Meet Miss Charlotte… a modern Mary Poppins who wears a large hat and a crumpled dress that maker her look like a scarecrow, and she talks to a rock! At a train station on her way to meet her friends Marie and Leo to recover her pet rock, Madame Charlotte accidentally picks up the Prime Minister’s elephant-hide bag instead of her own. As it contains important documents and the politician is due to make an important speech on children’s education, Miss Charlotte – hoping that she might get a ministerial job out of this – embarks on a quest to track him down. Along the way, Miss Charlotte cannot help making speeches on behalf of the country’s leader and putting her own original twist on his boring children’s policy, while attracting at the same time the attentions of the media and the secret service.

A fabulously funny take on a classic story from two giants of children's books! Goldilocks and her little dog are off on an adventure, looking for that house again - the one with the chairs, the porridge and beds. The sound of the sea calls to them and before they know it, they have found quite a different sort of a house... there are bowls, and chairs and sort-of beds... plus some rather unexpected and hilarious inhabitants! From Michael Rosen, the highly regarded author of We're Going on a Bear Hunt, comes this wonderful new take on the famous nursery tale, brilliantly brought to life by David Melling, the creator of Hugless Douglas.

A fabulously funny take on a classic story from two giants of children's books! Goldilocks and her little dog are off on an adventure, looking for that house again - the one with the chairs, the porridge and beds. The sound of the sea calls to them and before they know it, they have found quite a different sort of a house . . . there are bowls, and chairs and sort-of beds . . . plus some rather unexpected and hilarious inhabitants! From Michael Rosen, the highly regarded author of We're Going on a Bear Hunt, comes this wonderful new take on the famous nursery rhyme, brilliantly brought to life by David Melling, the creator of Hugless Douglas.

Tender, sad, funny, and riveting, this is an astonishing collection of work by one of Britain's finest contemporary writers. A man builds a tree house by a river, in anticipation of the coming flood. A sugar-beet crashes through a young woman's windscreen. A boy sets fire to a barn. These aren't the sort of things you imagine happening to someone like you. But sometimes they do. Set in the flat and threatened fenland landscape, where the sky is dominant and the sea lurks just beyond the horizon, these delicate, dangerous, and sometimes deeply funny stories tell of things buried and unearthed, of familiar places made strange, and of lives where much is hidden, much is at risk, and tender moments are hard-won.

Three more stories of magical mayhem in which Granny gets the monkeys to paint the zoo, takes a wand-wielding toddler to a department store and builds the raft to end all rafts! Thank goodness Pandora’s there to sort things out… Messy, funny and beautifully illustrated, these are laugh-out-loud stories from a dream team!

It's never too late to change the habits of a lifetime... Evelyn Pringle isn't the sort to make rash decisions. Or any decisions, really – she's always left that sort of thing up to her husband. But he's been found dead, wearing his best suit, with a diamond ring in his pocket that doesn't fit her. When Evelyn finds a letter addressed to a woman on the Isle of Wight, she decides to deliver it. By hand. So begins a very unusual holiday, and an adventure no one could have predicted – least of all Evelyn herself. With the help of some unexpected new friends, and a little effort on her part, Evelyn discovers that it's never too late to have a second chance at life and forge friendships that are well-worth living for. The Second Chance Holiday Club is a heartwarming and funny later-life uplit for fans of Judy Leigh, Hazel Prior and Maddie Please.

Meet Miss Charlotte… a modern Mary Poppins who wears a large hat and a crumpled dress that maker her look like a scarecrow, and she talks to a rock! When the mysterious and eccentric Miss Charlotte arrives in the village of Saint-Anatole to take over the tiny library, the locals are surprised to find out that she does things differently. Wearing a long blue dress and a giant hat, she takes her books out for a walk in a wheelbarrow and shows the children that reading can be fun and useful. Sometimes she is so caught up in the magic of the stories she shares with her audience that she forgets all sense of reality – so much so that one day she loses consciousness and the children must find a way to bring her back. The second in Dominique Demers’s popular Adventures of Miss Charlotte series, The Mysterious Librarian, brilliantly illustrated by Tony Ross, is a wonderful story about the magical and inspiring power of books.

Meet Miss Charlotte… a modern Mary Poppins who wears a large hat and a crumpled dress that maker her look like a scarecrow, and she talks to a rock! Mademoiselle Charlotte, the new teacher, is not like the others: she wears a large hat and a crumpled dress that make her look like a scarecrow, and she talks to a rock. The children think she is crazy at first, but soon realize she makes school more fun than ever, getting them to measure the room with cooked spaghetti in maths class, telling fascinating stories about a gorilla and even taking the pupils on at football. The first book in Dominique Demers’s popular Adventure of Miss Charlotte series, The New Teacher, brilliantly illustrated by Tony Ross, is an entertaining, imaginative and inspiring book that will make you wish you had a teacher just like Mademoiselle Charlotte.

When you’re four inches high in a world full of giant people, things never go very well for long. After running into trouble at the quarry, the nomes want to go home. The problem is, ‘home’ is somewhere up in the stars, in some sort of Ship. Masklin must find a way to get to the ‘launch’ of a ‘communications satellite’ (whatever that is). And so begins an incredible journey, filled with peril, planes, honking geese . . . and a walking sandwich. The fantastically funny third book of the nomes, from the author of the bestselling Discworld series.

The bestselling children's books series for over 50 years! Mr Topsy-Turvy was a funny sort of fellow. Everything about him was either upside down, or inside out, or back to front - topsy-turvy in fact. The Mr Men and Little Miss have been delighting children for generations with their charming and funny antics. Bold illustrations and funny stories make Mr Men and Little Miss the perfect story time experience for children aged two up. Have you met them all?

'Poignant, moving, hilarious...laugh-out-loud funny...the sort of book that might change your life' - Observer From the beginning Oliver Walzer is a natural - at ping-pong. Even with his improvised bat (the Collins Classic edition of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) he can chop, flick, half-volley like a champion. At sex he is not so adept, but with tuition from Sheeny Waxman, fellow member of the Akiva Social Club Table Tennis Team and stalwart of the Kardomah coffee bar, his game improves. Winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize.

Princess Minna loves to sort out mix-ups and mishaps in the kingdom! In this full-colour, illustrated chapter book, join her on a funny, exciting adventure to wake a sleeping prince and much more - all in time for tea. Princess Minna lives in Castle Tall-Towers with the King and Queen, Raymond the Wizard and her best dragon friend, Lorenzo. There are often mix-ups and mishaps in the kingdom and Princess Minna loves to sort them out! She can tame unicorns, kiss frogs and fight dragons (apart from Lorenzo) and she is very good at fixing things before it's time for bed. In The Enchanted Forest, Princess Minna has to wake a sleeping prince before nightfall. But along the way, she finds a swan, an old lady and a very fluffy sheep - all of them in a fix! Can she help them and still reach the prince before sundown? Full of colourful illustrations, these short, funny stories are perfect for readers just moving on from picture books and visual readers.

Meet Miss Charlotte… a modern Mary Poppins who wears a large hat and a crumpled dress that maker her look like a scarecrow, and she talks to a rock! Miss Charlotte – the new coach of a children’s football team – has some odd methods to prepare them for the big match, including talking to the ball and drinking a special potion, smalalamiam. Also, she teaches them how to lose! And to have fun. Incredibly, it seems to work – but will their hopes of victory be dashed when their star player decides to join the other team? The latest instalment in Dominique Demers’s popular Adventures of Miss Charlotte series, The New Football Coach, brilliantly illustrated by Tony Ross, is a marvellous tale about believing in yourself and beating the odds.

A brand new story about a Little Miss with a very sunny disposition! Little Miss Sunshine is the sort of person who can see the good side of everything and everyone. But not all her friends are the same. Mr Grumble is the complete opposite and he grumbles from morning to night. How will Little Miss Sunshine show him that every cloud has a silver lining? The popular Little Miss Sunshine now has a new story in a big, bright edition for you to share and enjoy! The Mr Men and Little Miss have been delighting children for generations with their charming and funny antics. Bold illustrations and funny stories make Mr Men and Little Miss the perfect story time experience for children aged two up. Have you met them all?

Matt Rowland Hill grew up the son of a minister in an evangelical Christian church. It was a childhood fraught with bitter family conflict and the fear of damnation. After a devastating loss of faith in his late teens, Matt began his search for salvation elsewhere, eventually becoming addicted to crack and heroin - an ordeal that stretched over a decade and culminated in a period of hopeless darkness. Recklessly honest, and as funny as it is grave, Original Sins is an extraordinary memoir of faith, family, shame and addiction. It's about looking for answers to life's big questions in all the wrong places, how hope can arrive in the most unexpected forms, and how the stories we tell might help us survive.

This isnt just any cookery book. It is Mastering the Art of French Cooking, first published in 1961, and its a book that is a statement, not of culinary intent, but of aspiration, a commitment to a certain sort of good life, a certain sort of world-view; a votive object implying taste and appetite and a little je ne sais quoi. Julia Child was like Amelia Earhart, or Eleanor Roosevelt: she was a hero whod gone out there and made a difference. Her books are a triumph, and also a trophy A. A. Gill, The Times