Read Nooks and Crannies free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Jessica Lawson's Nooks and Crannies is a funny, warm-hearted mystery for 9 year olds about a girl whose one true friend is a mouse.
Tabitha Crum's parents are awful. Properly, cartoonishly awful. She sleeps in the attic on old sofa padding, cooks the family's boring hash and has been told that love has to be earned.
Then a letter arrives with a wax seal. Tabitha is one of six children invited to spend a weekend at Hollingsworth Hall, home of the very rich and very secretive Countess of Windermere. Nobody can work out why.
Her parents are thrilled (for all the wrong reasons). They'd been about to drop her at an orphanage and head off for a year after "a misunderstanding at the bank". Now they smell money.
Tabitha gets through it all with Pemberley, the mouse who rides in her pocket, and Inspector Pensive, the detective from her favourite books. She talks to Pemberley constantly. She chews a pencil because the Inspector chews his watch chain. Chapters open with one of his wise sayings to his partner, Tibbs.
It's very funny. Her mother repeats whatever posh ladies said in the shops. Her father's toupee shifts when he gets cross. And Tabitha keeps a list of things far worse than having no friends (eating the contents of a sneeze is on it).
But there's a real ache underneath. Tabitha is lonely and very used to being blamed. When a boy in the hotel lobby is kind to her, she hardly knows what to say. If your reader has ever felt left out, they'll be completely on her side.
It's worth knowing that the neglect is played for laughs, but it is neglect. Tabitha goes hungry, gets shoved about and is about to be left behind. Most readers will find it more outrageous than upsetting, especially as Tabitha never stops hoping things will get better.
If your reader loves a mysterious invitation to a grand old building, try Midnight at the Barclay Hotel next. JJ opens a sealed letter he wasn't supposed to read and talks his mum into a weekend at a hotel everyone says is haunted.
A library hand-picked by an English teacher, delivered through a calm, ad-free app. If your child already loves reading, we keep up.
7-day free trial. Then £7.99/month.
