Little Lunch: Off-Limits Fence by Danny Katz
Published by Black Dog Books
The book is built up of three short stories that take place in a school lunch setting.
A group of children are talking. Amba starts it and says to the person beside her, “Did you hear what happened this morning? Max and Elsa went home from school early. Their dad picked them up from the front office and nobody knows why”. This message is passed around the circular bench which goes around the big tree. Quite like Chinese whispers, the message is surprising when it comes back to Amba.
In the second story, Melanie finds a fly stuck in a spider’s web. Then she starts an “insect hospital” and everybody starts bringing injured insects for her to fix. What crazy injuries could insects possibly have?
In the third story, Rory loved being his own TV commentator while playing football by himself. He kicked the ball hard trying to get it through two trees. But unfortunately, the ball went over the tall fence. This fence was called the off-limits fence. No one knew what lay on the other side. What will Rory do? Will he ever get his ball back?
This was a hilarious, entertaining and short read. The stories were easy to visualise because they realistic.
The well-illustrated pictures made it easy to imagine the characters’ appearances. Danny Katz has done a great job in keeping me flipping through the pages.
The author made the story believable, but at the same time, unbelievably wacky and humorous.
I would recommend this book mainly to children who are 6-10 years of age. They would most likely enjoy the humour and life-like plot.
CKT Book Reviewer
Author: Danny Katz
Illustrator: Mitch Vane
Title: Little Lunch: Off- Limits Fence
Publisher: Black Dog Books
ISBN: 9781742032375
Published: August 2015
Age: 3+