Dragonfall 5 and the Master Mind ¦ Dragonfall 5 and the Super Horse ¦ Dragonfall 5 and the Haunted World

Reading and discussing these books with top juniors has taught me that sci-fi is one of those areas where we need, the young's help more than ever. They often know the forms and conventions far better than we do. Stories in the genre need both the pace of the comic strip and the involvement of the computer game.

These three are the fifth, sixth and seventh in a series about the Starship Dragonfall and its adventures on the planets of Snow, Mowl and Pine Home. The action is fast, the narrative packed. The connoisseurs in the class worked hard on the three here but their driving enthusiasm needed more help from the form and the author's style.

If you have addicts, read extracts, perhaps, and talk about them. Sorting out criteria is an important reading experience and conventional literary judgments don't have all the answers here!