Kids Book Club - August

0-4 years
Bedtime for Monsters
Ed Vere
9780141502397
£6.99

Bedtime For Monsters
Ed Vere might not be a household name as yet, but he really deserves to be. The four children's titles he's written so far – Banana, Chick, Mr Big and The Getaway - have all been marvellously original, and each wildly different from one another in terms of tone and age range. He's the David Bowie of picture books, if you like. This is yet another change of gear. A slobbering, hungry monster is getting nearer with every passing page. The tension mounts and mounts - but thankfully it turns out that he wants to give the reader a goodnight kiss rather than wolf them down. It's terrific fun, though it might prove just too suspenseful for less hardy readers. Vere's style is bold and distinctive, and his gift for uncommonly imaginative storytelling is something to be treasured.

Little Red Riding Hood
4-6 years
Little Red Hood
Marjolaine Leray / Sarah Ardizzone
9781907912009
£7.99

Translated from a French original, this takes the core elements of Little Red Riding Hood and runs amok with them. Working on the basis that less is more, visually it's a pared-down mass of impressionistic scribbles. The wolf, for instance, is just a rough grey scrawl with formidable teeth.  In graphic terms, compared to the run-of the mill picture book, it's a real breath of fresh air. The text itself is very minimal, but be assure this isn't the helpless Red Hood of yore. This incarnation won't stand for any nonsense and she doesn't need the assistance of a woodcutter to send that nasty old wolf on his way. The first offering from ambitious new publishing house Phoenix Yard, this may enrapture just as many adult fans as children. Fresh, smart and knowing, it's very spirited, very stylish and, yes, very French. 

The Mysteries of Harris Burdick
6-8 years
The Mysteries of Harris Burdick
Chris Van Allsburg
9781849392792
£5.99

A very welcome reissue of a highly regarded and highly original American picture book, first published back in 1984. It's not really a story at all, but rather a springboard for the reader's own creativity. A series of delicately-rendered full-page black and white illustrations blend realism with hints of the fantastic, each complete with a dramatically-loaded caption. But the illustrations are unconnected, except by the conceit that they're all excerpts the work of the titular Harris Burdick, who once deposited them in a publisher's office but was never seen again. The sense of mystery and magic is palpable throughout, and imaginatively-inclined children will really lap this up. On home turf Van Allsburg is much adored and his books Jumanji, Zathura and The Polar Express have all been adapted as major feature films.

Too Much Trouble
9-12 years
Too Much Trouble
Tom Avery 
￡5.99
9781847802347

By day Avery teaches at a primary school in inner city London. In his time there he's learnt a lot about children's literacy and the privations some of the pupils can experience. That's been channelled into this, his debut novel. It features two young African brothers, Emmanuel and Prince, who are despatched to London to be educated in the care of their uncle. But when that arrangement goes awry, the brothers end up hungry and homeless. They're taken in by a mysterious benefactor, but he has his own motives and leads them seriously astray. By Avery's own admission he's drawn on Dickens to a major degree, in ripping issues from the headlines and relating them in an unsensational manner that's anchored in three-dimensional characters. Supremely pacey but always accessible written, the result is gritty, gripping and properly engrossing.


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