What a special little book! Like Gloria Whelan's tales for older children, this one is far richer than your average picture book.

A young boy is the son of a renowned chef, the patron of a well-reputed restaurant in France. The boy's love of fine cooking is described with mouth-watering detail, and his ingenuity in helping his father prepare for an important guest at the restaurant is impressive.

The French setting is beautifully evoked through both the refined literary style and charming illustrations.

But how is it that this story about cooking can bring tears to your eyes? Whelan's expert storytelling transforms it into an inspiring tale of nobility, creativity, love for one's work and appreciation of the work of others. Highly recommended.

Clare Cannon is the editor of www.GoodReadingGuide.com and the manager of Portico Books in Sydney.

Although I haven't read any of the adult equivalents, this series is obviously intended to be a cut-down version of the "true-life" Special Air Service operations genre of action thriller. It is full of military-sounding abbreviations and codewords, carefully explained in a glossary, and does not stint when it comes to violence. Aside from being a reasonable page-turner it offers little of any worth.

Danny's perseverance in finding, following, helping and ultimately rescuing his grandfather (Fergus) whom he initially believes to be a traitor is praiseworthy, but his motivation is difficult to understand. Elena's solid support of Danny is more straightforward. She does, however, electronically break-and-enter into several websites and a mobile phone tracking site to help him. She hesitates a little first, but goes ahead in any case.

This is the most worrying aspect of the books: the extent to which the reader is confronted with the way of life of a soldier in the field, and especially SAS… click here to read whole article and make comments

Shannon Hale can tell a charming story, but reading about a divorcee flirting Austen-style is like watching the desecration of your favourite artwork. 

Austenland - a holiday destination where people can go to dress up like Austen characters for a week or two - is a nice idea. But it hasn't turned out well in this series for young adults.

There is no subtlety in the romance, once again we have a 'heroine' who isn't anybody special, yet the guys come flocking. Add to that the jarring romantic twists that come out of the blue and you get an extremely unsatisfying romance. The heroine can insist all she likes that the developments feel 'so right', but the convoluted relationships are nothing like their Austen counterparts.

Mystery moved the plot along well, but the resolution was artificial and contrived. The twists were so unbelievable that at the end I wouldn't have been surprised at anything.… click here to read whole article and make comments

Inspired by her own childhood, Cynthia Rylant wrote this warm book about a young girl and her brother who live in the mountains with their grandparents. They lead a simple but happy life in which both grandmother and grandfather demonstrate a deep love through many small acts of kindness and sacrifice. Diane Goode's homey illustrations make this Caldecott Honor Book perfect for cozy bedtime reading.

(N.B. This book is probably more appropriate for children ages 4-8.)

Jennifer Minicus is a mother and teacher currently living in Ridgewood, NJ.

When a string of Boston murders mimic the punishments described in Dante's Inferno, it is up to literary legends Longfellow, Holmes and Lowell to find the culprit and save lives, including their own.

The Dante Club is, without a doubt, the most clever novel I have read in a year. The author has achieved a seamless weave of history, literature, mystery and suspense by utilizing two important talents. First of all, Pearl has researched his setting and his characters well. Secondly, he has collated his findings and painted a picture with words that show a good deal of literary knowledge as well as his own craftsmanship. The result is an intelligent and enriching novel that not only explores the lives of real characters both accurately and realistically but also grips the reader through humor and suspense.

The only warning I would have for readers is that while very limited violence takes place 'on the page' the fates of victims are… click here to read whole article and make comments

A highly unconventional and entertaining picture book told by a well-known fictional character: Huckleberry Finn. It is now he who writes about his author's life, Mark Twain.

"Everyone knows the story of the raft on the Mississippi and that ol' whitewashed fence, but now it’s time for youngins everywhere to get right acquainted with the man behind the pen. Mr. Mark Twain! An interesting character, he was... even if he did sometimes get all gussied up in linen suits and even if he did make it rich and live in a house with so many tiers and gazebos that it looked like a weddin’ cake. All that’s a little too proper and hog tied for our narrator, Huckleberry Finn, but no one is more right for the job of telling this picture book biography than Huck himself. (We’re so glad he would oblige.) And, he’ll tell you one thing—that Mr. Twain was a piece a work! Famous for his sense of humor… click here to read whole article and make comments

Max and the Flock, children with wings, have run away from the School, the lab complex where they spent the first part of their lives locked in cages and experimented on. After four years, their hiding place has been discovered, and Angel, the youngest, is captured. The others must get her back and find answers to their own questions along the way.

Be warned: the subject matter of this series is quite distasteful at times. However, it's not gratuitous or voyeuristic, and in fact represents a warning to advocates of therapeutic cloning that the human beings they create are just that: human beings, and not objects for experimentation. As far as the scientists at the School are concerned, Max and the others are merely the successful survivors of genetic experiments on children in the womb and later. The failures are left to die, sometimes horrifically mutated or deformed. And when Angel is recaptured, all they want to do is run… click here to read whole article and make comments

**As of 1/20/12 I have revised this review in order to clarify some of the issues raised in it, CC.

Calpurnia Tate is eleven years old and lives in Texas in the year 1899. Her interest in observing nature brings her to the attention of her cantankerous grandfather, who is an avid naturalist. Grandfather lends Calpurnia his copy of Darwin’s ‘The Origin of the Species’, and the two of them explore and study and document nature specimens like professionals.

Darwin’s writings are mainly used to fuel Calpurnia’s interest in nature and her investigation into how things work, but are not explored in depth. Evolution itself is only mentioned in the title of the book, which could spark an interest in young readers in finding out more about it. I am not an expert on this topic, but as I understand it evolution is neither a proved nor a disproved theory, and is compatible with Christianity as long as there is… click here to read whole article and make comments

Paul-Edward Logan loves his family and has always assumed he would live on his father's land his whole life. He has a close relationship with his three brothers, Hammond, George and Robert. In fact, when the son (Mitchell) of Mr. Logan's former slave (and current horse trainer) beats Paul, his brothers defend him. This does not put a stop to the abuse, however, because Mitchell hates Paul. It seems that before the war, Mr. Logan fell in love with one of his slaves (Deborah) and fathered two children with her while his wife was still alive. That would be Paul and his sister Cassie.

Although Paul's father treats all of his children the same, he knows the rest of society does not respect Paul and Cassie the way he has taught his other sons to do. As Paul reaches adolescence, he learns that he will have the same privileges and opportunities his brothers will have. Paul begins to resent both… click here to read whole article and make comments

Nick Miller (mid-teenage) is forced by his older brother's motorcycle gang - which he secretly wishes to join - to become friendly with Joseph Fisher, whose family run a small shop out on the fens. Nick suspects (accurately) that the gang wants to rob the shop, and is using him to gain information about the security. He joins in a role-playing game run by Joseph and his older sister Ruth, but eventually turns against them and helps the gang to raid and fire the shop.

The sub-plot is that the Fishers are a hard-up family with four children: two teenagers and two toddlers. They are of some (unspecified) Christian persuasion and are seen to be scrupulously honest (as well as vegetarian). It is his perception of their "super-piousness" that turns Nick against them, preferring his more "normal" schoolfriends who like poker, smoking and dirty pictures. The final moral dilemma for both Nick and Joseph occurs because the gang pour petrol… click here to read whole article and make comments