Count Boris Bolescu and the Black Pudding ¦ My Uncle Albert ¦ Princess Florizella

I have put these three books together because they seem to me to be examples of a certain style of book of which there are many about. They're suitable for children of about seven to nine who are reasonably independent readers, without the stamina for a full-length novel. Generally, the print is largish and the text well split with line drawings and with chapter divisions. As a genre it's relentlessly jokey, full of slang, exclamation marks and Capital Letters and with lots of Authors' Asides in brackets. Children often enjoy them very much and they certainly encourage confidence. The stories can be very one-note, however, and these are nothing special of their kind The first is about an elderly vampire who settles for weekly black pudding when he realises he's too decrepit to catch the heroine. The second is about a lonely little boy who has a magician for an uncle and the third is one of the currently proliferating butch-princes-doesn't-marry-prince stories.

They'd make popular, cheap material for the class library, but I'd hope that a teacher was careful to offer some quality reading as well.