Featuring wonderful new illustrations from Peter Bailey this beautiful fairytale is perfect for readers young and old.

Lila doesn't just want to be a Firework-Maker's daughter, she wants to be a Firework Maker herself. But although she's learned a lot she still must get through the most difficult and dangerous part of her apprenticeship - and her father won't tell her what it is.

In search of this final Firework-Making secret, Lila heads off alone on a journey. It is a journey filled with dangers beyond anything she could have imagined, a journey on which she will learn so much more than the one secret she set out to find . . .

A king hides a terrible secret under his crown ...A marvellous dream inspires an epic journey ...A clever girl outwits the king. Told in hyper-readable language and with full-colour illustrations, these stories are an ideal first step for children embarking on a lifelong journey through the wonders of books and stories.

First published in 2006. Part of the Studies in Social History series, this volume looks at leisure and class in Victorian England, 1830-85, including topics of popular recreation, middle class and working class differences and rational recreation for the masses and the case of Victorian Music Halls in the entertainment industry.

Includes brilliant baboon facts! Akimbo loves his life in Africa and the animals that live there. In this newest Akimbo story, a lady comes to study the baboons in the game reserve where Akimbo's father is the head ranger. Akimbo is keen to help and find out all he can about baboons - and in so doing comes closer to a much more dangerous animal

Tick, tick, tick, tock. Once you've wound some things up nothing can stop them . . .

It is a cold winter's night when Karl enters the White Horse Tavern looking like he's swallowed a thundercloud. His final task as a clockmaker apprentice is to make a new figure for the great clock of Glockenheim. He has not made the figure - or got any idea of what it could be, and the unveiling is tomorrow.

Fritz is also in the tavern; there to read aloud his new spooky story. Like Karl, he hasn't finished. Well, he knows how the story starts and he knows it's called Clockwork - so, with the snow swirling down outside, he sets his story going and just has to hope that the ending will come to him as he tells it.

Suddenly, Fritz's story and real life merge in a completely sinister way - and just like clockwork it can't be stopped . . .

First published in 2006. Part of the Studies in Social History series, this volume looks at leisure and class in Victorian England, 1830-85, including topics of popular recreation, middle class and working class differences and rational recreation for the masses and the case of Victorian Music Halls in the entertainment industry.

An spellbinding insight into storytelling from one of today's greatest writers. This collection by the 2003-2005 Children's Laureate, Michael Morpurgo, contains short stories, essays and commentaries to illuminate the craft of storytelling. Analyzing all aspects of writing - character, plot, sources and inspiration, retelling and biography - it is perfect for anyone, young or old, who loves great stories and wants to know more about the art of telling tales.

This lively and highly innovative book reconstructs the texture and meaning of popular pleasure in the Victorian entertainment industry. Integrating theories of language and social action with close reading of contemporary sources, Peter Bailey provides a richly detailed study of the pub, music-hall, theatre and comic newspaper. Analysis of the interplay between entrepreneurs, performers, social critics and audience reveals distinctive codes of humour, sociability and glamour that constituted a new populist ideology of consumerism and the good time. Bailey shows how the new leisure world offered a repertoire of roles that enabled its audience to negotiate the unsettling encounters of urban life. Bailey offers challenging interpretations of respectability, sexuality, and the cultural politics of class and gender in a distinctive, personal voice.

Lively and innovative, these well-illustrated essays on the making of the Victorian entertainment industry get inside the popular experience of the pub, music-hall, theater and comic press. In this new leisure world, audiences learned how to be performers themselves, adopting roles and styles appropriate to the unsettling dynamics of the modern city. A major advance in understanding how popular culture actually works, this is a model of the successful integration of the theory and practice of social history and cultural studies.

Growing up in a poor New York neighbourhood, Cedric Errol appears to be a normal American boy. However, as he discovers when he meets his grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, he is actually Lord Fauntleroy, and is expected to become an English gentleman. Whisked away from his mother and his friends, Cedric must find a way to convince his grandfather to send him home and show him that there is more to nobility than titles and wealth. First published in 1886, Little Lord Fauntleroy was Frances Hodgson Burnett's first children's novel, and was hugely popular in its day. It contains many of the themes that would recur in her masterpiece The Secret Garden, and remains a witty and charming tale of a transatlantic clash of cultures.

Featuring wonderful new illustrations from Peter Bailey, this intriguing and exciting tale of chance and misfortune by multi award-winning Philip Pullman, is perfect for readers young and old.

I was a Rat! Roger insists, and insists . . . In fact, when Bob the cobbler and his washerwoman wife, Joan, find the young boy abandoned on their doorstep, these are the only words he says. And he does have ratty behaviour, it's true.

Staying with Bob and Joan, however, Roger learns quickly to behave more like a human child. They try to find his parents, but the orphanage, police and hospital all have nothing on their records about a lost boy in the city. What is the truth? As more and more people find out about Roger the mysterious rat-boy he faces more and more danger. But sometimes help comes from the most unexpected of places . . .

Little Lucja's Grandpa Feliks has seen off the German army, and the Communists, and now he is looking forward to a long and peaceful retirement. He plans to begin with a tasty Christmas Eve dinner of carp. But when the carp arrives alive and takes up residence in the bathtub and Lucja's heart, has Grandpa Feliks finally met his match?

Bingo Lingo - the book which put the fun Into the literacy hour - is relaunching in a bright new edition. A sharp fresh design makes the content even more accessible and friendly. But the heart of the book remains a wonderfully clever collection of songs and rhymes with familiar tunes, all of which teach an aspect of literacy in a fun and memorable way. Completely new is a whole set of content links with the National Literacy Strategy. Quick clear links can be found on our music website.

A beautiful retelling of a classic Greek myth, perfect for fans of Geraldine McCaughrean. When the world was new and the gods ruled the whole of Earth, a large wooden chest was sent to a newly-married couple with a warning not to open it. The chest was hidden away with the thought 'out of sight, out of mind'. But curiosity is a powerful thing and it can't hurt to have one little look... can it? This retelling of the classic Greek myth from Rose Impey has engaging black-and-white illustrations by Peter Bailey and is perfect for children who are developing as readers. The Bloomsbury Guided Reading series is packed with brilliant books to get children reading independently in Key Stage 2, with book-banded stories by award-winning authors like double Carnegie Medal winner Geraldine McCaughrean and Waterstones Prize winner Patrice Lawrence covering a wide range of genres and topics. With charming illustrations and online guided reading notes by the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE), this series is ideal for reading both in the classroom and at home. For more information visit www.bloomsburyguidedreading.com. Book Band: Brown Ideal for ages 7+

Four stories of myth, magic and adventure from the master teller of tales

• The Firework Maker's Daughter
• I Was A Rat!
• Clockwork
• The Scarecrow and His Servant

A devilish inventor, a girl who must face a Fire Fiend, a scarecrow brought to life by a bolt of lightning, and a boy who can only say the words 'I Was a Rat!' . . .

Drawing on the rich tradition of fairytales, these are four incredible stories that will obsess and enchant readers. Includes a prologue and epilogue from the uniquely talented Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials