And not heard? There are silences and silences: the worrying, suspicious kind ("Where are they? What are they up to now?") and then the golden silence of absorption, concentration and pleasure when you come upon a little person lost in a book. Hardly an adult on the planet discourages reading, one of the most mysterious, complex and enjoyable of human experiences, but unfortunately there's no foolproof recipe for guaranteed success.
Once hooked, chances are that children will read for the rest of their lives, and the child who sees others reading, who grows up with books in the house and where visits to library and bookshop are frequent, will more likely see books and reading as a natural and enjoyable part of life.
Books for children are big business. The seven-to-nine age category, however, is not as well served as others, yet this very category is a crucial one. Though by seven the picture books have been long since outgrown, the confidence to embark on a book all on one's own is not always there and, if reading is to be encouraged, the right book is crucial.
Phonic Readers such as Lisa Bruce's Pix and Pax series from Bloomsbury (£3.99 in UK) ("Pix is a fit cat. A get up to tricks cat.") might suit the very weak and reluctant seven-year-old and then, for the more able, there isthe Humphrey Carpenter Mr Majeika series. The most recent, Mr Majeika and the School Trip (Puffin, £3.99 in UK) features the wizard teacher casting all kinds of wonderful spells, talking (and friendly) crocodiles, and the worst-behaved boy in Class Three getting his comeuppance. My almost-seven-year-old read it at a sitting and thought it very exciting, loving the crocodiles, the Crooked Caves and the scary bits.
Too many books offer little more than "fast food". Young readers want action and excitement, but when plot alone dominates, the writing is often impoverished. The worthwhile books under review here are those that offer the young reader an interesting and exciting storyline, but also ideas, feelings and a texture in the writing which enriches the experience of entering into different worlds.
Pat Boran's All the Way from China (Poolbeg £3.99) tells the story of Shelley Watters, who feels displaced. She and her mother have moved from Kerry, following her parents' separation, and when her teacher gives her the name of a pen-pal from China, Shelley pretends that she is back in Kerry and writes about "ducks, cows, chickens and even sheep . . ." The deception takes an unusual turn when Tomi Wong also tells of his life in Ningbo. The reader picks up on the moral implications long before Shelley tells the truth, and with that comes Tomi's admission that he too thought that invention was more interesting than reality. Charming and engaging are words that might need dusting down, but they describe perfectly this book, which gradually reveals to its reader "the specialness of things". My in-house critic thought it "cool" and read it twice.
Bullying and child-hating adults, that staple diet of fairytale, reappear in Jenny Nimmo's Toby in the Dark (Walker £7.99 UK). Mrs Malevant arrives from an agency to mind four children while their parents are in Australia. When Mrs Malevant steps through the front door "the hall suddenly seemed to get darker ". The whole house shudders and Toby the old panda bear tumbles to the floor in the attic where he's been asleep for 65 years.
The interesting variation on the nasty childminder is timid Aunt Folly and dour Uncle Maurice, who live upstairs. In the dark and sad house "all the good things seemed to have vanished: the treats and comforts and goodnight kisses. All gone. Nothing left but shadowy corners and Mrs Malevant."
But Toby, who was Maurice's teddy all those years ago, and who can move and speak, succeeds in bringing laughter back into everyone's life, save Mrs Malevant, who "pushed past the happiness" and "couldn't run fast enough" out the door and out of the story. The baddie here is understandably and justifiably a caricature, but the writing is wonderfully atmospheric. A cheering tale all round and all the more enjoyable when not only the children but the aunt learn to cope with the bully, with a little help from a clever bear. My daughter loved this one: "the mean babysitter made it very exciting and I loved the ending."
For the more advanced reader - eight plus - William and the Wolves by Kathryn Cave (Hodder £3.50 in UK) cleverly explores childhood fantasies and sibling jealousies. When Mary's grandmother tells her that she has a little lamb, the blue cushion on the sofa becomes her private pet. Mary's little lamb needs to be fed, preferably mints and cup-cakes: "Mary waved the mint over the space at the end of the sofa and then put it into her mouth."
There's a very attractive and entertaining humour here, and when William invents his own rival pack of six wolves, chimpanzees and some snakes for good measure, Cave skilfully traces the tensions between brother and sister. Both William and Mary have fresh imaginations and the book is crowded with incidents until both gradually and happily relinquish their power games.
Finally, for the sophisticated older reader, I Was A Rat (Doubleday, £10.99 in UK) from the award-winning Philip Pullman offers an original, back-to-front version of the Cinderella story. From the beginning, when Old Bob, the cobbler, opens the front door and sees standing in the moonlight a nine-year-old boy in a torn page's uniform, with a scratched and grubby face, saying only "I was a rat", the reader's interest is held.
The squeamish might find the details a little unnerving at first as Roger the Rat-Boy chews pencils, gnaws wood, slurps his food and, when captured and exhibited in a circus, snarls and eats bits of mouldy bread, chicken heads, scraps of rancid pork and banana skins. Pullman has a fine thread of black humour running through the entire book in the form of pages from the Daily Scourge, a tabloid, recording the public's response to a Royal Wedding and the Rat Monster.
"The Prime Minister was taking a close interest in the Monster case, because he wasn't very popular just then, and nor were any of the ministers in the government. It was a great help to have something else on the front pages of the papers, and even better to have something new for the public to hate." Now there's a worthwhile idea for anyone of any age to ponder! And the ending is happy without being twee.
Niall MacMonagle teaches English at Wesley College. He has edited, for teenagers, Out- side In - Stories to Grow Up With.