Young readers turn pages to find out what happens next; lose the plot and you've really lost them. Enid Blyton, no stylist - Golly! Hallo! Woof! - certainly knew how to drive a story. Of course the telling of the tale matters and an adult reviewer of children's literature can cite subtleties and stylistic flourishes that the twelve-year-old is not interested in, yet. But sometimes what interests the young mind leaves adults cold. I've had it with snot, mouldy underpants, chocolate laxatives and ear-wax. The puerile, rude and disgusting, however, still feature, along with danger, violence, school, fantasy, nature and family life, as popular topics among this batch.
In The Johnny Coffin Diaries (O'Brien, £5.47), by John W. Sexton, Johnny, "the best drummer in the world", tells of his screaming teacher Mr McCluskey; the "best collection of Murphys": Manky Murphy, Monkey Murphy, Snots Murphy etc, in his class; a girlfriend and her pet crocodile, and their zany adventures. Jokes abound but some are very laboured and some are beyond this book's audience. Twelve-year-old Johnny, for example, is asked to write a two-page essay on Gerard Manley Hopkins but "the only conclusion I could come to after reading the poem was that English was his second language". Characters are not developed and the eagerness to keep the show on the road is too obvious but I suspect that many will enjoy Enya Murphy's voodoo act where Mr McCluskey ends up with an "intense itch" in his trousers, or when the budgie suddenly lets go of "a big milky dollop of budgie droppings" on his head.
Pete Johnson's The Frighteners (Corgi, £4.99 in UK), another classroom story, looks at school dynamics and how fears are sometimes of our own making. Chloe arrives at a new school and befriends the silent, strange Aidan. Realism gives way to fantasy when creatures drawn by Aidan become real, or do they? Fine, clear writing convincingly charts the troubled friendship between girl and boy. School features too in Josephine Feeney's engaging The Holy Terrors (Collins, £3.99), a story of our time. Gary's divorced parents have now remarried each other, and talk of a new baby has football-mad Gary devising and executing strategies to prevent the arrival of a screaming, messy, expensive sibling. At school, Father Colum, a kindly presence, helps Gary cope. This is a book with heart.
World War II Rescue at Drumshee (Wolfhound, £4.99)) is Cora Harrison's eleventh book in her history series. Clive and Marjorie are sent to stay with Irish relatives. Once we are in Co Clare the historical dimension thins but American relations add excitement. Improbably, a missing brother is rescued from a German U-boat off Inis Mor but clear portraits (gentle James and moody Vivien), and her evocation of life out-of-doors, are Harrison's strengths.
Odo Hirsch's Antonio S and the Mystery of Theodore Guzman, with its gentle sensibility, was wonderful. His writing is neither agenda-driven nor market-driven and Hirsch's new book, Bartlett and the City of Flames (Bloomsbury, £9.99 in UK), has that same other-wordly, atmospheric, fantastical quality. In a never-ever land, the Overgrounders have sunshine and the lamp-lit Undergrounders, who seem to live on fish and chips, want some too. Darian the Pasha's son has been kidnapped but Bartlett saves him by bringing sunlight to the underworld and he does it with mirrors. There's nothing gentle about Debi Gliori's Pure Dead Magic (Doubleday, £10.99 in UK). Its purple suede cover, with its castle, bats and satellite contraption, says it all. Mrs McLachlan, a 1000year-old witch posing as an ordinary nanny, arrives at StregaSchloss. In her bag is her own spell-making computer and the children in her care e-mail their missing Dad @mafia.org.ital. It's a whacky, clever, OTT performance. Pandora looks for her pet rat in the chest freezer where her great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother is preserved only to be told, "Shut the lid, child. You're letting the heat in".
But the one I would single out for special mention is Catherine MacPhail's Tribes (Puffin, £4.99 in UK). Kevin Davidson, new to town, falls in with a gang, undergoes a terrifying initiation rite, falls behind in school and the Tribe's idea of fun is cycling across the golf course at night. Before he knows it Kevin is out of his depth. Salom, the evilly charismatic gang leader, "is one of those boys you take to right away, and then you begin to have all sorts of doubts about him". His flat is "sparkling and clean and modern and fragrant" but he treats his devoted mother with contempt. MacPhail, through her grippingly involving plot, has her reader share many difficult moral dilemmas and decisions. Kevin learns to lie but in the end he learns to love his embarrassing family - his Mum and Dad's passion for line dancing, his sister Glory ironing her hair - more and more. You're with this one all the way and Salom's haunting, dark green eyes linger.
Niall MacMonagle teaches English at Wesley College, Dublin.