Wandering minstrel, Martin Pippin, encounters six little girls on his travels - who beg him to tell them stories. This he does whilst they are making daisy chains, and so his wonderful tales of magicians, mermaids, pirates and pigs are here-recounted. The collection includes one of Farjeon's most famous and charming stories, 'Elsie Piddock Skips in Her Sleep. This classic, magical collection will be loved by adults and children alike - perfect for bedtime reading.

Wandering minstrel, Martin Pippin, encounters a lovelorn ploughman who begs him to release his beloved by entertaining the six young women sworn to guard her. This Martin Pippin does - telling beautiful tales of heartbreak, betrayal and everlasting love. But will the imprisoned Gillian ever be freed? This delightful collection will be loved by adults and children alike - a perfect introduction to sophisticated fairy tales. 'She is one of the few who can conceive and tell a fairytale . . . Before I had read five pages of Martin Pippin, I had forgotten who I was and where I lived. I was transported into a world of sunlight, of gay inconsequence, of emotional surprise, a world of poetry, delight and humour. And I lived and took my joy in that rare world, until all too soon my reading was done.' From J. D. Beresford's Foreword to the first American edition of 1922.

Synopsis coming soon.......

Unique in its coverage of contemporary American children's literature, this timely, single-volume reference covers the books our children are--or should be--reading now, from board books to young adult novels. Enriched with dozens of color illustrations and the voices of authors and illustrators themselves, it is a cornucopia of delight. 23 color, 153 b&w illustrations.

Tom Tiddler is going on a journey across London, with only a wise old owl and a really selfish and greedy goat for company. He is collecting and returning people's property so that they will, in turn, help him to rescue all the little girls in England from the gruesome giant Gogmagog, before he eats them! An enchanting, magical tale that will charm young and old alike.

Little boy, little boy, what is the matter? Madam, the sea has been turned into batter! Eleanor Farjeon’s delightful London nursery rhymes are known and loved all over the world, and told with characteristic humour and playfulness. Reimagine London with these charming and timeless rhymes for all ages. A charming, surprisingly funny collection that will be loved by adults and children alike.

A Los Angeles Times Book Review Best Book of 1996 'Without books how could I have become myself?' In this wonderfully written meditation, Lynne Sharon Schwartz offers deeply felt insight into why we read and how what we read shapes our lives. An enchanting celebration of the printed word.

Although Frances Hodgson Burnett published numerous works for an adult readership, she is mainly remembered today for three novels written for children: Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), A Little Princess (1905) and The Secret Garden (1911). This volume is dedicated to The Secret Garden. The articles address a wide range of issues, including the representation of the garden in Burnett's novel in the context of cultural history; the relationship between the concept of nature and female identity; the idea of therapeutic places; the notion of redemptive children in The Secret Garden and Little Lord Fauntleroy; the concept of male identity; constructions of 'Otherness' and the redefinition of Englishness; film and anime versions of Burnett's classic; Noel Streatfeild's The Painted Garden as a rewriting of The Secret Garden; attitudes towards food in children's classics and Burnett's novel in the context of Edwardian girlhood fiction and the tradition of the female novel of development.

This is the story of the twenty-six children of Zeal Monachorum who did not know their ABC, until one day Perkin the Pedlar came by. He told them a story and a verse for each letter of the alphabet, starting with Appledore and ending with their own Zeal Monarchorum. Eleanor Farjeon's unique gifts appear at their best in this enchanting alphabet book, where the little stories are in the enduring tradition of English folktale, and the verses pure, delightful poetry.

This book looks at the changing shape of children's literature in English from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. In particular it examines the dialect between 'enclosure' and 'exposure', control and freedom of both fictional child and child reader, how the balance of these forces has altered over time, and the possible reasons for these changes. It also looks at the representation of the child in the English novel from the 1830s to the 1860s - the period preceding the publication of Alice in Wonderland , the first major work of literature for children - and the influence of such representation in later children's books. Writers as well known as Lewis Carroll, Louisa M. Alcott, Rudyard Kipling and Charlotte Brontë are examined in the course of this work, but this study also considers works which have been (unfairly) neglected till now and which deserve to be better known; this list includes the Marlow series by Antonia Forest, Jane Gardam's Bilgewater and Henry Handel Richardson's The Getting of Wisdom .