Across 10 exciting stories, Robin and his grandad explore car boot sales, bring toys to life and learn some important lessons.

Bertie Bumble Bee was full of excitement at the prospect of starting school, but soon becomes disenchanted and demoralized. He realizes he cannot learn in the same way as the others in his class. One day he makes a mistake in front of the whole class and becomes a victim of the class bully, Willy Wasp. Bertie feels humiliated and rejected when even his best friend laughs at Willy Wasp's cruel jibes. Bertie develops a school phobia but Mummy Bumble realizes there is a problem and shows Bertie how to overcome his confusion with the letters b and d. Mummy's solution works and Bertie becomes "alphabet smart." This vital children's book, accompanied by 14 bright illustrations, also contains a structured and fun program to help children to develop the ability to recognize and write the letters of the alphabet, an important prerequisite to good reading and spelling. Early reader-ages 5-8.

“Why do we eat fish fingers, but never fish thumbs?” A collection of silly poems for kids and parents of all ages! A beautifully illustrated book, featuring silly rhymes and improbable subjects. A great recipe for a bed time read that will be read over and over again. Bertie’s Bonkers Book is a fun collection of silly poems that will amuse children and parents alike at bedtime. The book is full of detailed illustrations to enrich the reading experience which will keep children engaged throughout. Drawing on the author’s years of bedtime reading to his own children and his sense of the ridiculous, these poems will entertain and amuse. The poems can be read over and over again, and are suitable for children aged five and over. “A young bee was sitting on a flower one day when a bright coloured wasp flew her way. “Oh, he’s so handsome” was all she could say and she couldn’t stop talking about him all day...”

Twelve-year-old Bertie Blount is great at causing trouble. When she's forced to leave behind her dad and friends in North Carolina so her mom can marry the most boring optometrist in the world, Bertie has a chance at a fresh start. But when Bertie arrives in Pennsylvania, she doesn't just bring trouble; she brings disaster. In a moment of anger, Bertie unwittingly triggers an accident that puts her future stepbrother in a coma. Broken and desperate to make things right, Bertie prays for a miracle. Instead, the universe gives her a pair of supernatural sunglasses, a wise-cracking doppelganger, and a terrifying ghost that sends Bertie on a dangerous mission to find the one thing that just might save her stepbrother's life.

From award-winning illustrator David Roberts comes Dirty Bertie - the boy with nose-pickingly disgusting habits! With comic chaos and madcap schemes, these highly illustrated stories are perfect for new readers. Join Bertie as he has a brush with some angry bees, deals with his warring grannies on a trip to the park and tries to smuggle Whiffer into a very smart hotel. David Roberts is the illustrator of many picture books and fiction titles, including Julian Clary's THE BOLDS, SUFFRAGETTE: THE BATTLE FOR EQUALITY, Julia Donaldson's JACK AND THE FLUMFLUM TREEand IGGY PECK, ARCHITECT. With over 30 titles in the hugely popular DIRTY BERTIE series, each book contains three short stories perfect for fans of HORRID HENRY, DOG MAN and Pamela Butchart.

The Author Roma Waldron was born in 1941 Newcastle NSW. The daughter of John Cameron and Pavline nee Clark I am a genealogist and have written 3 volumes of The Pioneers of NSW containing details of 3500 families I am a very keen writer of poetry about broken hearts but my greatest love is writing about a cockroach named Willy and his adventures and short stories for children.

Cinema and Secularism is the first collection to make the relationship between cinema and secularism thematic, utilizing a number of different methodological approaches to examine their identification and differentiation across film theory, film aesthetics, film history, and throughout global cinema. The emergence of moving images and the history of cinema historically coincide with the emergence of secularism as a concept and discourse. More than historically coinciding, however, cinema and secularism would seem to have-and many contemporary theorists and critics seem to assume-a more intrinsic, almost ontological connection to each other. While early film theorists and critics explicitly addressed questions about secularism, religion, and cinema, once the study of film was professionalized and secularized in the Western academy in both film studies and religious studies, explicit and critical attention to the relationship between cinema and secularism rapidly declined. Indeed, if one canvases film scholarship today, one will find barely any works dedicated to thinking critically about the relationship between cinema and secularism. Extending the recent “secular turn” in the humanities and social sciences, Cinema and Secularism provokes critical reflection on its titular concepts. Making contributions to theory, philosophy, criticism, and history, the chapters in this pioneering volume collectively interrogate the assumption that cinema is secular, how secularism is conceived and related to cinema differently in different film cultures, and whether the world is disenchanted or enchanted in cinema. Coming from intellectually diverse backgrounds in film studies, religious studies, and philosophy, the interdisciplinary contributors to this book cover films and traditions of thought from America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia. In these ways, Cinema and Secularism opens new areas of inquiry in the study of film and contributes to the ongoing interrogation of secularism more broadly.

From an author praised for her “genuinely perceptive portrayals of human relationships,” a historical saga about the consequences of a wartime affair (Irish Independent). He survived the carnage of war. But it was bitter conflict on the home front that tore his life apart . . . After a year of fighting in the Boer War, Corporal Russ Hazelwood—missing his wife and tired of long, passionless nights—seeks solace in the arms of an African woman. Only his friend Jack Daw knows of the relationship and the son born of it. Returning to York, he builds a successful career in business and raises six daughters and a son with his wife Rachel. But when his former comrade branches into local politics, rivalry breeds betrayal. Suddenly the past comes back to haunt Russ, shattering bonds between husband and wife, father and son. Then comes the most dreadful war of all. But when it is over, the greatest battle has still to be won . . . Praise for the writing of Sheelagh Kelly: “The tough, sparky characters of Catherine Cookson, and the same sharp sense of destiny, place and time.” —Reay Tannahill, author of Fatal Majesty and Sex in History “Sheelagh Kelly surely can write.” —Sunderland Echo