Boyd Tonkin writing for The Independent praises some forthcoming fall "teenage fiction" titles. In fact, Mr. Tonkin praises child lit for its newness and lack of artifice, writing: "Good novels for children seldom bother with such show-off feats of ventriloquism. They adopt a normal, not an exaggerated idiom, and appeal instead to character, plot, action, emotion - all those far from childish things."

Tonkin singles out two new books for particular attention -- Helen Dunmore's Ingo and Frank Cottrell Boyce's Framed because both works have "young narrators who speak in a unique tone without resort to linguistic trickery."

I think Tonkin is onto something.