You woke up a bit late, the car broke down, you had to go back for forgotten sports kit, homework, a sibling - if you happen to be late for school it'll usually be for one of these reasons and all you have to deal with is a stressed parent. John Patrick Norman McH has to fight his way through all kinds of adventures with weather and wild animals. This book is fun to read aloud with someone else, several times over. You can take turns being the innocent schoolboy and the increasingly irate cane-wielding school-master - and it has a most satisfactory ending.

Reading letters addressed to other people is like listening in to other people's conversations - not good manners and not a good idea. Remember what happens to Lucy in The Voyage of the Dawntreader? Yet for thousands of years people have been saving letters and leaving them behind for later generations to read. We would know a great deal less about the past if we didn't have letters as evidence. One thing we can learn from all those documents is that human nature doesn't change. A recently published book, called 'More Letters of Note' includes an angry letter from a copper merchant who felt disrespected in 1750BC and a delightful one to the television show Blue Peter, from a nine-year-old boy who grew up to become a doctor. The scrap of hard to read writing above is from The Paston Letters, a fascinating collection of letters from various members of the same family spanning most of the fifteenth century.

This is the first in a series of really exciting mystery stories set in the reign of Henry V111. It's definitely for older readers, but it's in modern English  , so easier to understand than the Sherlock Holmes stories. If you enjoy detective stories and happen to be studying the Tudor period, you'll find it brings history thrillingly alive.