Diary of a Lottery Winner's Daughter

When her cleaner Mum wins £3.7 million in the lottery, it seems like a dream come true for Charlotte Johnson. But worryingly, not everything works out as she envisages it might — suddenly her wishes are coming true but in some alarming ways. Has this something to do with an encounter with a gypsy fortunetelling machine at an amusement arcade in Weston-Super-Mare?

Or perhaps, as Charlotte realises at the end, it is all just a normal part of life: moving from the family’s council house causes unforeseen problems, she has a falling out with her best friend and her rebellious 16-year-old sister runs away.

Charlotte, on the cusp of adolescence, is small for her age, loves reading and isn’t really interested in clothes and make-up. Told in the currently popular diary-format, the chatty style and light-hearted workings of the plot reveal Charlotte coming to terms with the changes in her life following her Mum’s win, and the much deeper changes resulting from the whole business of growing up. Diary of a Lottery Winner’s Daughter makes a good read for girls who, like Charlotte, are not quite ready for the disturbances of adolescence and are not sure that they are altogether comfortable with what it may involve.