It’s the day of the children’s picnic in Greendale and Ted Glen has built an ice cream machine for the occasion. When the power cuts out, the ever-inventive Ted tries all kinds of ways to get his machine back in action – even connecting it up to Pat's van! He finally hits on a solution and there are plenty of delicious flavours in time for the picnic, including a special surprise flavour that’s not very popular with Pat but is just the thing for Jess!

Story for young children, first published in the UK in 1982 by Andr} Deutsch, involving characters from a popular television program. Postman Pat has an urgent message to deliver. Will he get there in time?.

Out of Control chronicles the dawn of a new era in which the machines and systems that drive our economy are so complex and autonomous as to be indistinguishable from living things.

Julian is going on a class trip to visit the old Greendale railway station. The children find a rusty old steam train in one of the dilapidated sheds. Their discovery sparks off a kind of railway fever among the residents of Greendale. The station is lovingly restored by the villagers while Pat and Ted start renovating the engine. Julian's penpal Meera lives in Pencaster and her father, Ajay, is a railway enthusiast. So it's thanks to one of Julian's letters that Ajay comes to Greendale to help Pat and Ted get every nut and bolt in working order, ready for the grand re-opening of the station. And with just days to go before the celebrations, the Greendale Rocket comes to the rescue when Pat's van just can't get through the flooded lanes to deliver the mail. The opening day finally arrives: the residents of Greendale are happy and proud to have a station once more and Julian is even more delighted when he discovers that Meera's family is moving from Pencaster to Greendale.

Describes the everyday workings of a seemingly typical American hometown and reveals the complex drama behind the lives of its residents.

By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas | Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Selected by Time as One of the Ten Best Books of the Year | A New York Times Notable Book | Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post Book World, The Christian Science Monitor, Rocky Mountain News, and Kirkus Reviews | A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist | Winner of the ALA Alex Award | Finalist for the Costa Novel Award From award-winning writer David Mitchell comes a sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood and the old on the cusp of the new. Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys’ games on a frozen lake; of “nightcreeping” through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigré who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason’s search to replace his dead grandfather’s irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran LPs, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher’s recession; of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons. Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell’s subtlest and most effective achievement to date. Praise for Black Swan Green “[David Mitchell has created] one of the most endearing, smart, and funny young narrators ever to rise up from the pages of a novel. . . . The always fresh and brilliant writing will carry readers back to their own childhoods. . . . This enchanting novel makes us remember exactly what it was like.”—The Boston Globe “[David Mitchell is a] prodigiously daring and imaginative young writer. . . . As in the works of Thomas Pynchon and Herman Melville, one feels the roof of the narrative lifted off and oneself in thrall.”—Time

Welcome to Greendale! In Greendale you can visit lots of places and meet lots of people. Take a peek inside each building and see what the villagers are doing. Young children will love this friendly, lift-the-flap book.