Barrington Stoke’s short novels for reluctant and unconfident readers are clearly meeting a need in schools. This batch is intended for readers of 13 to 16 with a reading age of eight-plus; all are printed on cream paper with easy-to-read type and widely-spaced text.

The policy is to publish stories by well-known writers for teenagers, such as Rosie Rushton and Bernard Ashley; there are also contributions by young authors making their names in adult fiction, such as the science-fiction writer James Lovegrove. Up to 50 teenagers comment on the readability and appeal of each book before production.

Some of these stories seem to have a younger interest level than the publishers claim. For example, Catherine MacPhail’s A Kind of Magic tells of Nick’s discovery of a fossil stone that appears to grant all his wishes. There’s a drawback, though, when every ill wish - a pretty girl afflicted with spots, a whole football team given the runs - rebounds threefold. Finally, Nick realises that kind wishes have the same effect. By the end, friend Ravi - the rightful owner of the stone - provides a rational explanation for all that’s happened, leaving the reader to decide.

Wings, by James Lovegrove with intriguingly-detailed illustrations by Ian Miller, is set in a future in which everyone can fly except Az, who must plod along at ground level.

There are echoes of the Icarus story when his inventor father designs mechanical wings for him. His first flight is no more successful than Icarus’s, but Az accepts his fate in this allegory on disability. “In his dreams, Az would always be able to fly.”

The 10-year-old main character of All We Can Know of Heaven is younger than the target readership, but this is the most substantial and the most involving of the stories.

Adam’s mother is on life support following a car accident; Adam and his father must decide whether or not to end her life. Parallels with the legend of King Arthur, and conversations with a sympathetic teacher, give Adam a way of thinking about the decision; by the end, after considerable anguish, he sees that his father’s small act of flicking off a switch is as demanding of courage and strength as the physical feats of King Arthur’s knights.

Limits on vocabulary and syntax do not have to restrict imagination, as Peter Crowther amply demonstrates here.

LINDA NEWBERY