At school assemblies, when I was ten, I was required to recite a pledge which ended with the words ‘and cheerfully obey my parents, teachers and the law’. The novels reviewed here are all concerned with family, and the way in which young people operate within and outside it.

The gardener of the family has a dilemma. If she wants a brand-new compost bin, she must get an ‘A’ on the final project of the school year. So begins Harriet Huxtable and the Purpose of Rats (Scholastic, $11.95 pb, 136 pp). Her teacher has said that the project must include interesting facts about pets. The trouble is, Harriet’s beloved pet turtle has inconveniently died that very day. After trying out various suggestions from family and classmates, Harriet captures her pet in an old shed. Her best friend’s wheelchair rolls onto a rat’s tail, and the adventures – not all of them academic – begin. This novel successfully conveys the secure world of the ten-year-old: too young for real scholastic pressure and operating within the secure base of a loving family. The most serious thing in Harriet’s life is wondering whether wrapping a pair of undies around a rat bite will help stop her getting the plague. A promising first novel.