Little lunch: Triple snack pack by Danny Katz

Ill. by Mitch Vane. Little lunch series. Black Dog Books, 2016. ISBN 9781925381276
(Age: 7+) Highly recommended. Humour. Schools. Three stories are combined in one volume in this offering from Katz, the stories of the fifteen interval in the school's morning session making wonderful reading for the newly independent reader. His stories are always recognisable, they concern things that all kids can relate to, their backgrounds and the interplay between students are something most readers will have experienced. The familiarity of the tree in the school yard evoking different responses from several groups of kids is given full reign in the first story 'The old climbing tree', where some children love the old tree, talking of things they have done with it over the years, while one student in particular wants it knocked down because it forms a hazard. How will the two opposing points of view be resolved?
The second is just as engrossing as the twins leave school without anyone knowing why. The corridor outside class 6E becomes a whodunit as the kids try to work out what has happened to their friends, using the flimsiest of details to form the most exciting of stories, revealing how gossip begins.
And the third, 'The relationship', will intrigue and surprise the readers as the group so well known now from the television series is in turmoil as a grade six girl asks Rory out.
The stories are short and with funny illustrations, larger print and some words emphasised with a different font, all adding to an easy to read snack pack of tales to absorb.
Fran Knight