Recent reads

I've been lucky enough to read some excellent books lately for all ages and I'm not always good about sharing so here goes. A couple of picture books first - The Scar, Charlotte Moundlic and The Snow Dragon, Vivian French. The Scar deals with a child's bereavement (his mother died) in a sensitive and beautiful way, it's a great book to have in primary schools, hopefully it won't be needed often but good to have just in case. The Snow Dragon has exquisite illustrations and has a moral too - the fierce fire dragons want to take over the world and are unable to live in harmony with the snow dragons or the Two Legs and their downfall is somewhat inevitable. 
For older (MY) children I give you Ghosts of Shanghai, Julian Sedgwick  and The Great Timelock Disaster, C Lee McKenzie  , both are adventure stories that I thoroughly enjoyed. Ghosts of Shanghai is full of mythology and very evocative and the Great Timelock Disaster has magic and a talking alligator - what's not to like?! For teens (YA) I can't recommend Sarah Crossan's One enough, it is just fab. It is the story of conjoined twins and told in blank verse it is lyrical, moving and sensitive. Jenny Valentine's Fire Colour One is excellent and beautifully describes a fraught father daughter relationship at the end of the father's life. Lucy Coats first venture in YA, Cleo is enormous fun and I'm looking forward to reading more about her young sassy protagonist's adventures in later books. Because You'll Never Meet Me, Leah Thomas is very interesting - difficult to describe - but amazing! Two lonely teen boys, each with their own very individual health problems become penpals and the story is told through their letters. As you can see I've been spoilt for choice with great reading lately but the 'to read' list grows ever longer, please do feel free to give your own personal recommendations in the comments.