Stevie Day: Super Sleuth ¦ Stevie Day: Lonely Hearts

Two pieces of nonsense likely to be taken off the library shelves by first and second year readers. Stephanie (Stevie) Day, 14 years old, nurses an ambition to become a policewoman and this leads her in Super Sleuth into a series of improbable adventures. Lonely Hearts deals, not insensitively, with romantic attachments: there is a particularly well-written section on the problems of adolescent liaisons.

Jacqueline Wilson's usual thoughtful and convincing style is here oversimplified - perhaps with an eye towards children's television? Nevertheless, there is real entertainment value, though the humour approaches the burlesque at times and the reader's credulity is often pushed to the limit. Harmless escapism for the younger reader with more quality in the writing than one normally expects from this genre.