Never complain about the colour of your cheese at seven in the morning. By two in the afternoon, it will get you back.

Lena has a talent: she can find the flaw in anything in two seconds. Cold eggs. A creased skirt. The wrong-coloured cheese. Three complaints before she even reaches the school gate ? and a radio station in her head broadcasting nothing but bad news, twenty-four hours a day, no music breaks.

Then, at a quarter past two, her six-year-old brother Noah collapses in the playground. His lunchbox is untouched. A folded note falls out of his sweater pocket. Lena puts it in her bag and doesn't open it for two days.

What Lena works out ? with help from her mum, a second-hand bicycle and one very quiet boy in Year One ? begins inside that note.

For every child who wants what everyone else has, and every parent who has heard "my life is miserable" over a perfectly good breakfast. A story about noticing, told gently and never preachy. Giving and receiving are handled with real dignity: nobody is pitied, nobody is guilt-tripped, and Lena's mum flatly refuses the "other children have nothing" line. Gratitude is something Lena works out for herself, never something she is handed.

Illustrated throughout, and rounded off with discussion questions, family activities, puzzles and games, and an original song.

Perfect for readers ages 8?12 who love funny diary stories, real-life family chaos, and heroines with strong opinions about breakfast.

Book 8 of Lena's Real Life Adventures. Each book stands alone ? start anywhere.