Young dog Jake is in disgrace – he’s just dug up the roses in his owner’s garden. But when his friend Sam takes him to the park for a game of football, they find that the football pitch is threatened. The Council want to sell the land to the builders. Everyone is determined to save the park, but only Jake can save the day.

Review Young Jake is a clever dog with ...

A mysterious cat, with fur the colour of rain clouds, has arrived on the allotment where Jessie helps her dad. Nobody believes hippy gardener Honeysuckle when she tells them it’s a Royal Rain Cat from Thailand, at least not until it starts to rain.

Review Jessie’s Dad has taken two weeks holiday to spend time with her on their garden allotment. Jessie is proud of her ...

Esme Lamour is a cosseted, upper-class poodle falls in love with Samuel Bloom, a mongrel dog from the tenements. As with all great romances, the course of true love doesn’t always run smoothly.

Review: Gillian Shields’ rhyming couplet text is. She begins her love story by introducing the three main characters and the places where they live and play in a very straightfo ...

Miss Fox is a very wily teacher. She tempts the children in her class with goodies and all of them, apart from Lily Lamb, love her as a result. The naughty Lily doesn’t trust Miss Fox’s smiles and enthusiasm, especially when she takes the class on a nature walk.

Review: The trail of fairy cakes and cookies on the endpapers leads readers into this story about the wily ...

Set in Nigeria, this clearly presented book successfully combines a narrative not only with information about colours, but also a varied picture of the life of people in an African village. The well-chosen photographs add to the written text by illustrating very clearly the explanations given to us by the narrator, Chidi's sister. Although first published in 1997, the book still feels fres ...

As Zadie Smith says in the foreword:'We forget what a miracle water is...Maybe the stories in this book will make you think twice about the way you use water'. Beatrice Hollyer,and a team of several photographers, in association with Oxfam, take us on a journey round the world to see how water is obtained and used by six different children. The book will undoubtedly make children much ...

Oh, what a gorgeous book!

Gary Blythe (of 'The Whale's Song') has produced illustrations that seem to defy the flat, 2D surface they inhabit, invoking deep emotional responses that perfectly complement Gillian Shields' simple, direct text. Together they have produced a story that wrenches at the heart strings in a way reminiscent of the classic, 'Dogger' ....

Sir Quinton Quest, Explorer of the Year five years running, is off on a death-defying expedition accompanied only by his long-suffering butler Muggins. His mission? To prove that the Yeti definitely does not exist.

Review: This story is peopled with delightful characters: Sir Quiton Quest (bumbling explorer who expects his butler to do all the hard work), Muggins (who wishes he h ...

A little girl named Faith wakes up to find that she is a statue in an old library, with only a tiger rug for company. Was she always a statue or was she once a real girl? And what will become of her now? Over the next two days and nights, her complex companion gives her so many contradictory versions of the truth that Faith hardly knows what to believe.

Review: This thought-provo ...

In a barren land parched by drought and ravaged by frosts lies a crumbling kingdom. Once laughter echoed around the palace walls, but now only sadness fills the air. Serenity, the youngest of three princesses, hopes that the apple pip contained in a simple wooden box inherited from her mother will help to make the kingdom bloom again.

Review: This story, in which three siblings ar ...