THE COMIC CAFE

Wilf and his family have moved to the seaside to start a new life by opening a run-down cafe. But for his parents it's all too much, and quite separately they decide to take a break from the family, not realising that the other has also left. So Wilf and his four younger sisters fend for themselves and decide to renovate the cafe as a surprise for their parents' return. But ghostly sounds in the house, a parade of oddball and inquisitive visitors and the mysterious links between the cafe's previous owner and the local art gallery complicate their efforts. As Wilf's superhero comic characters take shape on the cafe's walls, covering the fat ladies who previously decorated it, the children's attempts to hide their parentless state slowly unravel, leading to a dramatic turn of events on the day they open the cafe to the public. Packed with humorous characters and witty dialogue, this is a delightfully funny story with an intriguing mystery at its heart.

Roger Stevens has written several novels for young people and more than 20 books of poems. He lives in England and in France. The rest of the time he visits schools, libraries, festivals and museums performing and talking about his work. Stevens plays in the band Damn Right I Got the Blues with the actress and author Floella Benjamin and the writer Ken Follett, and performed the music for Floella Benjamin's Hey Diddle Diddle on BBC Radio 7.
His award-winning website, The Poetry Zone (www.poetryzone.co.uk), publishes poems by children from all over the world. He performed his verse novel for teenagers, The Diary of Danny Chaucer (Orion) as a play on BBC Radio Four and his latest anthology, A Million Brilliant Poems — Part One (A&C Black) was shortlisted for the coveted Centre for Literacy in Primary Education Poetry Award 2011.