It is the charming illustrations that make this picture book such fun. Rather in the mode of the Noddy stories, we meet a whole town full of people, and the end paper maps show us the layout. Keepwell has a rail station, a school, and a surgery, and in this first of what is planned to be a series, Nurse Diddy and her two cohorts, Gongo the guinea pig and Ruko the rook, deal with an outbreak of chicken pox. Jake and Rosie at Scrobble Farm have come out in spots, and when Nurse Diddy visits, she diagnoses chicken pox. (The fact there is a chicken wandering into the house makes it possible to explain that this has nothing to do with the illness!) Medicine and cream are prescribed, and the children are soon better. But, oh dear, the surgery is inundated with calls saying all the children who have had chicken pox and are now better are bored. Can't they go back to school? No, indeed, not yet. But Nurse Diddy comes up with the answer: a party on the train for all the sufferers. A brilliant wheeze. This paperback is available from Amazon or from the publisher: www.bumpkinbooks.co.uk (Tel: 01869 350943).