipment. The money has run out. The expedition to Atlantis is over. The End.” As with many of the Choose Your Own Adventures, elements of the story feel boldly derivative – in this case, the echoes of Jules Verne’s 1870 masterpiece Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea are rather clear. Still, it’s remarkable how fresh the Choose Your Own Adventure format still seems, nearly half a century after its initial success.

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