Permanent Rose by Hilary McKay

Age: 8-12

Rose is the youngest of four siblings of the Casson family, whom we met in the Whitbread-winning Saffy's Angel and its sequel Indigo's Star. She was the one who tried to make her partially absent father spend more weekends at home by writing comical letters about domestic disasters. She was full of wild ideas, passionate affections and courageous spirit, and expressed her feelings about family and friends in a mural painted on the kitchen wall. It is a delight to have a third book that is mostly her story. We last saw her bidding a supposedly temporary goodbye to her brother's American friend Tom, to whom she had formed a fierce attachment. Permanent Rose is the story of Tom's disappearance, and Rose's determination to find him again; at the same time we learn a buried Casson family secret. McKay has a genius for domestic comedy. Her books are also imbued with an ethos of tolerance and acceptance. This unconventional family, which was always fun to read about, and seemed laughable because it was chaotic and ill-run, has become, with our increasing knowledge of its members, a kind of model of how to make the most of life.