We Are All Made of Molecules by Susan Neilsen

There are a plethora of reasons to read this book. For one, it is better than CHoCoLaTe, which you probably already know to be Carbon, Holmium, Cobalt, Lanthanium and Tellurium. That is my favourite combination of elements... Here is a gentle family comedy, alternately narrated by Stewart, a slightly geeky boy, particular about symmetry, maths, statistics... You get the picture? (Or maybe graph, diagram or pie chart.) His new stepsister describes him as a 'tragic'. Ashley, on the other hand, is the alpha girl in her high school, manipulating her position at the top of the social ladder. Her new stepbrother describes her as 'not shallow, but surfacey'. Thrown unwillingly together and having to learn again what a family is or can be, Ashley and Stewart must learn to get along, but not without learning some more painfully funny life lessons along the way.