Little lunch: triple the treats by Danny Katz

Ill. by Mitch Vane. Black Dog Books, 2016. ISBN 9781925126907
(Age: 7+) Highly recommended. Humour, School, Recess time. Three stories in one volume is what awaits those kids hooked on the television series, Little lunch, along with those already familiar with the books released since 2001.
This volume includes The milk bar, The cake stall and The grandparents day, all concerned with the six students in Mrs Gonsha's class pictured on the cover. The hilarious stories will bring gales of laughter as recognition sets in. Each is simply based around everyday happenings of children at school: forgetting to pack your lunch, having to invite your grandparents to school or being concerned about homeless animals. Each story is easy to read, about forty pages long and copiously illustrated by Mitch Vane and designed to bring a smile and laugh to every reader. Photographs of each of the students and teacher at various positions around the school add to the fun of reading the tales. The milk bar across the road from the school beckons when Atticus again, forgets to pack his lunch. Of course the milk bar is out of bounds but he and his friends develop ingenious methods of getting there un-noticed, that is unless Deborah the dobber doesn't dob.
Grandparents day is an annual day in the life of this school, one that last year turned out to be a disaster. This year Battie has a huge problem. His grandfather is not coming but Mrs Gonsha has knitted the man a lime green scarf. He devises a series of plans all of which come to nothing and he must confess.
The cake stall shows Melanie baking cakes for a cake stall to raise money and awareness of the plight of homeless puppies. Each story is well illustrated and uses different fonts and print size to emphasise main points, while the stories, although brief always have a neat resolution which can teach the readers something about how they interact with other people. All in all a very satisfying group of stories, nicely presented which will have wide appeal.
Fran Knight