Lets go step by step.
Here is already (first) problem:

>1)ping book.shelf works (resolved to 192.168.251.252)
2)ping anything.else does not work
3)if i ping google then i get a reply from googles ip 82.94.234.18 (when i have a WAN connection)<

1) dnsmasq resolves book.shelf correctly.
     Shure, that it is DNSmasq ? Or do you have on your client in windows/system32/etc/hosts a line like
       192.168.251.252 book.shelf ?
     Because you must be shure, that dnsmasq REALLY is used to resolve dnsrequests from your client.
2) BUG. You need following line in dnsmasq.conf:
address=/#/192.168.251.252

No need for any further investigation, until the basic requiremens are met: dnsmasq REALLY is used to resolve dns-enquieries, AND dnsmasq works as expected.

Thanks Augustus!!!!

that fixed it.   I mistakenly used option address '/#/192.168.251.252' in the dnsmasq sectopn of the dhcp config file

now i have added address=/#/192.168.251.252 to dnsmasq.conf  and all is working.
I often looked in that file and it never came to mind that i could have tried to add it there..  DOH...

THANKS guys!  Also a big thank you to eduperez for helping me in the early stages. with a lot of the other stuff.

Shall I post a HTTP 301 / 302 solution?

The thing i mainly was after was the catch all functionality and redirect all to a basic page.   A bit like 403, but without using authentication functionalities. Simply catch all and then point to one page. 

I thought there would be some way like Address=/#/192.168.x.x but then with an option to point to a URL. 

But yea, please post the 301 302 Permanent and temporary redirect method.

'one-liner' PHP script in /www/404.php:

<?php
header("Location: /index.php"); /* Redirect browser */
exit;
?>

/etc/config/dhcp:

    config dnsmasq
    ...
    list address '/#/192.168.1.1' /* <- IP address of web server (uhttpd) */

/etc/config/uhttpd:

    config uhttpd main
    ...
    option error_page /404.php

N.B. - requires PHP packages:

• php5

• php5-cgi