Series books have always been popular with young people - from my own dim and distant past I can remember the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Billy Bunter and Just William - and Peter Regan's "Riverside" sequence seems to be filling a void. He has two new ones out: Riverside V City Slickers and Riverside: The London Trip, both from The Children's Press, both illustrated by Terry Myler, and both priced at £3.50. Narrated by Jimmy Quinn, in a lively, folksy patois that maybe overdoes the chirpy cheerfulness at times, the books tell of the adventures of the eponymous schoolboy soccer team, firstly as they go up against their mortal enemies, The Bees' Knees United, in City Slickers, and then when they fall foul of any number of cock-ups on their sojourn in the British metropolis in The London Trip. The characters are comic-book creations to suit the weird escapades in which they become involved, and hopefully there are enough eight- to twelve-year-olds still about with the youthful simplicity of expectation to enjoy them.
A little bit of legend is elaborated upon in Eileen Dunlop's Warrior's Bride (Poolbeg, £3.99), in which she tells the tale of the woman who married the hero Cu Chulainn. This is Eimhear, whose father was related to a sea god and who herself possesses magic powers. In spite of this singular capability, all she longs for is the simple life of a wife and mother, but when you're married to a man who is out all day performing heroic deeds, chances are he'll need more than his pipe and slippers when he does put in an appearance. All the usual tales are recounted here, including the story of the Tain, or, as it's called here, "The War of the Brown Bull".
Mary Arrigan also deals in fantasy in The Spirits of the Bog (Children's Press, £3.99). Here twelve-year-old Arty and his cousin Susy get caught up with the aforementioned spirits when Arty's Grandma Kate paints a picture of an old gnarled tree growing out of boggy peatland. If you've ever had a nightmare of being buried alive, don't attempt this one. At the same time, Ms Arrigan maintains a nice balance between gallows humour and the scary stuff, so it's not all gloom and doom.
I have four more titles to mention and they all fall under the same formulaic method of writing for young people. Joyce A. Stengel's Sara Takes Charge, illustrated by Marianne Lee (Poolbeg, £3.99), has an American setting, but there's nothing very original about her story of teenaged Sara who, after the death of her mother, has to take charge of her six-year-old brother and handle her father's grieving silence. Made fun of by her stroppy schoolmates, she finds true friendship with a street-wise kid from the wrong side of the tracks.
Kate McMahon's A Horse of Another Colour, illustrated by Terry Myler (Children's Press, £3.99), is the rather simplistic tale of Sam's fishing trip to Connemara and how he is left to deal with an injured man and a wounded pony as night draws on, while Stephanie Dagg's Es- cape the Volcano (Mentor, £4.50) is little more than a long short story, as it recounts Tom's trip to France to view a volcano that suddenly erupts and almost terminates his rather odd fascination with such natural phenomena.
Finally there is Arthur Flynn's Luke's Heroes (Mentor, £4.99), in which a modern-day Famous Five - Luke, Barbara, Sticky, Damien and Anna - come up with various dotty ideas to raise funds to build a new hut in which to meet. Then they stumble on the plans of two robbers, get into the good books of Lord and Lady Meath, and finally end up in a new den which has real walls and a roof. I enjoyed this one, which for me was a relic of old decency, but I wonder if Spice Girls and Boyzone oriented modern teenagers will find its open-eyed simplicities appealing?
Vincent Banville is the author of the Hennessy series for teenagers