8-12 round-up

I've done a summer round-up of recent books for 8-12s (or thereabouts) which ran in the Indy on Sunday today. To find out what I included, you can read it here.

I'm pleased with my choices, but was struck by how very few really good stand-alone novels there were for readers of this age. A couple of very good debuts (at least one of which has a sequel on the way), but otherwise it's mostly new series or additions to old, sometimes very long-running series, and the like. So what did I miss?

D.

PS This in contrast particularly, I think, with the new teen books that are out there - if you've read my recent posts on the Booktrust prize you'll know there are a lot of new stand-alone novels for teens that I rate very highly indeed.