Star Dragon; Resistance; Young Dracula; Mad Iris

A series of books where popular authors and illustrators combine to tell accessible stories simply to top juniors and older pupils is bound to be well liked by pupils, teachers and parents if successful. It's not easy. Star Dragon shows the problems with its flat and simple sentence structures and little compensation of a story. The formula becomes just that and we might just as well keep to reading schemes. Resistance tries to do much more, telling the potentially moving story of two Dutch children whose parents collaborate with the Nazis, leaving the children hated but eventually able to help the resistance. But, here too, the telling, like the development of the story and its emotional life, feels partial and more like a summary. You feel that the readers have been short-changed. Young Dracula works better in telling a witty story with some style. There is an unfortunate swap at birth which leaves the Dracula child misplaced (and called Smirk) while the natural child feels strangely out of key with the Count who says: 'You're not a vampire, Wilfred, you're a wimpire.' Good fun, but apart from the excitement and suspense of a chase this is undemanding and unambitious. The most successful of the four is Mad Iris where Jeremy Strong is in his element, fast and furious, knowing exactly how to pitch a story to juniors and leave them something to think about as well. The arrival of the frenetic ostrich into school allows Ross to appreciate Katie, and find a way of defeating the men in black who come to turn Iris into meat. Story and storytelling in combination. These four titles in the series demonstrate the formula but also the old truth that it is one thing to be readable and another to be worth reading. Simplicity is a tough ingredient in cooking a satisfying story.