The Lily Pickle Eleven — Gwen Grant

'Get that book out, Lily,' Mr Kendal says one morning. 'There's going to be new things happening round here. We're going to have a bit of culture. Well,' he goes, 'a football team is the next best thing. Two o'clock. Girls and all. What! Stick with me and the sky's the limit.'Lily, the high-spirited heroine of The Lily Pickle Band Book, is back. She has lots to tell us about: the new neighbourhood football team, Elvis Harris' hairstyle ('Hair is antique. Mushrooms is outre'), Asquith ('Free the pee-pulF) and his chains, Mad Mave and her boyfriend, Hoggy Morgan, and the rest of the gang. Meanwhile, Lily's dad, Mr Pickle, who disappeared when she was six, has come home and Lily's thinking of divorcing her mother.A warm, extremely funny book by this popular and highly talented author.' . Gwen Grant's tough, funny, uproarious northern world, with everything going at such a pace one can barely catch up.'The Times Educational Supplement