PRE-TEEN FICTIONAT A TIME when much of the discussion about children's books focuses on the appropriateness (or otherwise) of the increasingly controversial material now available for teenagers it is something of a relief to encounter a selection of novels such as those under review here.
Intended primarily for a pre-teen readership, these adhere - to varying degrees and with varying degrees of success - to the notion that the essential appeal of any work of fiction will be a strong narrative and a vivid cast of characters, without sinking into a quagmire of "issues", veiled didacticism or self-conscious attempts to break down whatever linguistic and thematic taboos remain.
The reputation already established by Diana Wynne Jones as one of the most distinguished contemporary writers of fantasy is more than maintained in The Game (HarperCollins, £6.99). Hayley, a young girl, is entrusted by her London grandparents to the care of a highly eccentric group of relatives, living in a rambling abode in Ireland. Here, she finds herself - in more than one sense - playing "the game", a pursuit which introduces her to the fascination of what her relatives call the mythosphere. In this magical domain live characters drawn from classical mythology and fairy tale, whose natures and stories are seen to be linked with those of Hayley's family. Part "Big House" novel for beginners and part stunning juxtaposition of real and imaginary worlds, this richly imaginative fiction sparkles with mischief.
"All of it had been weird or fantastic or magical." Thus reflects Olly, the young hero of Susan Hill's The Battle for Gullywith, as his adventures come to an end - but they have been darker and more frightening than Hayley's. Moving with his family from London to a bleak and isolated farmhouse in the Lake District, Olly is soon at the centre of a sequence of supernatural occurrences, all of them deriving from the re-emergence of ancient powers which have returned to assert their claims to the territory of which they have long since been dispossessed. Particularly eerie is the phenomenon of the moving stones, complete with their enigmatic markings, which sporadically intrude with their atavistic resonances on the narrative. Hill's themes are not strikingly original but she conveys memorably the chilling erosion of everyday priorities when the irrational and inexplicable threaten to take over.
Something, we are told early in Philip Womack's The Other Book, is "breaking through the delicate membrane" surrounding the world of 12-year-old Edward Pollock. At Oldstone Manor, his English boarding school, his world is one whose boundaries are thinning, shifting between long-buried secrets and present-day revelations. Passing between these domains demands for the boy an entry into the world contained within the pages of an ancient volume whose intrigues and skulduggeries are disturbingly seen to exert a continuing relevance. With frequent echoes of Arthurian legend, Womack's novel, in spite of occasional over-written and convoluted moments, is a happy mixture of thriller and fantasy modes. Its depiction of boarding school life and the tangled web of relationships between pupils and between pupils and staff is entertaining and, at times, only too convincing.
Most widely known for his illustrations for some of the work of Neil Gaiman, artist Dave McKean now brings his distinctive style to bear - with startling effect - on David Almond's The Savage. The result is part parable, part graphic novel, part book about a book. Blue Baker, a boy whose father has just died, embarks on writing a story about "the Savage", a wild, cannibalistic youth living near his home. This, for Blue, starts off as a means of assuaging grief and of coping with Hopper, a local bully, but its total significance for the boy comes only when, incredibly, it starts to come true and when his own identity and that of "the Savage" would seem to be merging. This is an extremely touching and cleverly conceived story within a story of how wounds can gradually heal and sadness fade: it is excellently served by its design, layout and high production values.
While each of these four books can fairly claim to have some measure of serious intent, the same will not be said of Philip Caveney's Sebastian Darke: Prince of Pirates. Here, the emphasis is on unmitigated fun, as we follow a hunt for treasure in the company of Sebastian (a former court jester), his friend Cornelius and, most delightful of all, the garrulous and querulous creature known as Max the buffalope, with his engaging penchant for sarcastic one-liners. Their picaresque adventures on the vessel called Sea Witch (captain: Jenna Swift; first mate: Lemuel) and their highly-charged encounters with numerous obstacles, human and otherwise, are the stuff of which the most swashbuckling piratical yarns are made.
Robert Dunbar is a commentator on children's books and reading
The Game By Diana Wynne Jones HarperCollins, 199pp. £6.99
The Battle for Gullywith By Susan Hill Bloomsbury, 314pp, £10.99
The Other Book By Philip Womack Bloomsbury, 269pp, £6.99
The Savage By David Almond, illus. by Dave McKean Walker, 79pp, £7.99
Sebastian Darke: Prince of Pirates By Philip Caveney Bodley Head, 389pp, £9.99