The Great Cake Mystery

Now I know that book reviews aren't really something I usually do but I couldn't resist this one, The Great Cake Mystery by Alexander McCall Smith. I'm not going to give away the story apart from to say that a young girl called Precious becomes a detective in this first book of the series when cake goes missing! This really is a delightful book, which I read with my children. Our six year old has declared it an absolute hit, asking if we can get more books about Precious. I think the fact that she lives in Botswana and she smiles all the time adds to the appeal. This book is a fabulous introduction to bigger books. The chapters are short but still give you a piece of the story, so keep the concentration levels in smaller children (our youngest is only four and she loved it!). It's a simple story, which is easily followed and I did a little recap each night, where the children told me what had happened the night before. The best part was this was Mummy's book, Daddy wasn't allowed to read it! If I'm honest I was also at the point that some of their books were so well read I could read them from memory, which gets a bit tedious after a while. I'm looking forward to this next stage of reading with the kids now, think we may try Precious and the Mystery of Meerkat Hill!

So grab yourself a copy and snuggle up with the kids for a great bedtime story.