Showing results by author "Sally Gardner" in All Categories

The winds of change are blowing through Paris in the winter of 1789, both for France and for our hero, a striking and mysterious Gypsy boy named Yann Margoza. He was born with a gift for knowing what people are thinking and an uncanny ability to throw his voice, and he has been using those...

It is night, and I have lit the first of seven candles to write my story by. My name is Coriander Hobie, and I have a great many things to tell–of silver shoes that tempted me and an alligator most rare; of London, the home of my childhood, and another, stranger land, one that I thought only...

Neva Friezland is born into a world of trickery and illusion, where fortunes can be won and lost on the turn of a card. She is also born with an extraordinary gift. She can predict the weather. In Regency England, where the proper goal for a gentlewoman is marriage and only God knows the weather this is dangerous. It is also potentially very lucrative.

On the other side of the wall there is a dark secret. And the devil. And the Moon Man. And the Motherland doesn’t want anyone to know. But Standish Treadwell, who has different-colored eyes, who "can’t read, can’t write, Standish Treadwell isn’t bright," sees things differently than the rest of the "train-track thinkers". So when Standish and his only friend and neighbor, Hector, make their way to the other side of the wall, they see what the Motherland has been hiding. And it’s big.

When Betsy K. Glory, the daughter of a mermaid and an ice cream maker, meets the mysterious Mr Tiger they have a giant challenge: a moon to turn blue, berries to collect and wishable-delicious ice cream to create. The sort that makes wishes come true. With Mr Tiger and his troupe of Gongalong circus acrobats, a toad under a spell, a lonely giant and Mum and Dad, Betsy sets off on her quest.

It is 1796. Duval Harlington, recently released from a French prison, is on his way home. He must reach his late father’s estate Muchmore House before the following evening if he is to inherit it. But the inheritance rests on another condition: he must also be married. He is at a market, hoping to buy a fast horse, when he hears about a wife sale. He takes his chance and makes an extravagant bid for young widow, Edmée Hyde. To his delight and dismay, the bid is accepted and they marry, only to find that he and Edmée are both hiding life-threatening secrets.

At the Wings & Co. Fairy Detective Agency, Emily Vole and her friends are beginning to worry. It's five months since their official opening and they still haven't had one case. Then local landowner Sir Walter Cross dies suddenly and mysteriously. The detectives suspect fairy meddling. And when Mr Rollo the tailor mysteriously loses everything and Pan Smith's wedding plans are ruined the night before her big day, they're convinced there must be magic at play.

Ethel B Dina, who looks after the fish hospital and loves to sing, needs 10 green glass bottles to complete her musical Bottleramma. But she is surrounded by too many plastic bottles which do not make music. Join the Tindims in their glass bottle hunt, and meet the Tindims explorer, Tiddledum.

Spot on the Fishcake! The famous fairy detective agency, Wings & Co, has a problem. Really quite a big problem. Well, a few of them actually. There's the missing giant, Billy Buckle, who has vanished without a trace, and left his giant daughter with the detectives. There's a surprise visit to the seaside, which uncovers a murder and a stolen diamond. And then there's that tricky business of the TV talent show. Squat on a squid, this is Emily, Buster and Fidget's most complicated case yet. Read by Simon Russell Beale.

Podgy Bottom is in trouble. All over town cars are being shrunk to the size of a matchbox in the blink of an eye; a giant purple bunny rabbit is running riot and a strange-looking broomstick is causing chaos and calamity.... Sounds like a case for Wings & Co, the famous fairy detective agency! Can Emily, Budget, and Fidget put a stop to this magical mischief before it's too late?

Crumble cakes! When Betsy joins Myrtle the mermaid in her underwater world, she discovers there may be monsters...shipwrecks, lost treasure and secret cities. A seapig's prize seahorse, Pudding Pie, has been stolen by a cantankerous giant octopus and Betsy and Mr Tiger must go to the rescue in their new submarine. But what happens when a tiger's whiskers and tail are simply too long to squeeze into forgotten dark caverns where even the moon cannot shine, and Betsy has to take the final steps of the adventure on her own?

1870. It is opening night at the Royal Opera House in a freezing city by the sea, where a huge crystal chandelier in the shape of a galleon sparkles magically with the light of 750 candles. Celeste, a theatre rat, wakes up in a costume basket from what she hopes is a bad dream, to find out that everyone at the theatre where she works thinks she is someone else. When the chandelier falls, she is haunted by a strange girl who claims to know Celeste's past and why she must play a game called the Reckoning to try to save the people she loves.

What is rubbish today is treasure tomorrow. Join Captain Spoons, Mug, Jug, Brew, Skittle and friends on Rubbish Island: wander through its warren of underwater rooms, including a toothbrush library and a hospital for sick fish, climb its terraces overlooking the sea and scale Rubbish Mountain. Prize-winning author Sally Gardner takes the Tindims on their first ocean adventure to show keen young ecologists how to help protect our planet for the future. A new series that empowers young listeners to get creative with their rubbish and save the planet.

Crumble cakes! A red rogue wind is blowing, and a wicked pirate captain and his crew are marauding the Seven Seas near the island left off the map of the world. A rare egg has gone missing and a very unhappy sea dragon wants it back. A pirate ship, The Kettle Black, is anchored in a secret cove off the island left off the map of the world. Betsy and her mum, Myrtle the mermaid, must dive deep beneath the waves, while Alfonso Glory and Mr Tiger fly high above the clouds in a hot air balloon. It's time for Mr Tiger, Betsy and the Gongalongs to set off on their second adventure....

Halloween has nearly arrived, but a young witch is in a pickle. She has cast a spell and shrunk herself by mistake! When a gust of wind blows her out to sea, her best friend, a little ghost, goes with her. They find themselves landing on Rubbish Island where the Tindims haven't met witches or ghosts before, and the witch and ghost didn't know the Tindims even existed. But Skittle, Brew, Pinch and the gang are soon helping their spooky new friends get back to the right size and home in time for their Halloween parade.

'There were three things that marked out Lucy Willow as different. The first was that she lived on a train. The second was that she had a snail called Ernest as a pet. And the third, the most important of all, was that she had green fingers.' It's Lucy's green fingers that save the day when...

In the fourth Tindim adventure, a glow-in-the-dark squid, drawn by the light of the moon, has wandered far from its friends on the ocean bed to the lake on Rubbish Island. The Tindims are puzzled by their new shiny lake, but with the help of Spokes, Barnacle Bow and a rather special invention, they discover the squid and try to help it on its way home again.

On the Tindim's island home, Bottle Mountain is growing terrifyingly tall with rubbish. So tall that one night it breaks away with Barnacle Bell and Granny Shell clinging on tightly as they float off over the waves. None of the other Tindims know where Bottle Mountain is or how to help their friends find their way home....

An extraordinary tale about the search for love from acclaimed Costa and Carnegie Award-winning novelist Sally Gardner. Jazmin has been shunned ever since her best friend, Becky, disappeared. But Becky didn't just disappear - she jumped off a tall building and seemingly never reached the ground. It was as if she simply vanished into thin air. Did Jazmin have something to do with her disappearance? Or was it more to do with Icarus, with whom Becky became suddenly besotted...?

Here are 37 Familiar rhymes, songs, and games, ranging from the traditional Ring-a-Ring o' Roses to Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, all from the original book Playtime Rhymes. Also includes 'The Wheels on the Bus', 'Old MacDonald had a Farm', 'If You're Happy and You Know It', and 'Ten Fat Sausages'.