England (UK)

Materials from England (UK)

Best Friends

Gemma and Alice have been best friends since they were born on the same day in the same hospital—it doesn’t matter that Gemma loves soccer while Alice prefers drawing, or that Gemma is always getting into trouble while Alice is a model student and daughter. But when Alice has to move to Scotland with her family, their friendship is put to the test. Is Best Friends Forever stronger than five hundred miles? Readers will relate to the heroic efforts the girls make to maintain their friendship and the small disasters of ‘tween life that they encounter along the way.

My Secret War Diary, by Flossie Albright: My History of the Second World War 1939-1945

When nine-year-old Flossie starts her diary and scrapbook on July 27, 1939, her mother has already died and her father has just joined the Dorsetshire Regiment. The Second World War ends for Flossie on August 14, 1945, when her father comes home.

Humpty Dumpty

For hundreds of years, children have delighted in reciting the classic nursery rhyme of Humpty Dumpty’s fall. Over the centuries there have been many different interpretations, but some speculate that it was originally a riddle: “What could fall and break, but could not ever be repaired?” An egg is certainly one possible answer.

Varmints

Once, the only sounds to be heard were the buzzing of bees in the grass, the murmuring of moles in the earth, and the song of birds in the sky. These warmed the hearts of those who cared to listen —- until the others came to fill the sky with buildings and the air with a cacophony of noise. Varmints tells of a pastoral world in need of protection and of the souls who love it enough to ensure its regeneration.

Thumbelina: Tiny Runaway Bride

This is a contemporary retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale. It’s about a tiny girl just the size of your thumb. The tiny girl becomes separated from her overprotective mother, has adventures with various animals, and records her feelings in a diary as she gains self-reliance and searches for someone to love.

Waking Beauty

Everyone knows Sleeping Beauty has to be woken with a kiss, except Prince Charming. Every time the fairies watching over her try to tell him, he interrupts with his ideas of how to wake her. Eventually he gets the message, and his reaction is priceless: “One hundred years of morning breath Wow! That could be the kiss of death!” This fractured fairy tale will elicit laughter that no one will be able to sleep through.