Children and young adult books feature in the books charts

For the week of the 13th February, the highest selling book title in Australia according to Nielsen BookScan 2010 data (posted on the Bookseller & Publisher website) was "Hourglass" by Claudia Gray, the third in a vampire based series written for young adult readers ("YA") and aimed at the same demographic as the Twilight Series of books by Stephanie Meyer.  I was amazed that this book outsold both of the first two books from the Stieg Larsson Millenium series - an adult fiction series.  It goes to show how popular these books are with our young people and I have to confess that I have read both of these vampire series and can now see what the attraction is.

The first two books in the series by Claudia Gray are "Evernight" and "Stargazer".  The Twilight and Evernight books revolved around the themes of first relationships, and the confusion of growing up, but are interspersed with lots of action and adventure.  The books are a safe way for our young people to find empathy for the feelings and changes happening to themselves and let's confess, who wouldn't want to be the centre of attention of some hunky guy when you're 14.  The vampire bent adds that fantasy aspect that is so popular.  Don't worry, the main characters are nice vampires - they don't attack humans, and the need for the vampire to consume blood (usually animal) is dealt with very discretely.  You get all the good parts of vampires - amazing strength, not needing to sleep, well read and intelligent from living so long, as well as handsome guys falling for "ordinary" girls, without any of the gory bits.

At the top of the highest moving section of the charts are two other children's/YA books - the latest in The 39 Clues series of books, "Viper's Nest" by Peter Lerangis and Robert Muchamore's "Secret Army", the third book in the Henderson Boys series.
The 39 Clues series follows siblings Amy and Dan Cahill, members of the most powerful family in the world, as they race to find  all 39 clues that will allow them to uncover the source of the family's power before any other members of their family. The first book and story outline for the other books was written by Rick Riordan of Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief fame so if your children enjoyed this latter series then they may enjoy this series.  Like the Percy Jackson books The 39 Clues series is woven around historical figures to engage young readers in history.  What makes this series unique is that each book in the series contains a clue that the reader can use at the website of the series to play an online game to ultimately win prizes (open to children 6 to 14 years old).  Is this the way of the future for books?

Robert Muchamore's book "Secret Army" is the third book in The Henderson Boys series which is set during the second world war and where the spies for England are children.   Robert's first adventure series for young readers was the CHERUB series (popular with boys over 10 although the later books do have more mature themes) where his teenage agents battle terrorists, and drug dealers.  From Robert Muchamore's website, he says that "the world of Henderson's Boys is rougher and more dangerous than in CHERUB", and "the enemy is a brutal Nazi regime that will torture and kill young agents if they're captured".

It is heartening to see that authors are writing books that are engaging our children and young adults.  My own children have discovered many new authors over the summer holidays and I'll post some of their favourites in an upcoming post.  What are the books that your children are reading and enjoying at the moment?