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Children’s books roundup – the best new picture books and novels

Homeschool may be out for the summer, but there’s new reading aplenty. For nine-plus, Victoria Jamieson, award-winning author-illustrator of Roller Girl, teams up with Omar Mohammed to tell his story in the powerful graphic novel When Stars Are Scattered (Faber). Omar and his disabled brother Hassan grew up in the Kenyan refugee camp Dadaab before being resettled in the US: young readers are plunged into the hunger, boredom and desperation of children growing up in limbo, as well as the hope that enables them to survive.

Sophie Kirtley’s debut The Wild Way Home (Bloomsbury) echoes Skellig and Stig of the Dump, with a bold, readable charm entirely its own. Charlie longs to be a big brother, but when his baby sibling is born with a heart defect, he runs away into the forest, where he finds the strange, fierce Harby, a Stone Age boy, floating in the river. Will Charlie and Harby ever break free of the wood? Full of peril, sadness and wild joy, it’s a timeslip adventure with a difference.

In Hana Tooke’s gripping The Unadoptables (Puffin), illustrated by Ayesha L Rubio, orphans Lotta, Sem, Milou, Fenna and Egg know they’re special, even if Matron Gassgeek thinks they’re misfits. When a sinister stranger threatens to separate them, the quintet flee through a wintry Amsterdam in search of Milou’s parents and a home of their own. A Dickensian orphanage, a hilariously varied cast and a windmill crammed with mysterious puppets make for a delightful and evocative first book.

For five- to eight-year-olds, from Cerrie Burnell and Lauren Baldo, comes I Am Not a Label (Wide Eyed), a richly illustrated compendium of disabled activists, artists, thinkers and athletes including Frida Kahlo, Stephen Hawking, Eliza Suggs and Lady Gaga. Burnell’s dreamy yet fiery tone infuses each brief biography with a sense of its subject’s refusal to be held back by the expectations of others.

Ace coder Asha Joshi is recruited to prove foul play when the internet is threatened by cable-chomping sharks in Agent Asha: Mission Shark Bytes (Walker) by Sophie Deen, illustrated by Anjan Sarkar. This rip-roaring secret agent caper for seven-plus is full of algorithms, debugging – broken down and engagingly explained – and fart jokes.

There is more child-pleasing humour in Llama Out Loud! (Egmont) by Annabelle Sami, with illustrations by Allen Fatimaharan. Yasmin lives in a house full of relatives, and is so used to being shouted down by aunties and parents that she’s given up speaking. Her only pleasure is playing board games at the old folks’ home – but when an ill-behaved toy llama starts causing chaos, even that may be taken away. Anarchically silly fun, in the vein of Little Badman and the Invasion of the Killer Aunties.

In picture books, too, it’s all about the heroines this month. Colourful and charming, Catch That Chicken! (Walker) by Atinuke, illustrated by Angela Brooksbank, features Lami, who is the best in her Nigerian village at catching chickens – even when she sprains her ankle and has to use her brains rather than her speed.

Meanwhile, I Can Catch a Monster (Two Hoots) is Bethan Woollvin’s first picture book based on a new story rather than a fairytale. Bo’s brothers tell her she’s too little to hunt monsters, but it turns out griffins and dragons aren’t so monstrous after all … Woollvin’s characteristically bold style and her creations’ big, stylised eyes lend themselves brilliantly to subversive storytelling.

And sparky little Rocket returns in Clean Up! (Puffin) by Nathan Bryon and Dapo Adeola. The family is off on a visit to Jamaica, but when they arrive the beach is a plastic-strewn mess; it’s up to Rocket to lead a clean-up effort. Deft characterisation, slyly funny illustrations, interwoven facts and an inspirational surfing grandma add up to a picture book with a lovely balance of urgency, humour and heart.

Teenagers roundup

The Great Godden
by Meg Rosoff, Bloomsbury, £12.99
For Rosoff’s unnamed narrator, summers are always spent at the family’s grand, dilapidated seaside house. This year, though, things are complicated by their friends’ wedding planning and by the disruptive arrival of the Godden boys – plain, introverted Hugo and golden, charismatic Kit. Mattie, the narrator’s beautiful sister, is soon reeled in by Kit’s charm, but the narrator is determined to hold out, even as Kit exerts all his considerable powers of persuasion … This summer-soaked, bittersweet novel, full of the exhilarating anguish of first love, also warns quietly against the dangers of gaslighting and manipulation.

You Should See Me in a Crown
by Leah Johnson, Scholastic, £7.99
In Liz Lighty’s small midwestern town, tradition dictates that the Prom Queen and King get more than plastic tiaras – they win college scholarships, too. When Liz misses out on her chosen music college, her friends give her no choice – all of a sudden she’s in the running to become high school royalty. But what’s the likelihood of a black, gay prom queen in a conservative school like hers, especially when she starts to fall for one of her rivals? A deliciously romantic and readable subversion of the typical prom story.

Harrow Lake
by Kat Ellis, Puffin, £7.99
Lola Nox’s dad is a famous horror director, so nothing much scares Lola – until the day her father is savagely attacked and she’s sent away to stay with her grandmother in Harrow Lake, the strange small town where his greatest film was shot. But who is the mysterious Mister Jitters, what are the locals hiding, and will Lola ever sift through the secrets of her own past – or be allowed to leave the town? All the best horror tropes and twists are interwoven in this compelling, creepy and genuinely unsettling novel.