Aesop’s Fables

I’ll put you together again. And Mum and me, we’ll look after you alright?!?Jackie wants a horse of her own, one that’ll be the fastest on the estate, the fastest in all of Ireland and the fastest in all the world. Mum wants to a little cottage in the country for her and Jackie to live in. What they get is a garden gnome that Jackie finds in a rubbish skip; one she lovingly repairs and paints; a gnome she calls Mister Skip. And Jackie soon discovers that with Mister Skip, anything is possible!A fairy-tale for today from a master storyteller.

In a cosy den under a garden shed lives a family of foxes. They love to watch football - all foxes do. But their favourite team keeps losing and losing, and it seems like things will never look up. That is until Daddy Fox finds the ghost of a king buried underneath a car park. A king who wishes only to be free. 'Release me,' says the Ghost King, 'and I can do anything. Just tell me your greatest wish.' For these football-loving foxes, might everything be about to change?

Robbie McLeod has the misfortune to be orphaned at a very young age and is brought up for a while by his heartless uncle. He is also born into a difficult age, being young and idealistic, in Scotland, at the time of the Jacobite Uprising in 1745. That's when Bonnie Prince Charlie came back to Scotland out of exile in France, to claim the throne which was rightfully his. The charismatic Prince swept through Scotland calling men to arms as he went, and Robbie joined them.

When a clever little rooster finds a diamond, he thinks it only just that he shares his good fortune with his poor and loving mistress. But a greedy sultan is determined to claim the diamond for his own - and devises a series of traps to outwit the plucky bird. A hilarious chase ensues, and we are shown that greed and avarice lead to nothing but sorrow, whilst true happiness lies in a generous spirit.

Penguin presents for the first time the complete, unabridged audio edition of Mary Norton's The Borrowers. The Borrowers live in the secret places of quiet old houses: behind the mantelpiece, inside the harpsichord, under the kitchen clock. They own nothing, borrow everything and think that human beings were invented just to do the dirty work. Arrietty's father, Pod, was an expert Borrower.

The Wombles is the first ever Wombles book and introduces the stern but kindly Great Uncle Bulgaria; Orinoco, who is particularly fond of his food and a subsequent 40 winks; general handyman extraordinaire Tobermory, who can turn almost anything that the Wombles retrieve from Wimbledon Common into something useful; Madame Cholet, who cooks the most delicious and natural foods to keep the Wombles happy and contented; and last but not least, Bungo, one of the youngest and cheekiest Wombles of all, who has much to learn and is due to venture out onto the Common on his own for the very first time.…

Olly's brother, Matt, has always wanted to be a clown, and when he sees the plight of Africa's children, he makes the decision to fly the family nest to take his skill to a place devoid of laughter. To his family, it is a travesty: this bright, intelligent boy with a glowing future ups and leaves to head into the unknown, leaving behind him a trail of worry and feelings of impending doom. Olly is charged with the care of a family of starlings that she and her brother have been watching over in the garden....

Including many of the greatest stories ever told - the labours of Hercules, the voyage of the Argonauts, Theseus and the minotaur, Midas and his golden touch, the Trojan War and Odysseus's journey home - Robert Graves's superb and comprehensive retelling of the Greek myths for a modern audience has been regarded for over fifty years as the definitive version. With a novelist's skill and a poet's eye, Graves draws on the entire canon of ancient literature, bringing together all the elements of every myth into one epic and unforgettable story.

A gentle and deeply moving story of a young girl and her bear, told with great charm by a master storyteller. High in the mountains, in a tiny village, an abandoned bear cub is adopted by a lonely orphan child. Soon they are inseparable, beloved by the whole village - safe, until the arrival of a glamorous film crew who need a dancing bear....

From schooldays to summer holidays, and from childhood fantasies to nostalgic reminiscences, writers have provided us with a rich seam of children’s poetry over the years.This delightful selection brings over seventy poems together, from such celebrated poets as A.A.

Here is a timeless tale of waterside Britain that has been loved by generations of children and acclaimed as a classic. The story of Mole, Ratty, Badger, and Toad, and their escapades, whether messing about on the river or poop-pooping in Toad's shiny new car, cannot fail to enchant.

It’s 1944. Elizabeth's father is fighting with the German army on the eastern front. Her mother works at Dresden zoo, where her favourite animal is a young elephant named Marlene. When the zoo director tells her the dangerous animals must be shot to prevent them running amok when the town is bombed, Elizabeth's mother moves Marlene into the back garden to save her… and then the bombs start to fall.

One cold Christmas night, a shepherd recounts the magical story of how he came to be the first visitor to the newborn Christ child - ahead of the other shepherds, and in complete secret. A deftly wrought re-working of the nativity story, Michael's tale is rich in human detail.

Penguin presents Roald Dahl's Matilda, read by multi-award-winning actress Kate Winslet. Matilda Wormwood is an extraordinary genius with really stupid parents. Miss Trunchbull is her terrifying headmistress who thinks all her pupils are rotten little stinkers. But Matilda will show these horrible grown-ups that even though she's only small, she's got some very powerful tricks up her sleeve....

A wonderful story written by the children's laureate Michael Morpurgo.One morning, while chopping wood in the forest, Tod notices a small white fawn fleeing the King’s hunt. Swiftly, Tod gathers the fawn into his arms and runs back to his father’s cottage. As the years go by, the fawn grows into a magnificent white stag, and the bonds between boy and deer grow strong. But Tod has yet to face a great test of his devotion to the The King in the Forest.