Young Blood

Just because Harry Potter grew up and got married,kids havent stopped reading. Happily-ever-after is,after all,the universal cue for children to lay their hands on the next book,the next series....

Just because Harry Potter grew up and got married,kids havent stopped reading. Happily-ever-after is,after all,the universal cue for children to lay their hands on the next book,the next series. The 10-plus childs bookshelf is a bewildering ecosystem of demigods in Manhattan; a finishing school for fledgling vampyres that make Stephenie Meyer already look old blood; a young,orphaned MI6 in East London who calls himself Junior James Bond; and two siblings,again orphaned,trying to solve clues scattered across the world to become the worlds most powerful.

The children are thriving on series,especially one that sprouted around the time Harry leaned in and kissed Ginny Rick Riordans Percy Jackson series. The second half of 2009 almost belonged to The Last Olympian,the final book in Riordans series where a Reeboks-wearing son of Poseidon saves the world,while an alt rock-loving,iPod-plugged girl becomes the Oracle of Delphi. Riordan,a mythology teacher in a middle school in Texas,does to the Greek gods what Hollywood always has: turn them into Yankees. And,this time,the Olympus too has surreptitiously shifted to the 600th floor of the Empire State Building. You cant miss the generous nods to Rowling and the attempts to tap into a recently constructed mythology Riordan more or less follows the Potter mix of the magical and the mundane and even builds a Camp Half-Blood for young demigods the first Percy book was,in fact,released in the summer of 2005,just three weeks before Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

If Riordan has competition,it is not from Enid Blyton or anyone whose name is written in such illegible font,but from Anthony Horowitz,the 53-year-old author of the Alex Rider series. Crocodile Tears,the latest adventure of the 14-year-old spy,came out in November 2009 and,incidentally,begins in Chennai. The 10-plus kids seem to know what they want and often the template is familiar: an underprivileged/orphaned teen turning superhero. If they read St. Clares and the Grimm Brothers nudged on by their parents,Percy Jackson and Alex Rider are prompted by peers at school and online communities.

The 39 Clues published by Scholastic is another Super Series. While a parent sotto voce admits to finding the book weird with a pack of cards in the inside flap and online games as an extension,a kid is antsy as he inquires when exactly Book 7 will release. Three more weeks,smiles the bookshop owner. He doesnt smile back. He is waiting. In Too Deep,Book 6 in the series,has 14-year-old Amy Cahill,her younger brother Dan,their au pair and a snapper-loving cat arriving in Russia. It is also a multimedia experience involving online gaming,videos,card games,history lessons and a treasure hunt.

Jeff Kinneys Diary of a Wimpy Kid series doesnt offer all that. In lined paper,Greg Heffley writes his journal,interspersed with some delightful cartoons. The concerns are very much of this world middle school,summer breaks,no money for the pool at the country club,no cocktail umbrella on the fruit smoothie,the torture of walking through mens locker room. But,apparently,these,too,can add up to an adolescent biblio bliss.

Anita Roy of Young Zubaan picks another brilliant childrens book,Tollins by Conn Iggulden,that could be the new rage of the new year. Among Indian books,she puts her money on The Grasshoppers Run by Siddharth Sarna and The Beast With Nine Billion Feet by Anil Menon. The first is historical fiction based on real events in Assam during World War II. One hopes to see more such historical fiction for teens in 2010. The latter is a sci-fi fantasy for young adults, says Roy. What has become popular is something else Subhadra Sen Guptas Double Click! A Foxy Four Mystery,the first in a series she is planning on four teenage girls in a Delhi hostel. So is Satyajit Rays Feluda series in comic-book format,competitively priced at Rs 99. What stand out in the Indian racks are Namita Gokhales elegantly written The Puffin Mahabharata and Tulika Books series on artists; the one on M.F. Husain,with beautiful artwork and a light-hearted tale,makes for a fun introduction.

But light-heartedness in not a necessity. Nobody digs darkness like kids do. In the post-Meyer universe,a mother-daughter duo P.C. and Kristin Cast have created a school for teen vampyers in their House of Night series. The latest,Tempted,went on sale in October with a first print run of a million copies. It is a Wiccan world of blood and bestsellers.