Franklin's Emporium: The White Lace Gloves

Gill Vickery has loved writing and painting since she was very small. She has been a teacher, and also a children's librarian, which she says is the best job in the world, because you get paid to read children's books! The Ivy Crown, Gill's first novel, won the Kathleen Fidler Award.

Gill does a great job writing a pacey and exciting story in so few pages, setting up a framework for the series and introducing her main characters. We really feel for Alex as she wrestles, sometimes literally, with the intractable problem of her mean cousin and the unpredictable magic of the gloves.