Lucy Mangan, Book Corner - Endshelf
The Book corner brief was to write in the main about books I had known and loved as a child, which of course meant that I didn't do any justice at all to anything written after about 1990, and of course I can't even hope to start now. But I have to rave about just a few of the most recent ones - Celia Rees' Witch Child, based on the Salem trials and as psychologically acute an account of moral panic as you could hope to read and a fine weapon with which to arm any child in the battle against all its modern forms, Mary Hooper's historical fiction, and Hilary McKay's sequel to my beloved Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess, which I approached warily but which turned out to be wonderful. And the Chaos Walking trilogy (the third part is due out in May next year, and I honestly don't know how I'm going to wait that long) by Patrick Ness, which I would press urgently on anyone, anyone at all, but particularly on any reluctant readers among older boys. If it doesn't break down their resistance within the first 10 pages, I want to know. It is extraordinary. LUCY MANGAN
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