Ella is given a blessing at birth by a very stupid fairy: she gets the gift of obedience! But the blessing turns into a horror for Ella who literally has to do what anyone and everyone tells her - from sweeping the floor to giving up a precious necklace!

The beautiful and haunting novel that launched David Almond as one of the best children's writers of today. Winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread children's book of the Year Award.

From the master storyteller comes a tale of gothic mystery as elegantly crafted as the most intricate clockwork. A tormented apprentice clock-maker - and a deadly knight in armour.

Time is running out for Mrs Frisby. She must move her family of mice before the farmer destroys their home. But her son, Timothy, is too ill to survive the move. Help comes in the unexpected form of a group of mysterious, super-intelligent rats. But the rats are in danger too, and little by little Mrs Frisby discovers their extraordinary past.

Soon after Sally Lockhart's father drowns at sea, she receives a strange anonymous letter. The dire warning it contains makes a man die of fear at her feet. Determined to discover the truth about her father's death, Sally is plunged into a mystery in the dark heart of Victorian London, at the centre of which lie a deadly blood-soaked jewel.

A sturdy steamship sinks like a stone in calm waters. A terrified magician performs a desperate disappearing act on a London stage. Investigating two mysteries, Sally Lockheart discovers a deadly web of clues that lead to a high-society murderer, and to the terrifying secret of the Shadow in the North.