Frank is a funny chick. Unlike all his brothers and sisters, he wants to dabble about in the lovely duck pond, splashing himself with water. Most of all, he wants to learn to swim. Can Jemima, the farmer’s daughter, find a way to help Frank? All he thinks about are webbed feet, waterproof feathers, and the cool water of the pond. So when Frank takes a dip and nearly drowns, his mood turns foul. Luckily, he gets a little human help - in the form of a man-made wet suit and a pair of flippers - and soon he’s the speediest bird in the water.

When Farmer Buzzard's collie, Kay, has four puppies, he doesn't know what to do. Three are fine puppies, which he can sell, but the fourth is the ugliest puppy ever. No one wants to buy him and, as he grows, it becomes clear he'll never make a sheepdog – and he certainly isn't house-trained! Farmer Buzzard is too kind-hearted to get rid of Smasher, and eventually, when a burglar calls, the big dog has a chance to prove his worth.

All pterodactyls know that flying dinosaurs are superior, and all apatosauruses know that any dinosaur with only two legs is surely second-class. Nosy, a pterodactyl, and Banty, an apatosaurus, become great friends even though their parents have forbidden them to play together. With Nosy’s fast flying and Banty’s smarts, the two take on the biggest predator on the Great Plain, and conquer their parents’ prejudices in one great adventure.

Sophie is small but very determined. She loves animals and is going to be a lady farmer when she grows up. On her fifth birthday, she gets a model farm and lots of toy animals. What she wants most of all, though, is a real animal - like a cat.

At the zoo, Jack steals an ostrich egg that's about to be fed to a snake, brings it home to his family's farm, and persuades a pair of geese to be its foster parents.

"A bear on Paddington Station?" said Mrs Brown in amazement. "Don't be silly - there can't be." The Browns first met Paddington on a railway station - Paddington station, in fact. He had travelled all the way from Darkest Peru with only a jar of marmalade, a suitcase and his hat. The Browns soon found that Paddington was a very unusual bear.

Suzy is a small striped cat with long white whiskers, who lives in a French seaside village with a fisherman and his four sons. She likes living in France, chasing butterflies and being stroked the wrong way. She doesn't like straying too far from home. But like all cats, Suzy is very inquisitive - which causes problems when she climbs into the basket of a hot-air balloon, falls asleep, and is carried up, up, and away over the Channel to England!

Pim is a baby aardvark, with a long, furry nose. He has tiny little claws instead of fingers and toes, and sleeps in a cosy burrow. But he isn't sure what being an aardvark really means. He asks his mother all sorts of questions, and she decides it is time he found out what being an aardvark is all about. In his quest to discover the world around him, he meets lots of exotic and interesting animals. There are snakes, cheetahs, elephants, and monkeys, and they all have something to teach him.

Mary's little brother, Billy, seems perfectly normal, until one moonlit evening Mary finds him floating above his bed. From then on, whenever the full moon rises, Billy the Bird flies up, up and away and home again! In the second story, Jackson is a rabbit with a dream. He spends his days watching the tall sailing ships coming and longs to go to sea, too. So one day Jackson stows away on the Atalanta.

Pat is an adorable little sea otter. She likes turning up her toes and floating in the sea, chasing fish, and asking a hundred and one questions. One day, Pat makes friends with another otter, Bobby. The two enjoy playing and exploring together, until their lives are unexpectedly turned upside down when they get caught up in a storm and washed ashore on an island.