New Windmills. WAYS WITH WORDS FROM BEGINNING TO END. Both edited by Mike Royston.

INTO THE UNKNOWN. A New Windmill Book of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Edited by Steve Barlow and Steve Skidmore. FIFTY-FIFTY TUTTI-FRUTTI CHOCOLATE CHIP AND OTHER STORIES. Edited by Esther Menon. From Hereabout Hill. Stories by Michael Morpurgo. THE WAY PEOPLE ARE. A New Windmill Book of Viewpoints on Society. Edited by John O’Connor. EYEWITNESS. A New Windmill Book of Reportage. Edited by John O’Connor. STRANGER THAN FICTION. A New Windmill Book of the Natural World. Edited by John O’Connor. Heinemann pound;6.25 each. TES Direct pound;5.75 each.

All but one of these books come from the tried and trusted New Windmill library of literature for schools and illustrate the ways in which the series is adjusting to the national curriculum’s commercial pressures.

The exception is Twisters, from Longman. Like the New Windmill books, Twisters is aimed at key stage 3, but it seems to be addressed to an older readership. Its biographical and thematic introduction and single pages of well-judged questions and follow-up activities for each story are clear and helpful but uncompromisingly non-populist. Likewise, the stories, drawn from many times, nations and cultures, can be demanding. They are also rewarding and often unexpected.

What sets this book apart is its consistent interest in the fundamentals of human nature and behaviour. Maupassant’s “The Necklace” and Mary Wilkins Freeman’s “A New England Nun” are not easy, but they are masterpieces and typify the book’s level. It is excellent but pushing its luck in aiming at “11-to 14-year-olds of all abilities”.

Much nearer to achieving that widespread appeal are Mike Royston’s two collections. Ways With Words claims to concentrate on “style and language”; From Beginning to End on “forms, formats and narrative structures”.

Although each book ends with a useful chart to guide the teacher through its chosen emphasis, this distinction is slightly artificial. Most of these entertaining stories could earn their place in either book. Each, for instance, has one story told entirely through letters - Johanna Hurwitz’s “The Empty Box” and John Lutz’s “Pure Rotten”. Both are witty, characterful, deftly structured and surprising. They let you have your national curriculum cake and enjoy the taste as it goes down.

Mike Royston’s selection is sometimes open to the protest voiced by a young girl in one of his choices, Sean O’Faolain‘s “The Trout”: “Mummy, don’t make it a horrible old moral story!” Nevertheless these are attractive and versatile books.

The fantasy and science fiction anthology, Into the Unknown, is curriculum-free territory. No questions or assignments, just a brief headnote to the stories. The quality is high, with thought-provoking and imaginative stories from Malorie Blackman, Harry Harrison, Philip K. Dick and others, not least Kurt Vonnegut Jr, whose “Harrison Bergeron” neatly shows how “All men are created equal” and the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are opposite and incompatible ideals.

Esther Menon’s collection, sub-titled “Stories Worldwide”, is an admirable multicultural anthology with a misleadingly flippant title. Rather like Twisters, this book is perhaps for key stage 4 rather than 3. Its two outstanding anti-racist stories, “The Friendship”, by Mildred D. Taylor, and “Once Upon a Time”, by Nadine Gordimer, deserve the older reading group, while Brian Friel’s subtle and profound “The First of My Sins” certainly needs it.

The short, informal notes on Michael Morpurgo’s appealing collection, From Hereabout Hill, rightly pick out two of his nine stories as best fitted for 14-to 16-year-old readers, but there is plenty here for everyone over 11. Morpurgo respects the intelligence of young readers, not least their willingness to accept sadness and loss as part of the human condition, so happy endings are not guaranteed. This author’s voice has many tones, all worth listening to.

Stranger than Fiction is easily the best of the non-fiction anthologies. The others, despite their scrupulous attention to national curriculum requirements, are patchy and fragmentary, the sometimes second-rate material being squeezed to death by the cumbersome teaching apparatus that presents it.

Peter Hollindale