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Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Non-fiction

From the bestselling author of Why is Snot Green comes another hilarious, bonkers and brilliant science book – f ind out the answers to all the questions you’ve ever had about the Olympics and sport!

Are Olympic athletes born stronger and faster than the rest of us?

Why do tennis rackets have strings?

How do gymnasts balance on their hands?

Why do hurdlers do the splits when they jump?

From running a marathon, to beating your friends at basketball, to being the bendiest gymnast around, find out everything you’ve ever wanted to know about sports, and exactly what it is that makes athletes the best at what they do.

Divided into five easy-to-digest sections and packed with illustrations, Glenn Murphy’s Olympic Sport is an accessible introduction to the science of sport, perfect for any young athletes and scientists.

– Bigger, Better, Faster, Stronger
– In the Olympic Stadium
– Going the Distance
– He Shoots . . . He Scores!
– Balance, Flexibility and Control

Poetry

A funny collection of football poems by Brian Bilston, the unofficial Poet Laureate of Twitter. Perfect for football fans of all ages – from the young footie fanatic to a been-to-every-game-grandma, and every ‘I could’ve been a pro’ in between.

Full of poems that will make you giggle about all things football, including being left out of the World Cup squad, mum’s opinion on Messi vs Ronaldo, or those unmissable fixtures:

I’d love nothing more than to go outside
and spend time with Mother Nature.
But what can I do? It’s out of my hands:
Nigeria are playing Croatia

50 Ways to Score a Goal and Other Football Poems includes witty chants, a haiku or two, and fun shape poems about the beautiful game. Laugh together through the Euros or Premier League games, and swap the half-time pundits for puns!

Chapter book

Sweeping across countries, class and music, Eva Ibboton’s classic historical romance, Magic Flutes , is a richly imagined tale of intrigue and identity, with a new introduction from Harriet Evans.

In the spring of 1922, young Austrian Princess Theresa-Maria – known to her ancient aunts as ‘Putzerl’ – abandons her crumbling castle and her royal duties. Disguising herself simply as Tessa, she enrolls as under wardrobe mistress of the International Opera Company and soon loses herself in the intoxicating world of the Viennese opera.

But when Guy Farne, an Englishman looking to impress his new fiance, arrives in Austria and employs the Company to perform at his newly purchased Austrian estate, he finds himself fascinated by the under wardrobe mistress, and Tessa finds it increasingly difficult to keep her two lives separate…

Graphic Novel

They’re Alligators – and Investigators! InvestiGators written and illustrated by John Patrick Green is the full colour, laugh-out-loud series perfect for emerging readers and fans of Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man.

Mango and Brash are the InvestiGators: sewer-loving agents of S.U.I.T. and scourge of supervillains everywhere!

With their Very Exciting Spy Technology and their tried-and-true, toilet-based travel techniques, the InvestiGators are undercover and on the case! And on their first mission together, they have not one but two mysteries to solve!

Can Mango and Brash uncover the clues, crack their cases, and corral the crooks? Or will the criminals wriggle out of their grasp?

Chapter book

Go on a galactic adventure with the last human on Earth, his alien best friend, and a depressed android. Introducing younger readers to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , this YA edition of the funny sci-fi classic includes an introduction from Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer.

One Thursday lunchtime the Earth gets unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. It’s the final straw for Arthur Dent, who has already had his house bulldozed that morning. But for Arthur, that is only the beginning . . .

In the seconds before global obliteration, Arthur is plucked from the planet by his friend Ford Prefect – and together the pair venture out across the galaxy on the craziest, strangest road trip of all time!

Totally hilarious, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has been a radio show, TV show, stage play, comic book and film, and is and a work of utter comic genius from Douglas Adams.

Chapter book

The 13-Storey Treehouse is the first book in Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton’s wacky treehouse adventures, where the laugh-out-loud story is told through a combination of text and fantastic cartoon-style illustrations.

Andy and Terry live in the WORLD’S BEST treehouse! It’s got a giant catapult, a secret underground laboratory, a tank of man-eating sharks and a marshmallow machine that follows you around and shoots marshmallows into your mouth whenever you’re hungry! Just watch out for the flying cats, or the mermaids, or the sea monsters pretending to be mermaids, or the giant mutant mermaid sea monster. Oh, and, whatever you do, don’t get trapped in a burp-gas-filled bubble . . .

Picturebook

Rabbit borrows a book about wolves from the library. He can’t put it down! But soon a sinister figure with sharp claws and a bushy tail starts to creep right off the pages. You won’t believe your eyes – but if you’re a rabbit, you probably should.

Brilliantly witty, ingeniously constructed, and with amazing artwork throughout, Wolves has thrilled critics and booksellers alike. Wolves was Emily Gravett’s debut book, winning her the Macmillan Prize for Illustration and her first CILIP Kate Greenaway Award.

This edition of Wolves features an additional mini book to cut out and keep; it’s called 10 Little Rabbits , and it’s Wolf’s favourite book…

Non-fiction

Wild Child: A Journey Through Nature is a beautiful gift book, illustrated in full colour by Barry Falls, and divided into five sections: looking out of the window, venturing out into the garden, walking in the woods, investigating heathland and wandering on the river bank.

Dara pauses to tell you about each habitat and provides fantastic facts about the native birds, animals and plants you will find there – including wrens, blackbirds, butterflies, tadpoles, bluebells, bees, hen harriers, otters, dandelions, oak trees and many more.

Each section contains a discovery section where you will have a closer look at natural phenomenon such as metamorphoses and migration, learn about categorization in the animal kingdom or become an expert on the collective nouns for birds.

Each section finishes with an activity to do when you get home: plant wild flowers, make a bird feeder, try pond dipping, make a journey stick and build a terrarium.

Dara ends the book with advice for young conservationists.

Poetry

Crazy Mayonnaisy Mum is packed with all sorts of poems and rhymes including a sequence of number rhymes, action rhymes, noisy rhymes and more thoughtful pieces too.

If tigerlilies and dandelions growled,
And cowslips mooed, and dogroses howled,
And snapdragons roared and catmint miaowed,
My garden would be extremely loud.

Crazy Mayonnaisy Mum is a fantastic collection of funny, silly and entertaining poems for the very young from acknowledged master of rhyme and author of The Gruffalo , Julia Donaldson.

Poetry

From National Poetry Day Ambassadors Liz Brownlee, Matt Goodfellow and Roger Stevens comes an incredible anthology of poetry identifying ways we can Be the Change.

These positive and upbeat poems will explore sustainability and the positive efforts being made to protect the planet and are perfect for starting conversations about looking after each other and our environment.

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