We return to the cafe at the edge of the woods in the best Kids books out now: THE CAVE
THE CAVE DOWNWIND OF THE CAFÉ by Mikey Please (Harper Collins £14.99 48pp)
The Cave Downwind of the Cafe is available now from the Mail Bookshop
This prequel to the delicious, award-winning The Café At The Edge Of The Woods explains how Glumfoot the waiter came to work at Rene’s struggling café.
Here, he persuades a hungry ogre not to eat Rene by describing how humans taste of puff pastry and rose sorbet – delicate and sweet, whereas the ogre craves ‘fungus toes and nasty things found up the nose’ – everything Glumfoot hates.
Just as in the first book, Please’s very funny, detailed illustrations convey a range of emotion and the rhyming text is full of disgusting detail that children adore.
It can be read alone but will be devoured by anyone who has tasted the first book – Michelin stars all round. Age 3+
THE POISONED KING by Katherine Rundell (Bloomsbury £14.99 336pp)
This long-awaited sequel to Rundell’s brilliant Impossible Creatures combines favourite characters and mythical creatures with a Hamlet-inspired murder plot.
Human boy Christopher is recalled to the Archipelago, a land of ancient beasts, to help save Princess Anya whose grandfather, the King, has been poisoned and whose father is in danger.
Mysteriously, the kingdom’s dragons are all dying too. Anya escapes the castle and, together with Christopher, a sphinx, unicorns and gagana birds, they fight for justice.
The fantasy world is richly imagined, the dialogue sharp and witty and short chapters drive the pace. It can stand alone – but if anyone hasn’t read the first in the series yet, start now! This series is pure class. 8+
DRACULA & DAUGHTERS by Emma Carroll (Faber £7.99 320pp)
Emma Carroll’s historical novels are all bestsellers but this first in a new gothic vampire series may be her best yet.
Mina and her friend Vardy are grave robbers for a local surgeon but when they try to steal the body of an actress whose death is suspicious, they find she has ‘escaped’ her coffin.
Their town has a history of vampire ‘Contagion’ and when Vardy disappears, Mina, her sister Buffy and friend Bella race against time to wipe out a new blood-sucking invasion.
But then they discover a long-hidden family secret that binds them with special powers…
Full of Dracula references and folklore, this is witty, dark, dangerous and addictive. 9+