2005 Christmas reads: Children

Drift House: the First Voyage
By Dale Peck
(Bloomsbury $18.99)

New Yorker Dale Peck, the book critic who inspired the coinage of the verb "to snark", or "to review with undue venom", demonstrates that he can write a book not even his enemies would find easy to criticise. Sent to live with their mysterious uncle Farley after the fall of the World Trade Centre, the three Oakenfield children find themselves staying in a strange house capable of travelling through time. A gleefully erudite adventure for capable readers.

5 Kiwis In A Kombi On Tour
By Dave Gunson
(Reed $19.99)

Comic book-style introduction to New Zealand geography and natural history, shrewdly pitched to catch young readers' attention. Each double-page spread has our five heroes exploring a different region, parcelling out huge amounts of information without ever seeming to lecture. Accessible, educational fun.

Tales of Deltora
By Emily Rodda, Illustrations By Marc McBride
(Scholastic $29.99)

The Deltora fantasy series for junior readers is a phenomenon. Short, easy volumes, and lots of them — each of the astonishingly numerous books is really just a chapter in the on-going story, but the sense of accomplishment kids get as they finish book after book is priceless. This new volume of short stories is a little longer, and stands apart from the main storyline. You need to have begun the series, but you can read it at any point after that. Beautifully illustrated.

High in the Clouds
By Paul McCartney, Geoff Dunbar and Philip Ardagh
(Faber $29.95)

Ex-Beatle vanity publishing? That was my initial assumption, but my children fell madly in love with this with no prompting. Human pollution ruins woodland home of cute animals. Cute animals set out for legendary animal Utopia on distant island. Evil animals capture cute animals. Will they escape? Well illustrated, well written.

Tintin in the Congo
By Herge
(Egmont $29.95)

Let's concede up front that this very early Tintin story is a casually racist book, and also less well drawn and plotted than the later ones. For all these reasons, it's never been easy to get hold of in English until now. But despite its flaws, it's a book Tintin fans should be allowed to enjoy. Much of the zest and good humour which make the rest of the series such a joy are on display here, and kids will love it.

More Flanimals
By Ricky Gervais
(Faber $29.99)

"Loads more Flanimals were hurt during the creation of this book." The Office's Ricky Gervais demonstrates his total command of pre-adolescent nonsense humour, dreaming up a wild bestiary of hilariously offensive creatures. Resistance is futile: this is the next playground cult.

How Santa Really Works
By Alan Snow
(Simon and Schuster $16.99)

This is a sophisticated version of the type of mockumentary kids often write themselves: flow charts and cut-away diagrams show how Santa runs his global present distribution system, how he gathers intelligence on the naughty kids, how he trains his elves, how he gets down chimneys, etc. Sure-fire hit.