Teenage Fiction

A novel featuring a middle-aged hero given to self-doubt and depression hardly sounds a likely teenage choice. But Marcus Sedgwick is writing with increased authority these days, and his Blood Red Snow White (Orion, £9.99) is a gripping story. Starting with a potted history of Russia in the form of a fairy tale, it moves on to the extraordinary events of Arthur Ransome's time in revolutionary Russia as a journalist, spy and lover of Trotsky's secretary, Evegenia Shelepin. Lighting his pipe whenever in mortal danger from either Red or White Armies, Ransome somehow survived against enormous odds. Authentic secret-service reports written by British functionaries are included at the end of this fascinating read, with Sedgwick's trademark unconnected sentence at the end of every other paragraph now more firmly under control.

Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic, £10.99) is also extraordinary. Over half its contents consist of swirling, full-page pencil illustrations by the author, with the opening series lasting for 42 pages. The story of orphan Hugo, a 12-year-old living in Paris during the 1930s, is told both verbally and visually. Coming across the forgotten film-maker Georges Méliès working in a toy shop, Hugo helps bring him back to celebrity while solving a mystery of his own. Deeply atmospheric, this book works on the imagination with all the art of the silent film. Beautifully produced with much period detail to linger over, it is a bargain at the price.

Simon Morden's The Lost Art (£12.99) is another fat book offering plenty of entertainment. The first novel by an author who is also a bone fide rocket scientist, it describes a future world in the grip of a new Dark Age. Coming down from another planet to sort this out, Benzamir Mahmood finds himself up against crazed monks, technology-hating peasants and power-hungry despots.

Worst of all, a group of his own comrades who have made a similar trip before have now gone over to the other side, consumed by that ever-faithful science fiction stand-by, dreams of world domination. Some of the sub-plots run too separately and there is a certain amount of strained jocularity in the dialogue. But this is an impressive debut from an author who has the precious gift of readability from first page to last.

So does Jenny Downham, whose Before I Die (David Fickling Books, £10.99) is also a first novel. The title does not exaggerate: its 16-year-old narrator Tessa, suffering from leukaemia, does only have a few months left. These she puts to good use, including a first casual experience of sex before going on to something much more serious. Tough but tender, angry rather than resigned, Tessa is an appealing heroine whose company is never less than bracing. Only in the last few pages, when love really does seem to conquer all, does this otherwise moving narrative start to show strains. Writing about dying children can sometimes seem too easy a target for instant emotion, but this book always does much better than that.

Africa is the background to three excellent novels. Beverley Naidoo's Burn My Heart (Puffin, £5.99) takes an unforgiving look at white settlers in Kenya reacting to the Mau Mau scare in 1952. Two boys, one African and the other British, find their friendship irreparably damaged after a series of wrongful accusations and unjust punishments. There is no resolution, but what could be an unbearably sad tale is made compulsively readable by a writer of grace and skill. The same is true of Berlie Doherty in Abela (Andersen, £10.99), the story of a little girl brought to Britain from Tanzania and found to be an illegal immigrant. Those deputed to work with her are kind and compassionate, the dreary stereotype of the insensitive social worker thankfully discarded. A separate strand focuses on her adoptive sister-to-be, a child initially not wanting any rivals, before Abela's strength and charm work on her as on everyone else.

David Gilman's The Devil's Breath (Puffin, £6.99) takes no hostages, in an exciting novel pitting young Max Gordon against a ruthless businessman who masterminds a major ecological disaster for profit. Set in Namibia, involving help from San Bushmen, this fast-paced story never lets up.

In contrast, Eva Ibbotson's The Secret Countess (Young Picador, £6.99) makes its points through charm rather than action. First published as A Countess Below Stairs, this riches-to-rags and back again story never puts a romantic foot wrong, and is recommended for any age of reader wanting a feelgood tale.

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