David Almond
Counting Stars

'These short stories encapsulate David Almond's endless sense of mystery and wonderment, as they weave a tangible tapestry of growing up in a large Catholic family. Here are the kernels of his novels - joy and fear, darkness and light, love, death, the bonds of ignorance and prejudice, and the healing power of memory and the imagination.

`These stories are about my childhood. They're about the people I grew up with, our hopes and fears, our tragedies and joys... And perhaps like all stories, they are an attempt to reassemble what is fragmented, to rediscover what has been lost'- David Almond

'Sparely written... this could well be Almond's best work yet'- The Independent

`A moving, perceptive collection... conjuring with brilliant clarity the elusive joys, sorrows and shames of childhood'- The Times

Roald Dahl
James and the Giant Peach

James's aunts, Spiker and Sponge, are always calling him names. They beat him and starve him and make his life a misery. If only his parents hadn't been eaten by an angry escaped rhinoceros, he wouldn't be in this mess. But one day he meets a mysterious man who gives him a bag of magic crocodile tongues. When James accidentally spills the contents at the foot of a dead peach tree, a giant peach starts to grow. James takes a closer look one night, and discovers a tunnel in the peach and begins to crawl through until he reaches the stone, where he meets six larger than life creepy-crawlies. Severing the peach from its branch and evading the clutches of James's nasty aunts, James and his new insect friends roll toward the Atlantic Ocean - and so begins the adventure of a lifetime.

Meg Harper
My Mum and the Gruesome Twosome

'I can't believe it! At her age - she's gone and GOT PREGNANT! I haven't told anyone yet. It's too embarrassing. I might tell Vicky tomorrow but I don't expect much sympathy from her. My last hope is Chas - surely 1 can rely on him to understand?'

Being a teenager is difficult enough, without suddenly finding out that your mum is pregnant. And then there's new girl, Carly. Chas seems a bit too keen to help her settle in, and Kate feels that her settyle in, and Kate feels that her whole life is falling apart....