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Laurel Remington's The Secret Cooking Club is a warm, funny story for 9 year olds about a girl who finds a hidden kitchen right next door.
Every Friday at eight in the morning, Scarlett's mum puts a new post up on her very popular blog. And the post is nearly always about Scarlett. Her knickers, her messy bedroom, the smell of her PE bag. This week's is called "Bye-bye, Oxford, my daughter has no interests" (ouch).
So Scarlett has made herself as boring as she possibly can. She's quit every club and stopped telling her mum anything at all. By the time she gets to school, everyone has already read the latest post anyway.
Then the old lady next door, Mrs Simpson, is taken to hospital after a fall. That night Scarlett hears a horrible screech through the wall. She finds the key under the mat and lets herself in. The noise turns out to be a hungry black cat, and behind the kitchen door is the most amazing kitchen she's ever seen. Copper pans, a giant range cooker and a whole wall of cookbooks.
On a stand sits a tatty handwritten recipe book. Inside the cover it says "To my Little Cook", and it's full of recipes, nursery rhymes and crayon drawings. Scarlett's only ever attempt at baking ended up in the bin. She picks the cinnamon scones anyway.
It's such a comforting read. You're right inside Scarlett's head as she guesses what her mum might blog next and wishes the kitchen floor would swallow her up. Then suddenly she's measuring flour in a stranger's apron and feeling calmer than she has in ages. Who wouldn't want a secret kitchen of their own?
Scarlett is twelve, and a couple of the blog posts are the kind that would make any child squirm (one was about "the birds and the bees"). It never goes further than a mention, but it gives the book a slightly older feel for this shelf.
If you've got a reader who loves baking, or who has ever been embarrassed by a grown-up sharing too much, this one's a real treat. Violet, the new girl the popular crowd snapped up on her first day, turns up in that kitchen at exactly the wrong moment too.
If they enjoy this, try The Polka Dot Shop by the same author. Andy's school scraps its uniform, and all her mum can offer are second-hand clothes from her vintage shop, which is its own special kind of embarrassing.
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