Choosing books for the under-nines is tricky. Suddenly the choice has moved from large-format, lavishly illustrated books to slim hardbacks or paperbacks with just a few linedrawings inside. Hard to tell which is a good read and which isn't. There are adventure stories, schoolroom stories, neighbourhood yarns, amazing tales about weird creatures that hatch out of eggs or descend from space ships, and there are poignant tales of family life with new mums and dads replacing old and not enough money to go around. Starting from the top, there is very little out there to match the magical Harry Potter series. The Philosopher's Stone has kept our eight-year-old and five-year-old enthralled at bed time for the past several weeks, and us at the same time, with its incredibly vivid language and characters.
Roll on July 8th when, apparently running to some 640 pages, J.K. Rowling's biggest Harry Potter yet will be launched on an eagerly awaiting world. They're even keeping the title under wraps until the big day.
Still in adventure mode, Odo Hirsch's new story, Bartlett and the City of Flames (Bloomsbury, £9.99 in UK) has the unlikely hero, Bartlett - a tall stringy fellow with freckles - who, with Jacques and Gozo, his sidekicks, sets out to find the kidnapped son of the Pasha and return him to the City of the Sun. First, though, they have to find him in the City of Flames, and that's after they have come through the Stonefields, where pillars of stone have a habit of turning into people.
If you like this, then you can also get Bartlett and the Ice Voyage in paperback (Bloomsbury, £4.99 in UK), the story of a Queen who rules not one but seven kingdoms but who has never eaten the fruit of the Melidrop tree. As in the best stories, someone very brave has to go to the end of the earth to fetch it for her and find a way of bringing it back fresh. Zartog's Remote, a new book from Carlow author Herbie Brennan (Bloomsbury. £9.99 in UK) is about a strange little creature from outer space who lands on Earth and promptly loses the remote control that will get him home again. It ends up with a girl called Rachael who is being bullied by some very mean boys, but not for long . . .
The Secret Life of Sally Tomato by Jean Ure (Collins, £9.99 in U K) is something completely different. Salvatore d'Amato - Sal to his friends - is a 12-year-old who is determined to build up his muscles and kiss a girl by the end of term. In the meantime he makes up an alphabet of rhymes to keep him amused: "K . . . is for knockers and knickers and kiss/ The first two are rude, but the third one is bliss!" Giggle-making in parts, but too advanced for the little undernines. In the same mode, but far more entertaining, is the story of Eric And The Pimple Potion by Barbara Mitchelhill (Tigers, Andersen Press, £7.99 in UK). Poor Eric, who hates the fussy pageboy suit his mum has bought him to wear to her wedding. And, worse than that, she's marrying his teacher. On top of all that he has a spot on his chin, which he tries to remove by using a mysterious potion sent by his aunt in South America, with amazing consequences. A new offering from Poolbeg, Uncle Edward And The Egg, by teacher turned filmmaker and mother of three, C.C. Chessell (Poolbeg, £3.99), also features a gift from abroad. This time it's a precious egg given to Ben by his uncle, an explorer. The egg hatches and out comes a baby dragon that grows and grows with lots of havoc on the way.
All Billy wants in Who Loves You, Billy by Bernard Ashley (Collins, £3.99 in UK), is a packed lunch so that he doesn't have to eat the yucky free school dinners, but more than that he wants a packed lunch like Declan's, with a loving note in it every day from his mum. His mum hasn't got time for writing notes because she has to work in a pub. This is down-to-earth stuff but it has a happy, realistic ending all the same.
Disgusting things always go down well with this age-group and grubby six and seven-year-olds will like Killer Mushrooms Ate My Gran by Susan Gates (Puffin, £3.99); The Worst Class In The School, a book of rhymes by Colin Fletcher (Poolbeg, £3.99) showing an explosive fart on the front cover, and Simon Cheshire's They Melted His Brain! (Walker, £3.99 in UK).
A new book in Magdalen Nabb's Josie Smith series, Josie Smith in Summer (Collins, £3.99 in UK) comes just in time for the summer holidays. Josie Smith lives in a tiny village somewhere in England with lots of friends who sound like comic characters, like Rawley Baxter and Gary Grimes, and a sweetshop down the road. Summer is idyllic, with long hot days, a big garden fete, and a day's fishing, but things don't work out quite so well when she wears her too-small sandals to go down to the river.
Veteran storyteller Dick King-Smith spins a simple entertaining yarn in The Magic Slippers, (Viking, £9.99 in UK), all about Old Mr Sloggett who loves to wear slippers but wears them down so fast he has to buy new ones all the time; until he picks a pair that make him feel suddenly very powerful. Before these slippers wear out, he makes a few wishes come true.
Orna Mulcahy is an Irish Times journalist
Detail of illustration by Bee Willey from River Story by Meredith Hooper, Walker Books, £9.99 in UK
