This autumn’s publishing schedule is packed with heavy hitters. Piers Torday, he of The Last Wild, has made a surprise swerve into fantasy in time for Halloween. Midnight Treasure (Hachette) is a classy take on the vampire and werewolf genres that dives into the myths of Torday’s Transylvanian heritage.
Immortals rule the land and humans have been reduced to serf-like subsistence. Young werewolf-to-be Tibor is nearly of transforming age; his guardian, Orlov, meanwhile, is a powerful “vampir” who sends Tibor on a gruelling mission to find a mysterious treasure that reveals itself once a year. What transpires is a high-stakes parable of friendship, powerful minerals and environmental damage flecked with Indiana Jones-style derring-do.
Also leaning into personal themes is Hannah Gold, feted author of The Last Bear. Silver’s parents are at a low ebb, unable to give her a little sibling. Silver, though, wonders why she isn’t enough for them.
To cheer Silver’s mother up, they decamp to a Costa Rican turtle sanctuary, where Silver’s artist father provides paintings for its fundraising drive. In these unfamiliar surroundings, Silver is surprised to find a secret treehouse and a friend, Rafi. But the children must pit their wits against both forest and poachers when a clutch of leatherback eggs is stolen during a storm. Turtle Moon (HarperCollins) works as a thoughtful, eco-thriller adventure novel, and as a meditation on life cycles and the toll taken by infertility.
Frances Hardinge’s hungry forest might be even redder in tooth and claw than the Costa Rican jungle. The much-celebrated YA author continues her younger-middle years detour with The Forest of a Thousand Eyes (Two Hoots), in which straggler groups of humanity are siloed on a great, crumbling wall, just keeping the ravenous wild at bay.
Young Feather finds a stranger and steals a precious telescope for him. Bad mistake. With her community at risk, she and Sleek, her scaled ferret, must recover it, chasing their quarry along the wall, dodging giant eagles and discovering more survivors. Hardinge is excellent on resourceful children in extremis, as Feather finally confronts her enemy with guts and compassion.
Worthy of this stellar company is a debutant with an urgent, nuanced book. James Fox’s The Boy in the Suit (Scholastic) follows young Solo and his tipsy mother, Morag, as they gatecrash funerals for the free food because, well, things are tight. The only thing not tight is Solo’s suit, which he wears to school because Morag won’t stretch to a uniform. Solo craves normality, but things go from difficult to worse as their wheeze is exposed, #FuneralBoy becomes a hashtag – and Morag goes missing. Fox resolves this deceptively breezy tale of austerity and mental illness with deft compassion; would that real kids in Solo’s battered shoes should be so lucky.
Light relief? That comes from Carnegie-scooping Patrick Ness, who pulls off a zany caper with verve. In Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody (Walker), Ness’s brio turns the school travails of a group of monitor lizards into a bonkers, yet convincing story about difference – and giant killer robots. An entire subplot about how the country of France ended up on Zeke the monitor lizard’s knee is deftly rolled into this pacey, knockabout plot.
A titan of middle years lit left us in August. The wonderful Jeremy Strong’s final chapter book, written when the prolific author knew he was dying, feels like an old fashioned, all-ages classic. Fox Goes North (Scholastic) follows a group of animals (shades of Wind in the Willows) as they journey to see the northern lights. The Eeyorish Moose pulls their merry house on wheels through thick and thin as Bear warms to their new friend, Fox, who reads flower petal runes. Fox senses this is his last hurrah – tissues please – before the biggest journey of all. Strong’s warm, wise swansong asks us to muddle along bravely, band together and see the good in our fellow travellers.
To that end: Black history month can never be long enough. So David Olusoga and his siblings Yinka Olusoga and illustrator Kemi Olusoga have written Black History for Every Day of the Year (Macmillan). These 365 entries span everything from the Empire Windrush to film director Jordan Peele (Get Out) via other, often lesser known, but no less vivid chapters in our shared history.
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