Zusak's Fighting Ruben Wolfe, aimed at 12 years and up, certainly isn't in the same category, the boxing context perhaps just too narrow for it to achieve the fable-like quality of The Book Thief.

But it's still a title thoroughly worth reading (Definitions, £5.99), vivid in its depiction of sporting action, compelling in its depiction of brotherhood and direct in its Aussie dialect.

The Wolfe brothers know how to fight - they've been fighting all their lives. Now there's more at stake than just winning. And the result is colourful, imaginative and striking, without ever quite scaling the heights.

Fluent and as impressive as ever is Sebastian Darke: Prince of Explorers, the latest from Philip Caveney (Red Fox, £6.99, nine-11 year olds).

Deep in the remote heart of the jungles of Mendip, Sebastian, Max and Cornelius are in search of a legendary lost city. En route, they encounter the Jilith, a race of warriors locked in a deadly struggle with their mortal enemies, the fierce and brutal Gograth.

Can Cornelius train the Jilith to defeat their enemies? Why does jungle girl, Keera think she knows Sebastian? Can Max avoid being turned into spare ribs?

Strangely enough, you can actually be bothered to find out. Again, this is direct, vivid writing, hot on imagination and persuasive as it wraps you up in the tale that it tells.

One with no chance of pleasing the boys but every chance of delighting the girls is Secrets at St Jude's: Drama Girl by Carmen Reid - teenage romance which strikes the right notes in a pacy, fun narrative (Corgi Childrens, £5.99, 12 and up),

Life is far from dull and dreary in St Jude's stuffy girls boarding school.

Gina can't wait for her mum and friends to make the trip over to visit
her from sunny California, but things don't exactly go to plan and she finds herself stuck in the middle of them and her new friends and hunky boyfriend. And things don't get better as the rest of her dorm-mates have their own dramas to deal with . . .

It touches neatly on US/UK cultural differences; indeed it's pleasingly multicultural - as well as hip and streetwise.

And fortunately it doesn't make the absurd claims plastered over the back of The Splendour Falls by Rosemary Clement-Moore, a book torpedoed by its own publicity. A love story that will leave you breathless? I don't think so.

But it's still rather good - the tale of poor broken Sylvie (Corgi Childrens, £6.99, 12 and up).

Sylvie Davies is a ballerina who can't dance. A broken leg ended her career, but what broke her heart was her father's death, and what's breaking her spirit is her mother's remarriage. Still reeling Sylvie is shipped off to stay with relatives in the back of beyond.

Or so she thinks, in fact she ends up in a town rich with her family's history . . . and as it turns out her family has a lot more history than Sylvie ever knew. More unnerving, though, are the two guys she can't stop thinking about. Shawn Maddox, the resident golden boy, is the expected choice. But handsome and mysterious Rhys has a hold on her that she doesn't quite understand.

Then Sylvie starts seeing things – a girl by the lake and a man with dark unseeing eyes peering in through the window . . . Sylvie's lost nearly everything - is she starting to lose her mind as well?

A decent story, decently told, with a suggestiveness cleverly handled and never straying too close to the outer reaches of safe. But breathless? Fortunately not.

Meanwhile the Astrosaurs' juggernaut roles on relentlessly, with
several new titles from the prolific Steve Cole who's found a formula and is sticking to it.

The Skies of Fear once again features Captain Teggs. He's no ordinary dinosaur - he's an astrosaur. On the incredible spaceship DSS Sauropod, along with his faithful crew, Gypsy, Arx and Iggy, Teggs rights wrongs, fights evil and eats a lot of grass…

In this adventure the astrosaurs are called to a bird dinosaurs' world where disaster has struck. All the birds keep forgetting how to fly and falling out of the sky (Red Fox, £4.99, seven and up).

In The Mind-Swap Menace (also Red Fox, £4.99, seven and up) the Astrosaurs are on another mission when they almost crash into a deserted space station. It turns out to be a dinosaur prison that has been hit by a meteor and abandoned. Teggs and Iggy investigate - but are taken captive by two dastardly prisoners who are hiding out in the wreckage. The master criminals have a body-swap machine - and they use on the Astrosaurs! Can Gipsy and Arx save their Captain before it's too late? What do you think? Even so, it's bright, breezy, cleverly-written and plenty of fun.

My Totally Secret Diary: Reality TV Nightmare by Dee Shulman is a bit more of a challenge to the old prejudices. Those of us who like pages of books to look like pages of books (ie adults) will be aghast at the hand-written format and cartoons which the target audience (nine and up) will doubtless love (Doubleday Childrens, £5.99).

Polly Price didn't think it was possible for her actress mother,
Arabella Diamonte, to be any more embarrassing than on the trip to San Francisco last summer. That is until she agrees to take part in a television programme called Celebrity Home Watch and a camera crew arrives at their home to film. Her mother lacks volume control at the best of times, so this is truly a reality TV nightmare - with no escape for Polly…

Again, bright and breezy. It touches the streetwise and streetcred buttons. And maybe if get entices someone averse to the traditional book format to open its pages, then it will have done its job.

Ah, Katie Morag… Where would we be without her and her seemingly-endless stream of terribly-safe and cosy little adventures in her Scottish island home. The books just keep on coming, and the Mairi Hedderwick's latest, Katie Morag and the Dancing Class, ticks all the usual Katie Morag boxes.

Lively, sweet and touching, it's another little lesson in growing up for the girl that never will.

Everyone is excited about the new ballet and tap classes. Everyone, that is, except Katie Morag. The two grandmothers have decided – she will go to ballet and she will wear a frilly skirt. What is Katie Morag going to do? (Red Fox Picture Book, £5.99, five to seven-year-olds).
Pip: The Story of Olive by Kim Kane (David Fickling Books, £5.99, nine-11 year olds) really does offer something a bit special.
Olive is an only child. She lives by the sea in a ramshackle old house with her mother, Mog, successful, busy and hardly ever at home. Olive is very pale and very quiet and she doesn't quite fit in. But she has a best friend, Mathilda, and that's what matters.

And then Mathilda decides to be someone else's best friend.
Just as life really can't get much worse, Pip shows up. Brash, loud Pip, who is everything that Olive is not, and is about to cause Olive a whole heap of trouble – and open her up to a whole new world of possibilities.

Kane's has written a cracker here. Well-paced and genuine, it's also persuasive and affecting.

Finally a fun picture book from a firm favourite on a firm favourite theme. Dinsoaurs… Are they just a little bit consoled for their sudden extinction by their rock-solid place in modern children's fiction? They ought to be.

Dinosaur Disaster by Benedict Blathwayt is the tale of Fin (Red Fox Picture Books, £5.99). The dinosaur hero is back. But he's not alone . . . the bullies are still hot on his tail.

Luckily, when clever Fin finds the secret entrance to a hidden valley with its own volcanic spring, the bullies are too big to follow. And when the temperature drops and it suddenly starts to snow, the bullies discover they're in real danger . . .

All good clean fun - and certain to be loved.

Phil Hewitt