Meet Posy Bates; Posy Bates, Again!; Posy Bates and the Bag Lady

Posy Bates, mischievous eight-year-old with a fifteen-year-old sister, Pippa, and baby brother Fred, is the star of all three of Helen Cresswell's very likeable, episodic books, originally published in 1990. What Posy wants more than anything is a pet. Meet Posy Bates introduces our heroine as she graduates from owning stick insects to a hedgehog. Posy will not be satisfied until she has a Real pet, but mum won't hear of it.

Chancing upon a stray dog during her Great Green Pet Show at the end of the first book, Posy Bates Again sees Posy trying to persuade her mother not to take the mongrel, which she names 'Buggins', to the RSPCA. Posy endeavours to get in her mother's good books, to improve the chance of being allowed to keep the dog, by helping with the housework. As usual things do not quite go according to plan.

Posy Bates and the Bag Lady concentrates on Posy's attempts to turn baby Fred into a genius whilst she is also converting the old hen house into a new home for her secret friend, the bag lady - introduced in the first book. There is plenty of fun and characters to whom eight-year-olds will relate, together with simple but enjoyable illustrations. Each book's half a dozen chapters stand alone to be consumed in bite size chunks, but put together make an easily digested and appetising dish for confident young readers of seven years and upwards.