GOING in ascending order of age groups, let's kick off with Gordon Snell's The Tex and Sheelagh Omnibus (Poolbeg, £4.99), which is ideal for pre teens and for being read aloud - although an adult friend who has four cats of her own told me she had enjoyed it immensely, so there you go. There are three books here for the price of one: the original Tex and Sheelagh, The Joke Thief and an all new adventure, The Case of the Kidnapped Cat.
Gordon Snell has a lovely flowing way of writing and one soon gets immersed in the goings on of the eponymous kittens as they form a Cat Watch Gang, outwit the neighbourhood bully and rescue a prize Persian which has been abducted. There is an air of innocence here that is like balm to the cynical age in which we live and which is stealing many children's youth from them.
Aislinn O'Loughlin is a teenager herself - fifteen going on sixteen? - and in A Right Royal Pain (Wolfhound, £3.99) she re tells the story of Rumpelstiltskin in her own, highly idiosyncratic manner. Taking the darker nuances of what is a rather down beat tale, she even gives it a happy ending, with Rummy and Haselyn settling down and having seven sons who whistle while they work in the mines - a hint, perhaps, of Ms O'Loughlin's next re working of a well known fairytale? The book is illustrated by Marie Louise Fitzpatrick, whose black and white drawings match the kinky humour of the story admirably.
The Famine has been much in the news, and in After the Famine (Attic, £4.99), Colette McCormack has penned a sequel to her MaryAnne's Famine. Now living in New York, our heroine is attempting to banish the horrors of black 1846 from her mind, but there is hardship to be endured also in her adopted city. However, with the help of schoolmaster Sean Thornton and handsome young policeman Tim O'Connor, she is learning to adapt. A nicely written story this, that will also educate teenagers about the emerging New World of the 19th century, not to mention filling them in on aspects of the ravages wrought by the great potato blight.
Jack Scoltock's The Sand Clocker (Wolfhound Press £3.99) deals with the Spanish Armada of the 16th century. Tomas and his cousin Diego, two Portuguese boys, attempt to enlist in the Spanish army by pretending to be older than they are. Diego, who looks sixteen, is accepted, but Tomas is not. Undaunted, he gets taken on as a sand clocker - the boy who turns the sand clock upside down every half hour on board ship. After a number of adventures, the cousins end up being befriended by an Irish girl on the Antrim coast, stay on land and thus are when their ship, sinks. Scoltock writes a no nonsense, direct prose that admirably captures the swashbuckllng adventures of the two boys. Fast paced and exciting.
Black Harvest, by Ann Pilling (Collins Educational, no price given), is a story about the Irish Famine by an English writer. She chooses to operate in two time scales, the present, in which herb holidaying British family is occupying a bungalow on the west coast of Ireland, and the 1840s, which impinge starkly on their hearts and minds. Colin and his sister Prill experience the horrors of 150 years ago in a series of dreams and hauntings, but the catalyst appears to be their odd cousin Oliver, who undergoes a radical change of personality as the story unfolds. A nicely eerie piece, this, with the stray oddity showing up the author's unfamiliarity with ordinary Irishisms - blocks of peat instead of sods of turf, and so on.
Finally, two futuristic takes from Attic Press: Mary Arrigan's Saving the Dark Planet, and Caroline! "Barry's The Rocket Girl (both £4.99). In the first of these, fourteen year old Aisling and her little sister, Cara, are taken by spaceship to the dark and barren planet Cobi. The Cobinns, a dying race, have kidnapped a group of earthlings whom they hope will teach them survival skills, but the girls, fearing that they have little to offer, are worried about their safety. In the end, they experience many adventures and meet a variety of odd beings before arriving at a safe conclusion. The mixture of futuristic and cosy modern grates bit at times, but Ms Arrigan keeps the story belting along, and she even throws in a Zig and Zag, in this case a couple of seal creatures, to provide some knockabout fun.
The Rocket Girl lives in Rocket Castle - where else? - with the inventor, Uncle Jeremiah Fine, the philosophising cat, Aristotle, and Shape, the demon. Arrayed against them and threatening to take over 4he town of Mecklenstarr are the evil Earl of Copperfelt and his henchman, the Bishop, a pair of comic villains who are continually at odds with one another. A breezy blend of fantasy and fun, the book marks an auspicious debut for a new author. Hopefully she hasn't used up too much imaginative energy and has kept some for succeeding volumes.