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Malice in Underland

Chapter book

A gorgeously gothic debut series. Packed with wonderful characters, witty writing and thrilling adventure. STARFELL meets THE ADDAMS FAMILY.

Meet Malice Morbid Malign.

She’s from Underland, land of sorcery, spooks and skulduggery.

But, she and her family live in Topside and mischief is their business . . .

And the business of mischief is a very serious matter!

The Malign family hate books, they hate bathing, and they especially HATE helping.

But when grandad ghosts mysteriously start disappearing, including her own beloved grandad, Malice has no choice but to help.

She partners up with her Uncle Vexatious, to solve the case of the missing grandad-ghosts.

The perfect next read for Amelia Fang fans.

This funny, warm-hearted, spooky series – stunningly illustrated by Hannah Peck, and beautifully packaged – will delight and enchant middle-grade readers aged 9-12.

The Miracle on Ebenezer Street

Chapter book

When George stumbles across Marley’s Curiosity Shop, he finds a mysterious and magical snow globe.

George and his Scrooge of a dad are soon swept on an incredible adventure to Christmases past, present and future. With help from an enthusiastic elf, a rather grumpy purple reindeer and a very mischievous Nan, can George find a way to bring the joy of Christmas home once again?

A fabulously festive story about Christmas, family, and magic!

An enchanting tale of Christmas magic from multi-award-winning and bestselling writer Catherine Doyle. A treat for the whole family, perfect for fans of The Christmasaurus and A Boy Called Christmas.

Demelza and the Spectre Detectors

Chapter book

Full of warmth, eccentricity, humour and plenty of action, DEMELZA & THE SPECTRE DETECTORS is the debut novel from the multi-talented Holly Rivers, who played Drusilla Paddock in ITV’s original Worst Witch series!

Demelza loves science – she loves it so much that she stays up late to work on her inventions.

But she soon discovers she’s also inherited a distinctly unscientific skill: Spectre Detecting. Like her grandmother, she can summon the ghosts of the dead.

But when Grandma Maeve is kidnapped, Demelza and her pasty-faced best friend, Percy, must leap into action to solve the deadly mystery …

A warm and eccentric middle-grade mystery story by debut author Holly Rivers.

Counting Creatures

Picturebook

A stunning counting book full gorgeous baby animals, with amazing flaps to lift and holes to peep through. From Julia Donaldson, bestselling author of The Gruffalo , and Sharon King-Chai, who together created the award-winnning Animalphabet.

From a leopard with her cubs, to a frog and its tadpoles, young readers will delight in counting each creature’s babies and seeing where they live. With rhyming text and a surprise search-and-find game, this is a read-aloud delight and an absolute must for the family bookshelf. A truly beautiful gift.

Where the World Turns Wild

Chapter book

Animals, trees, flowers, our city forbids them all…

Juniper Greene lives in a walled city from which nature has been banished, following the outbreak of a deadly man-made disease many years earlier. While most people seem content to live in such a cage, she and her little brother Bear have always known about their resistance to the disease, and dream of escaping into the wild. To the one place humans have survived outside of cities. To where their mother is.

When scientists discover that the siblings provide the key to fighting the disease, the pair must flee for their lives. As they journey into the unknown, they soon learn that there’s cruelty in nature as well as beauty. Will they ever find the home they’re searching for?

A thrilling and thought-provoking ecological adventure from a fresh new voice in children’s fiction. Perfect for fans of THE EXPLORER, THE LAST WILD and THE ISLAND AT THE END OF EVERYTHING.

Life of Riley: Beginner’s Luck

Chapter book

Shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Award

A hilarious middle-grade novel about one boy’s quest to get rid of a ridiculous amount of bad luck! After a traumatic run-in with the fortune teller from a visiting funfair – thanks to an unfortunately-timed sneeze – Riley finds himself CURSED.

Life as he knows it quickly becomes a catalogue of disasters – from wetting himself onstage during the school show, accidentally supergluing himself to his classmates and ruining the school football team’s sponsorship deal, to flooding his house and losing class 4’s pet rabbit – Riley knows the bad luck is out to get him.

Enter new kid: Brad Chicago. He’s super-cool, well-groomed and stylish, with an excellent stationery collection. And for some reason he wants to be Riley’s friend. Can Riley get rid of the curse before Brad discovers he’s a walking disaster?

Laugh-out-loud funny, warm-hearted and anarchic in a way that readers will love.

Brought to life with Aleksei Bitskoff’s lively, humorous illustrations.

Perfect for fans of Kid Normal, David Solomons’ My Brother is a Superhero and David Baddiel.

Award-winning author Simon James Green is best known for his funny books for teens. This is his first book for middle-grade readers.

Delightfully Different Fairy Tales

Short story collection

A treasury of fairy tales with a difference – feminist, sparky and set in different decades of the 20th century, with funky clothes and recognisable settings. A stunning collaboration between the brilliant illustrator David Roberts and his talented writer sister Lynn.

This special collection includes:

– a feminist Sleeping Beauty, set in the 1950s (and 2950s), in a story populated entirely with women and girls (no princes needed here!)
– a 1970s Rapunzel whose friend plays in a rock band
– a 1920s-set Cinderella with flapper girls and a fashion-conscious fairy godmother.

These are all deliciously, delightfully different takes on the fairy tales we all know.

My Shadow is Pink

Picturebook

My Shadow is Pink is a beautifully written rhyming story that touches on the subjects of gender identity, self acceptance, equality and diversity.

Inspired by the author’s own little boy, ‘Shadow’s’ main character likes princesses, fairies and things ‘not for boys’…he soon learns (through the support of his dad) that everyone has a shadow that they sometimes feel they need to hide. This is an important book for a new generation of children (and adults alike) which exemplifies the concepts of unconditional love, respect and positive parenting.

A Story About Afiya

Chapter book

Some people have dresses for every occasion but Afiya needs only one. Her dress records the memories of her childhood, from roses in bloom to pigeons in flight, from tigers at the zoo to October leaves falling. A joyful celebration of a young girl’s childhood, written by the late Coretta Scott King Book Award-winning Jamaican poet James Berry.

Cat Kid Comic Club

Graphic Novel

The perfect present for DOG MAN fans – starring some of your favourite characters from the series! Now in an epic paperback edition. Welcome to the Cat Kid Comic Club, where Li’l Petey (LP), Flippy, and Molly introduce twenty-one rambunctious, funny, and talented baby frogs to the art of comic making.

As the story unwinds with mishaps and hilarity, readers get to see the progress, mistakes, and improvements that come with practice and persistence.

Squid Kid and Katydid, Baby Frog Squad, Gorilla Cheese Sandwich, and Birds Flowers Tree: A Haiku Photo Comic are just some of the mini-comics that are included as stories-within-the-story, each done in a different style, utilizing humour and drama, prose and poetry, illustrated in different media including acrylics, pastels, coloured pencils, felt-tip markers, clay, hand-made cardboard sculptures, photographs, pipe cleaners, construction paper collages, and cookies.

Readers of all ages will be inspired to dream up their own stories and unleash their own creativity as they dive into this pioneering graphic novel adventure from Dav Pilkey and his heartfelt, humorous, and amazing cast of characters in the Cat Kid Comic Club.

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Stone Girl Bone Girl

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