The first book in Philip Pullman's classic Sally Lockhart quartet in a beautiful new edition. Soon after Sally Lockhart's father drowns at sea, she receives an anonymous letter. The dire warning it contains makes a man die of fear at her feet. Determined to discover the truth about her father's death, Sally is plunged into a terrifying mystery in the dark heart of Victorian London, at the centre of which lies a deadly blood-soaked jewel. Philip Pullman's ever-popular, action-packed Victorian melodramas are rejacketed for the bicentenary of Charles Dickens in 2012. Don't miss Philip Pullman's incredible HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy, now a thrilling, critically acclaimed BBC/HBO television series.

Saxon England in 1053 is a time of violence, cruelty and ignorance where the strong dominate and mercy and compassion are scarce. Young Gytha longs to leave behind the evil of the world and enter a convent where she can devote herself to learning more about the God who loves even a little slave girl. Instead she lives in a household that scorns the very name of Christ. Gytha's mistress, the Lady Hilda, is an invalid whose afflictions have made her fretful and cross, yet as Gytha lives out her simple faith in service to her mistress, she is able to bring hope and purpose to Hilda's life. When England is defeated in 1066 by William the Conqueror, Gytha and Hilda face their greatest challenge-trusting God when it seems as though He has turned His back on England. Through all of her trials, Gytha learns that God often has a greater work for us to do in the world than out of it.

Culinary delights abound, romance lingers in the air, and plans go terribly, wonderfully astray in this gender-bent take on My Fair Lady from Jennieke Cohen, author of Dangerous Alliance-perfect for fans of Bridgerton or A Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue. It's 1830s England, and Culinarians-doyens who consult with society's elite to create gorgeous food and confections-are the creme de la creme of high society. Helena Higgins, top of her class at the Royal Academy, has a sharp demeanor and an even sharper palate-and knows stardom awaits her if she can produce greatness in her final year. Penelope Pickering is going to prove the value of non-European cuisine to all of England. Her contemporaries may scorn her Filipina heritage and her dishes, but with her flawless social graces and culinary talents, Penelope is set to prove them wrong. Elijah Little has nothing to his name but a truly excellent instinct for flavors. London merchants won't allow a Jewish boy to own a shop, so he hawks his pasties for a shilling a piece to passersby-but he knows with training he can break into the highest echelon of society. When Penelope and Helena meet Elijah, a golden opportunity arises: to pull off a project never seen before, and turn Elijah from a street vendor to a gentleman chef. But Elijah's transformation will have a greater impact on this trio than they originally realize-and mayhem, unseemly faux pas, and a little romance will all be a part of the delicious recipe.

A timeless adventure boasting a cast of unforgettable characters from Crystal Palace past, fusing history, mystery, fantasy and science fiction into page-turning escapism that will grip young readers and the young at heart.

Circus Maximus, the greatest sporting stage of the ancient Roman world, where the best horses and charioteers compete in a race to the death, and one girl dreams of glory. Ben Hur meets National Velvet in the ultimate 9-12 adventure story by debut children's author, Annelise Gray. Twelve-year-old Dido dreams of becoming the first female charioteer at the great Circus Maximus. She's lost her heart to Porcellus, a wild, tempestuous horse she longs to train and race. But such ambitions are forbidden to girls and she must be content with helping her father Antonius - the trainer of Rome's most popular racing team, The Greens - and teaching the rules of racing to Justus, the handsome young nephew of the Greens' wealthy owner. When her father is brutally murdered, she is forced to seek refuge with an unlikely ally. But what of her dream of Circus triumphs and being reunited with the beloved horse she left behind in Rome? And the threat to her life isn't over as she faces a powerful and terrifying new enemy... the emperor Caligula.

Ann Preston (1813-1872) is best known as a medical pioneer and nineteenth century Quaker activist. The immediate cause of the publication of Cousin Ann's Stories for Children (1849) was most likely the then recent 27 hour escape at the end of March, 1849, of Henry "Box" Brown, a Richmond slave who left his family and escaped north in a small wooden crate. Though Cousin Ann's Stories for Children is one hundred and sixty-two years old, it still speaks to contemporary concerns and moral perspectives. In its address "To My Little Readers" she explains, "I thought I would write a little book, and that would be a good way to speak with you, though I am far away." What Cousin Ann speaks of is practicing temperance, healthy diet and avoidance of tobacco, to treasure freedom and abhor slavery, the bounty and beauty of God's creation, the need to treat others generously and honestly.

My name is Felix. This is my story. Felix has been living in an orphanage for three years and eight months when the men in armbands arrive to burn the books. Going on the run in search of his parents, Felix soon learns that Poland in 1942 is not a safe place for Jewish boys. But can his gift for storytelling keep him one step ahead of the Nazis and help him find his parents? After all, everybody deserves to have something good in their life at least once. 'Morris Gleitzman has a rare gift for writing very funny stories and an even rarer gift of wrapping very serious stories inside them' - Guardian Once is the first in a series of novels about Felix and his family. The sequels - Then, After, Soon, Maybe and Now - are also available from Puffin.

By A.D. 594 the Christian church has become divided into many competing sects. At a Syrian market, two Christian women are sold as slaves to a young merchant named Mohammed who is searching for truth as well as riches. One of the slaves, Lollia, is eventually sold to the Lady Paulina and taken back to Rome, once the center of the world, but now fallen into disrepair and menaced constantly by the hostile Lombards just outside the walls. Inside the city, the starving people are completely dependent on Bishop Gregory for food. Paulina struggles with the new doctrine of purgatory taught by Gregory and her own sense of unworthiness before God. The other slave, Amina, travels with Mohammed's caravan back to Mecca. There she attempts to share Christ with those around her, including a blind girl named Aseeyah, who embraces the gospel and seeks to influence her tribe in the true worship of God. As the years pass, Mohammed declares himself to be the prophet of God and begins to convert people by persuasion or force. In Rome and Arabia, Lollia, Paulina, Amina and countless others fall into the bondage of man-made religions and must learn at last to find true freedom in the Lord Jesus Christ alone.

Twelve-year-old Tom Higgins is learning the craft of making whiskey. Even though Prohibition forbids the production and sale of alcoholic beverages, Tom is determined to be a good apprentice. He is, after all, a moonshiner's son. His father has raised moonshining to an art, and Tom wants nothing more than to please this rough, distant man.

Then a preacher comes to the wilds of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains to rid Bad Camp Hollow of the "evils of liquor." This is when Tom and his father begin their campaign to match wits with the preacher and try to outsmart the law officers he calls in. Tom's father is eloquent in defense of a way of life long and respectfully lived by the Higgins family. But the preacher and his pretty daughter make a powerful case against it. And when drink causes a tragedy in the community, Tom Higgins is torn....

From a master storyteller and former Children's Laureate comes a moving story of a group of musicians who survived the Holocaust using the only weapon they had.

The author of the international phenomenon War Horse brings us a moving tale of secrets and survival bound together by the power of music. When Lesley is sent to Venice to interview world-renowned violinist Paulo Levi on his fiftieth birthday, she cannot believe her luck. She is told that she can ask him anything at all – except the Mozart question. But it is Paulo himself who decides that the time has come for the truth to be told. And so follows the story of his parents in a Jewish concentration camp, forced to play Mozart violin concerti for the enemy; how they watched fellow Jews being led off to their deaths and knew that they were playing for their lives. As the story unfolds, the journalist begins to understand the full horror of war – and how one group of musicians survived using the only weapon they had.