This article is aout giving children the space to develop their reading habits. It mentions Northern Lights as well: "First in Philip Pullman's magnificent His Dark Materials trilogy and a genuine modern classic. Know your child, though, and don't ruin it by pushing it too soon."
Jenny is nine and loves Harry Potter, Molly Moon and anything by Roald Dahl. When nobody's looking, she might even re-read her Horrid Henry collection or Flossie Teacake. At 11, Charlie thinks Harry Potter is a bit beneath him, particularly now his eight-year-old brother is hooked on the boy wizard, but can't get enough of Anthony Horowitz's teenage spy Alex Rider, who features in Stormbreaker and other titles. He also devours his mum's old copies of Just William and likes Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.
After several years when she counted herself Jacqueline Wilson's biggest fan and worked her way through Enid Blyton's Malory Towers and The Twins at St Clare's school series, 12-year-old Katie is just dipping her toe into teenage fiction. She and her friends are swapping Louise Rennison's Georgia Nicolson series, which makes them giggle and which they think is just a little bit naughty.
It is between the ages of eight and 12 that the reading adventure really begins, as youngsters become truly independent readers and start to develop their own distinct taste in books. By 12, the die is often cast - they will be hooked on reading for life, or books simply won't be part of the everyday fabric of their lives.
Although it is never too late: 11-year-old Josh, who has just finished year 6 at school, was never keen to read for pleasure until a clever teacher handed him Darren Shan's Cirque Du Freak. Now he is hooked on the horror fantasy genre and has read Garth Nix's Sabriel and Chris Wooding's The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray. But he has also branched out into The Lord of the Rings, Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines and William Nicholson's Shadowlands trilogy. Some teachers say they have noticed a correlation between how well and widely children read and how well they do in Sats tests in year 6.
Giving children both the space and the opportunity to develop their own taste is crucial. Books are not sweets, they are essential nutrients for keeping body and soul together. Children need as many as they need - which is why a library card is a necessity, as well as regular expeditions to change the books. Katie's first independent trips into town alone with friends during the last year of primary school always had the library as their focus, which Katie now realises helped encourage her reading habit. Going to the library alone also helped her develop her own taste.
"Before, when I went with Mum, I felt it was she who was choosing the books, not me. I really like doing it on my own. Choosing your own books is like choosing your own clothes. It is part of growing up."
Allowing children to develop their own taste is essential. Parents often have fixed ideas about what constitutes good writing. Whether JK Rowling's syntax is in order doesn't much bother the average Harry Potter fan. 'Good' in the eyes of children is what they enjoy, and what they enjoy is often very wide-ranging.
A taste for Louise Rennison at this stage in her life doesn't condemn Katie to a lifetime diet of chick lit and airport novels. When her year 7 class were recently given a chance to read this year's Carnegie Prize selections and make their own prediction of the winner, Katie was one of the few in her class to read the entire shortlist.
Studies suggest that toddlers allowed to choose freely from a wide range of foods will, over a period of time, select for themselves a perfectly balanced diet and not just gorge on sweets. I suspect it is much the same with kids and books. A well-developed taste for fantasy doesn't make a child incapable of enjoying the gritty realism of Beverley Naidoo's asylum-seeker novel The Other Side of Truth or Louis Sachar's powerful Holes.
Josh knows that. When you ask him what kind of books he likes, he looks slightly puzzled. "Lots of kinds." Children are far less set in their ways than adults.
Not all children develop, of course, at the same rate. While there are undoubtedly some nine-year-olds in the country who have read and loved Philip Pullman's Northern Lights trilogy, many would not be able to get to grips with it until at least leaving primary school.
Some Jacqueline Wilson novels, such as The Illustrated Mum or Vicky Angel, are easy to read but emotionally difficult. The sentence construction of many classics, such as The Secret Garden and Treasure Island, is taxing on the modern 10-year-old. Even Harry Potter is far too hard, long and spooky for lots of eight- and nine-year-olds to read alone.
There is no shame in that. Reading should be a pleasure, not some kind of race in which there are prizes for being first to plough through The Lord of the Rings. Children are not competitive about reading, only their parents.
Like most children, Charlie knows what he can and can't handle. He tried to get into Northern Lights, which some of his friends were enjoying, but just couldn't. But recently he has discovered Pullman's The Ruby in the Smoke and other Sally Lockhart novels and is now a big fan of the author. "I know I will read Northern Lights some time, just not yet," says Charlie sensibly.
Books that for whatever reason are too difficult to tackle alone, are often perfect for shared reading. Unless there are younger siblings in the family, being read to is a pleasure that is often denied children in the 8-12 age range, as parents conclude that their children are quite capable of reading to themselves. Most certainly are, but being read to is an entirely different pleasure to reading a book to yourself, and children know it.
Katie read the fifth Harry Potter book on the weekend it was published, but still sits in on her younger sister's bedtime when her mother reads a nightly chapter. She also rates Cornelia Funke's The Thief Lord and LM Alcott's Little Women as two of her favourite books - both were read to her.
"When I am a mum," says Katie, "I am always going to read to my children, however old they are. It is the loveliest thing in the world." Now, that's from a girl who is currently reading to herself Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging.
Gift books
The Chronicles of Narnia
(Collins,
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