` Never before had Nils travelled around at such good speed, & he had always liked riding fast & wild.. . Nor had he thought what it might be like to travel so high above the ground. But it was like flying away from worries & sorrows & annoyances of every imaginable kind` Nils Holgersson is a naughty boy who pulls the tails of cats & trips up his mother while she is carrying the milk pail. Then one day he discovers he has been magically turned into a tiny imp. He climbs on the back of a gander & takes off with a flock of wild geese as they fly over Sweden, soaring above patchwork fields, through storms, to castles & lakes & even to a city under the sea. As he learns about the world, he also learns what it means to care for living things, in Selma Lagerlof`s timeless & beloved fable. ...

When Nils makes the mistake of teasing an elf, he is bewitched & shrunk to a thumb size. He takes off on the back of a young goosey-gander, named Morten, for a wonderful journey among the wild geese. This exquisitely illustrated book, written by Nobel prize in Literature winner Selma Lagerlof & illustrated by renowned illustrator Olivier Latyk, incorprates die-cut pages with a fresh & playful narrative adapted from a Swedish children`s classic. This book is ideal for the Christmas period with soft winter scenes with a gift-book quality. ...

Join a family of rabbits as they have all kinds of fun throughout the day, like leaping & swimming & digging up holes! & when it`s time to say ”goodnight, ” there`s one very special habit of rabbits that`s not to be missed... Sonia Sanchez is the award-winning children`s book illustrator of Here I am & Sister Day! She lives with her husband & cat in a blue house near the Mediterranean Sea. ...

From the author of Bird Sense & The Most Perfect Thing, a biography of Francis Willughby, the first ornithologist Francis Willughby lived & thrived in the midst of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. Along with his Cambridge tutor John Ray, Willughby was determined to overhaul the whole of natural history & impose order on its complexity. It was exhilarating, exacting & exhausting work. Yet before Willughby & Ray could complete their monumental encyclopaedia of birds, Ornithology, Willughby died. In the centuries since, Ray`s reputation has grown, obscuring that of his collaborator. Now, for the first time, Willughby`s own story & genius are given the attention they deserve. In his short life, Willughby
- an original member the Royal Society
- finessed the differentiation of birds though identification of their distinguishing features & asked questions that were centuries ahead of their time. His discoveries & his approach to natural history continue to be relevant
- & revelatory
- today. With a fellow expert`s understanding & passion, Tim Birkhead celebrates how Willughby`s endeavours set a standard for the way birds & natural history should be studied. Rich with glorious detail, The Wonderful Mr Willughby is a fascinating insight into a thrilling period of scientific history & a lively biography of a man who lived at its heart.



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This is a wonderful gift book. The complete & unabridged hugely popular story. Rediscover this classic American tale, brought to life through more than seventy stunning paintings by award-winning illustrator Robert Ingpen. Come with Dorothy & her friends as she sets off on an amazing adventure through the curious land of Oz. ...

In this best-selling Stanfords favourite, author & illustrator team Jennie Maizels & Kate Petty bring you the Wonderful World Book. Using colourful & inventive paper-engineering that was used to explain the international languages of multiplication & music, the result is a book that will help you & your child discover just how wonderful our world really is! Are you sitting comfortably with your seatbelts fastened? Then we are ready for take-off. Meet Earthworm & Airplane, your hosts, who will take you on a round-the-world journey (and maybe even into the solar system!) With pop-ups & ingenious moving parts, Maizels & Petty ...

“ The Wonderful World of Albert Kahn” is just that, a wonderful book full of autochromes sumptuously reproduced from Kahn’s huge collection. In 1909 the millionaire French banker & philanthropist Albert Kahn embarked on an ambitious project to create a colour photographic record of, & for, the peoples of the world. He believed that he could use the (then) new autochrome colour photography process to promote cross-cultural peace & understanding. Now, a century after he launched his Archives of the Planet project, this book & its accompanying BBC television series are bringing Kahn’s dazzling pictures to a mass audience for the first time & putting colour into what we tend to think of as an entirely monochrome age. Kahn used his vast fortune to send a group of intrepid photographers all over the world, when age-old cultures were on the brink of being changed forever by war & the merciless march of twentieth century globalisation. They documented the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian & Ottoman empires; the last traditional Celtic villages in Ireland; even the soldiers during the First World War as they cooked & laundered in their trenches. They also took the earliest-known colour photographs in countries as far apart as Vietnam & Brazil, Mongolia & Norway, Benin & the United States. Dying in 1940, his vast finances reduced to rubble by the Wall Street Crash, Kahn died. Yet his legacy is now considered to be the most important collection of early colour photographs in the world
- & this magnificent book is testament to that.
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Did you know that ` Almost` is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order? Or that ` Stewardesses` is the longest word you can type solely with your left hand? Or that fireflies aren`t flies, they`re beetles? From information about words & their uses, useful lists of things you never knew had names, palindromes, famous lines from literature & film, to bizarre test answers & much, much more, The Wonderful World of Words is bursting with truly oddball facts about words & language
- & will have you hooked from the very first page. An essential guide for anyone interested in a humorous look at the world of language.
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Created by Mac Donald Gill in 1914, this pictorial poster map of London is packed with whimsical illustrations capturing the city's character during the carefree, pre-First World War era
- an era that all too soon was to be lost forever. It was created to amuse tube travellers waiting for services that, in those early days of underground travel, were often far from wonderful.
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In this extraordinary debut novel with its deft nod to Dickensian heroes & rogues, Mira Bartok tells the story of Arthur, a shy, fox-like foundling with only one ear & a desperate desire to belong, as he seeks his destiny. Welcome to the Home for Wayward & Misbegotten Creatures, an institution run by evil Miss Carbunkle, a cunning villainess who believes her terrified young charges exist only to serve & suffer. Part animal & part human, the groundlings toil in classroom & factory, forbidden to enjoy anything regular children have, most particularly singing & music. For the Wonderling, an innocent-hearted, one-eared, fox-like eleven-year-old with only a number rather than a proper name
- a 13 etched on a medallion around his neck
- it is the only home he has ever known. But unexpected courage leads him to acquire the loyalty of a young bird groundling named Trinket, who gives the Home`s loneliest inhabitant two incredible gifts: a real name
- Arthur, like the good king in the old stories
- & a best friend. Using Trinket`s ingenious invention, the pair escape over the wall & embark on an adventure that will take them out into the wider world & ultimately down the path of sweet Arthur`s true destiny.



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