While this novel is at the top of our age range, I feel that it is so important and so brilliant that it should be included. Some of the concepts are sophisticated, but they are explained clearly and well, and bright year 7s will handle them without a problem. We are not told at the beginning of the story that sixteen-year-old Laureth is blind, but it becomes apparent as we see how she copes with flying to New York City with her seven-year-old brother Benjamin. It's a cracker of a beginning as Laureth explains that she isn't actually abducting her brother but that she needs his help in finding their dad, and the fact that she has taken her mum's credit card to buy the tickets and to take out money for their expenses is almost by the way. Dad is a famous author who has recently begun to seem seriously weird, and when Laureth gets an email from a mysterious person in New York to say he has her dad's 'Black Book', even though dad is supposedly in Switzerland, alarm bells begin to ring in Laureth's mind. The descriptions of Laureth's ways of coping with her blindness are first rate, and she has no feelings of regret at her lack of sight. She has always been blind and has learned to look after herself, but she needs Benjamin to read for her and be her guide, and as they are close, she knows they will work well together. Their encounters in NYC are truly remarkable, and as the story becomes more and more thriller-like, we meet a black boy who talks like a Dickens novel, a lady who runs an Edgar Allan Poe museum, a couple of serious badies, a tramp, and any number of taxi drivers. Dad's recent weirdness, which has caused a rift in the parents' marriage, has to do with an unusual interest in coincidences and the number 354, an interest that has become an obsession. When the two children get hold of the Black Book, they find his notes very disturbing. It begins to look like he might be considering suicide. Laureth manages to keep this from Benjamin, but she is very worried indeed. The denouement is tremendously exciting, real edge-of-your-seat stuff, but Laureth and Benjamin win the day, and there is a happy ending. For our purposes, Laureth makes a great role model, and while one would not condone abducting one's brother or stealing mum's credit card, it makes for an unput-downable story!