The Boy with the Red Hat and other stories: A Second Pikle Treasury

In this new collection of stories for young readers, Lyons offers a delightful mix of adventures - both whimsical and serious - brimming with charm, curiosity and imagination. Meet Liana, for example, whose love of animals evolves into an obsession to ride a giraffe, and Hadrian whose protective passion for a family of swans leads him into serious trouble with his own family. Treegold and Nightspider are the pseudonyms of two skilled but rival pen spinners. After meeting for the first time at a competition, they discover something truly astounding about themselves. A group of misfits are kicked out of a school choir run by a Mr Turnip, but then they get together to practice singing independently, calling themselves, ironically, The Turnips. Turns out they have talent. More playfully, one story uncovers how and why humans first discovered that the universe is made of sweet treats, not least profiteroles. And in another, Abdullah, a wannabe detective, tracks down the truth about the Zoomdoom virus that, for a while during the Covid pandemic, was making whole houses disappear. Finally, two of these stories - Switch and Beyond - take us into, respectively, the near and far future. The first follows two teenagers who swap bedrooms for an internet reality programme - but one of them is not who he/she/it pretends to be. In Beyond, climate change has taken such a hold on earth that humankind is confined to a dome where water is the most precious commodity. Life seems to be on the edge of extinction - until one maverick finds a way to exit the dome.