Have you ever wondered what's happening in the world while you're asleep in your bed? Have you ever wondered what's happening in the world while you're asleep in your bed? There's a whole world of activity out there – from bakers preparing bread and cakes for your table and firefighters waiting patiently for a call, to hospitals helping people have babies and caring for those who are ill. There are lorry drivers making deliveries of food, flowers, toys and more, and postal workers sorting the mail for your morning delivery. There's also wildlife such as foxes foraging, bats flying, and owls hunting for prey. And then around the world there are children who are playing, learning, eating and reading while you're tucked up fast asleep. This is the perfect book for bedtime, opening up a whole world of wonder and imagination for children, and providing food for the imagination if they wake in those early hours. Beautifully written, with lyrical prose, the illustrations are packed with detail.

The second children’s book from the wonderful illustrator John Broadley, working with Booker-shortlisted novelist Mick Jackson, following their glorious debut While You’re Sleeping. The second children’s book from the wonderful illustrator John Broadley, working with Booker-shortlisted novelist Mick Jackson, following their glorious debut picture book While You’re Sleeping. Mick Jackson’s poetic prose and John Broadley’s detailed and unique illustrations make this a special book to read again and again, and treasure for years to come. Beautifully illustrated in a limited colour palette, the winding, lyrical text follows a child’s growth through travel – from crawling to walking, skating to biking and then on to trains, boats and planes. It also looks at the 'journey of life', how children grow and develop, how they choose their own routes through life, and make lasting memories as they go. Starting with the first time a baby comes home with its parents and ending with a grandparent reflecting on their life, it's a beautiful evocation of the journeys we all take through our lives.

A candid view of a fascinating life. Temple Grandin is the most famous person with autism in the world. Whether you know her from the HBO film Temple Grandin, her decades of work in the meat and cattle industry, or her unmatched contribution to the autism world, surely you know a thing or two about Temple. Well, prepare to meet a whole new side of her! Temple's close friend and author, Anita Lesko, conducts personal and unique interviews that include chapters such as: Filming of the HBO Movie Temple Grandin Crazy Funny Stuff & Childhood Memories Thrilling Events in Temple's Life! Work Hard to Succeed Temple's Big Message And so much more! In these pages, witness the moments that made her laugh (and cry!), meet those closest to her, and even take a glimpse into her seventieth birthday party and her recent visit to NASA! Discover Temple's "big message" and her ideas about what makes the biggest difference for children with autism. Lesko has created a truly personal, unique look into the mind and life of Temple Grandin. This is a story you don't want to miss!

One of the most acclaimed novels of recent times, The Underground Man is the fictionalised diary of a deeply eccentric English aristocrat. The duke has just completed a network of tunnels beneath his estate. His health is failing, but his imagination seems to know no bounds. And while he spends more time underground and retreats ever deeper into the darker corners of his house there are some ghosts that demand to be acknowledged and some memories which insist on making themselves known.

* Stage adaptation of Mick Jackson's celebrated novel (1997), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Award and winner of the Royal Society of Authors' First Novel Award. * Adapted by Nick Wood, critically acclaimed playwright and bestselling author of A Girl With A Book and Other Plays; his works are performed extensively in the UK, USA and Europe. * Co-produced by Nottingham Playhouse (co-producer of the critically acclaimed stage version of 1984) and Nick Wood's AJTC (A Girl with a Book).

Yuki is visiting her sister in the UK, but is also secretly retracing their mother's footsteps from a holiday ten years before. Something terrible happened not long after her mother's visit and Yuki wants to find out the cause. With the help of a local girl, Denny, she sets out to unearth and explain her family's secrets . . .

From the pen of Mick Jackson, author of The Underground Man and Five Boys, come these ten acclaimed tales. Featuring undertakers, dark forests, resurrected butterflies and a singularly mean-spirited horse, the stories are nevertheless rooted in the realistic and all too recognisable world of retirement, loneliness, and childhood boredom. By turns funny, scary and heartbreaking, they are always illuminating, and further evidence of one of the most original and brilliant imaginations in contemporary fiction.

Something strange is going on in the village. A dead pig is carried through the lanes in a coffin, a heap of signposts are buried in a field and a mummy walks the streets late at night, scaring the local ladies half to death. Things have never been the same since the evacuee arrived and the Five Boys mistook him for a Nazi spy. It is as if someone is out for revenge. The village has had a whole host of visitors since: the Americans are down the road preparing for D-Day and a deserter is hiding out in the woods. But it is the arrival of the Bee King which makes the biggest impression. He is a law unto himself, has his own strange rituals and the villagers fear that he is beginning to exert the same charm over their boys as he does over his bees. The second novel by the highly acclaimed author of The Underground Man confirms Mick Jackson's originality and talent.

A newly-widowed woman has done a runner. She just jumped in her car, abandoned her (very nice) house in north London and kept on driving until she reached the Norfolk coast. Now she's rented a tiny cottage and holed herself away there, if only to escape the ceaseless sympathy and insincere concern. She's not quite sure, but thinks she may be having a bit of a breakdown. Or perhaps this sense of dislocation is perfectly normal in the circumstances. All she knows is that she can't sleep and may be drinking a little more than she ought to. But as her story unfolds we discover that her marriage was far from perfect. That it was, in fact, full of frustration and disappointment, as well as one or two significant secrets, and that by running away to this particular village she might actually be making her own personal pilgrimage. By turns elegiac and highly comical, The Widow's Tale conjures up this most defiantly unapologetic of narrators as she begins to pick over the wreckage of her life and decide what has real value and what she should leave behind.

Mabel Taylor has a new red sledge. Just look at it! It has a rope for pulling it round and a shiny bottom to make it go extra-fast... When Mabel Taylor receives a shiny red sledge for Christmas, she can't wait to try it out! But ... oh. No snow. No snow at all. And there's no snow the next day, either ... or the next. So, instead, Mabel imagines herself on the most extraordinary of adventures, becoming a bobsleigh champion, a polar explorer, and even Father Christmas! And just when she’s stopped waiting and watching for the snow to fall, her world is transformed by a thick blanket of brilliant white… Brimming over with the joy of imaginary and outdoor play, this is a timeless winter storybook penned by a Booker-shortlisted writer.

When Bobby is evacuated from London to a remote Devonshire village, a strange new chapter of his life begins. Empty of its menfolk, the village is given over to the “stay behinds”: the women, the old and young, and five terrifying boys who accuse Bobby of being a Nazi spy. Then, there is the enigmatic Bee King, a mysterious figure who exercises a powerful, hypnotic influence on the village, and especially the boys.

As the days wind down to the D-day invasion and the Allied soldiers crash the beaches along the French coast, the villagers will enact their own drama -- a tense interplay of events that will engulf them all and ulti- mately reveal the truth about the Bee King.

Brilliantly captivating and thoroughly researched, Five Boys is the tale of the war's impact on the home front, bringing to light a lost place and time with an expert touch.

Mabel Taylor has a new red sledge. Just look at it! It has a rope for pulling it round and a shiny bottom to make it go extra-fast... When Mabel Taylor receives a shiny red sledge for Christmas, she can't wait to try it out! But ... oh. No snow. No snow at all. And there's no snow the next day, either ... or the next. So, instead, Mabel imagines herself on the most extraordinary of adventures, becoming a bobsleigh champion, a polar explorer, and even Father Christmas! And just when she's stopped waiting and watching for the snow to fall, her world is transformed by a thick blanket of brilliant white... Brimming over with the joy of imaginary and outdoor play, this is a timeless winter storybook penned by a Booker-shortlisted writer.