Contemporary Australian fiction for the young, in both realistic and fantasy mode, provides some of the most original examples of the genre. If these can be said to have one predominant characteristic it is that their writers clearly take seriously their young readership and never underestimate its ability to respond to complex and atmospheric plotting or to nuance and implication of characterisation and setting.
Paradoxically, this seriousness of intent coexists, in the best books, with a sense of humour which is sophisticated and ironic, often itself the medium through which the narratives are given their point and power. A novel such as Robin Klein's The Listmaker (Viking, £7.99 in UK) manages wonderfully to embrace both these serious and humorous dimensions.
On the serious side, it is about the way in which a young teenager, Sarah Radcliffe, comes to appreciate the difference between the real and the bogus, particularly where friendship is concerned. To begin with, she is totally convinced of the infallibility of her own judgments, whether of her two eccentric maiden aunts or of the apparently dynamic and glamorous new stepmother soon to enter her life. But such is the skill of Klein's writing that we are aware (as Sarah is not) that these certainties are merely masks for her sense of rejection and vulnerability; and the learning process which we witness her undergo is traced with wit and sympathetic insight.
Also from Australia, where it has won three of the country's principal children's book awards, comes Eleanor Nilsson's The House Guest (Puffin, £4.99 in UK). Here we meet a group of three boys and a girl who earn their kicks (and some financial rewards) from burgling large houses in their neighbourhood. While the individual group members and their inter-relationships are skilfully delineated, we come to focus on Gunno and on the house which is eerily to have a special fascination for him. The manner in which he becomes involved with its inhabitants (present and absent) provides the material for an excellently paced narrative imbued with tension and excitement.
Gunno's story has its roots in ancient Icelandic myth and history. Interestingly, it is from similar territory that Berlie Doherty draws her inspiration in Daughter of the Sea (Puffin, £3.99 in UK), into which is also woven material from traditional Irish and Scottish sources. The resulting tale - beautifully and sparely written - is of human and non-human worlds, the margin between them portrayed as slim and slippery; the call of the sea and of the creatures who dwell in it (or who must return to it) is poignant and insistent.
Mortal happiness and joy are hard-earned and elusive in a world dominated by bleakly elemental and atavistic forces. From such motifs Doherty fashions her haunting and poetic story.
While Gillian Cross's Pictures in the Dark (Puffin, £4.99 in UK) also deals with water and at least one of the creatures who reside in it, the setting here is much more contemporary than Doherty's. As a result of his absorption in photography, young teenager Charlie Willcox finds himself caught up in solving the mystery surrounding Peter, a fellow pupil at school - a mystery in which Peter's father will be shown to have a central and frightening role. Cross, as always, catches exquisitely the edginess and friction of modern school and family life, but also shows her ability to use these as a backcloth for projecting darker and more disturbing pictures.
To the already considerable number of young teenage novels which take the current Ulster "troubles" as a background for projecting some particularly bleak pictures can now be added Carlo Gebler's Frozen Out (Mammoth, £4.99 in UK). Subtitled A Tale of Betrayal and Survival, this story sees 10-year-old Phoebe and her family move from Kensington to Co Fermanagh, a place, in Phoebe's father's words, "stuck in a time-warp circa 1950".
Gebler understands and conveys well the sadness of youthful disillusionment; less convincing are the characterisation of his adult characters and the dialogue by which they are represented.
Finally, a word of recommendation for Martin Wad dell's The Life and Loves of Zoe T. Curley (Walker, £3.99 in UK), an essentially light-hearted report, in diary style, on a month in the life of its young heroine; these are August days dominated by anxieties about dental braces, puppy fat, young men and parties, when, as Zoe's friend Melissa points out, "The real bother was the adults mucking our stuff up, the way they always do."
Robert Dunbar has recently edited First Times and Enchanted Journeys