Birthday Boy

From David Baddiel, the brightest new star of children's books and winner of the Lollies award, comes a laugh-out-loud adventure for every child who ever wondered what it might be like to be a bit of an animal.... Malcolm doesn't like animals. Which is a problem because his family love them. Their house is full of pets. What the house is not full of is stuff Malcolm likes. Such as the laptop he wanted for his birthday.

From the million-copy bestselling author of The Parent Agency and Birthday Boy comes a wildly entertaining wish-fulfilment adventure that asks the question: what would happen if the strictest head teacher swapped bodies with the naughtiest kid in school?  

From the author of The Parent Agency comes a thrilling, funny and touching new adventure. Fred and Ellie are twins. But not identical (because that's impossible for a boy and a girl). They do like all the same things, though. Especially video games. Which they are very good at. They aren't that good, however, at much else - like, for example, football, or dealing with the school bullies. Then they meet the Mystery Man, who sends them a video game controller which doesn't look like any other controller they've ever seen.

Let's celebrate World Book Day with The Boy Who Could Do What He Liked, written and recorded by the author David Baddiel, especially for World Book Day on March 3rd 2016. This is the first audiobook to be produced for World Book Day - it’s a hugely entertaining and touching story of a boy called Alfie who likes to keep to strict routines and schedules. It’s all rules, rules and more rules in Alfie’s life.

A brilliantly funny, gripping novel from a born storyteller, The Parent Agency is an epic wish-fulfilment adventure for every child - and for the child in everyone. Barry said, a third time, "I wish I had better parents!" And then suddenly the entire room started to shake. Barry Bennett hates being called Barry. In fact it's number 2 on the list of things he blames his parents for, along with 1) 'being boring' and 3) 'always being tired'. But there is a world, not far from this one, where parents don't have children.

When Murph Cooper rocks up to his new school, he can't help but feel a bit out of his depth. And it's not because he's worried about where to sit, and making friends, and fitting in, or not knowing where the loos are. It's because his mum has enrolled him at a school for superheroes by mistake. And unlike his fellow students Murph has no special abilities whatsoever. But just because you don't have superpowers, it doesn't mean you can't save the day....

Debut sensation Christian O'Connell is back with more hilarious adventures of Spike, superstar radio DJ...and trouble-prone ordinary kid. The world's youngest DJ is still the talk of the town. A town that's about to turn against him. Radio Boy and his team, Artie and Holly, are back and continue to broadcast live to the world from Spike's garden shed. Then, following a shock split from Nan, Grandad Ray comes to stay. Spike decides to cheer him up by inviting him onto the show.

Jasper Spam is mad about science. The problem is that his experiments tend to end in a bang - until one day Jasper manages to invent something that will change the world forever...the world's first talking cat. With his newfound wealth Jasper can finally live the life he's always dreamed of - buying a mansion and a sports team and producing a Hollywood blockbuster. But is there a huge price to pay for bringing talking cats to the world?

When Elsie, an orphan on the streets of Victorian London, hears about the mysterious Ice Monster - a woolly mammoth found at the North Pole - she’s determined to discover more.... A chance encounter brings Elsie face to face with the creature and sparks the adventure of a lifetime - from London to the heart of the Arctic! Heroes come in all different shapes and sizes in David Walliams’ biggest and most epic adventure yet!  

Not all heroes have superpowers. Don't believe us? Well, Murph Cooper is living proof. Since becoming Kid Normal, he and the Super Zeroes have been catching baddies all over the place. But being a hero is about to get a whole lot harder.... Far away in a top-secret prison, the world's most feared supervillain has broken a 30-year silence. His first words? 'Bring Kid Normal to me!'

This year the secret service made a major mix -up. They mistook a 13-year-old boy called Kevin for a secret agent (I know, so much for an 'intelligence' agency). This was the sort of kid that would try and zip wire across a building and end up falling headfirst into a fountain, with his bum on show. Despite this, it is up to Kevin to save us all from an evil supervillain!

On a visit to the US things take a strange turn for 12-year-old Ajay when, completely at random and totally by accident, he is sworn in as the new president. Well, I guess he can't be any worse than that guy who had the job before him, right? Wrong. It's quite easy for power to go to your head, and Ajay, overwhelmed by it all, goes rogue. Soon he's too busy ordering sparkly capes and enforcing the new national spider plan to spot the dastardly plot unfolding right under his nose.

Luke is a comic-mad 11-year-old who shares a tree house with his geeky older brother, Zack. Luke's only mistake is to go for a wee right at the wrong time. While he's gone, an alien gives his undeserving, never-read-a-comic-in-his-life brother superpowers and then tells him to save the universe. Luke is massively annoyed about this, but when Zack is kidnapped by his archnemesis, Luke and his friends have only five days to find him and save the world.... Hilariously narrated by Joe Thomas.

Find out why it's not easy being green in the hilarious new story from Frank Cottrell Boyce: The Astounding Broccoli Boy! Rory Rooney likes to be prepared for all eventualities. His favourite book is  Don't Be Scared, Be Prepared, and he has memorized every page of it. He could even survive a hippo attack. He knows that just because something is unlikely doesn't mean it won't ever happen.... But Rory isn't prepared when he suddenly and inexplicably turns green.

Eleven-year-old Maxwell is always, always in trouble. Roaming the town with his beloved pet dog, Monster (who he rescued as a puppy from being run over), as a way to escape his parents' constant sniping at home, he's a menace to the neighbours and teachers at school. While visiting an elderly neighbour, Maxwell comes across a mysterious cabinet of curiosities and suddenly finds himself erased from his life: it's as if he's never existed. Able to walk around anonymously might be great at first, but he soon realises that he misses his old life, and, crucially, if he had never existed, then he wouldn't have swooped in and stopped Monster the dog from being hit by that car....