A high-stakes adventure story full of heart from debut author Varsha Shah – winner of the Times/Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition 2020! Abandoned on the Mumbai railways, Ajay has grown up with nothing but a burning wish to be a journalist. Finding an abandoned printing press, he and his friends Saif, Vinod, Yasmin and Jai create th...

Real or imaginary, geekdom is where it's at in this multi-genre YA anthology that celebrates "the geek," with stories by some of today's top bestselling, critically acclaimed Black authors.Contributors include Amerie, Kalynn Bayron, Terry J. Benton-Walker, Roseanne A. Brown, Elise Bryant, Tracy Deonn, Desiree S. Evans, Isaac Fitzsimons, Lamar...

The final book in the spellbinding All Our Hidden Gifts series from New York Times bestseller Caroline O'Donoghue. With the return of the Housekeeper on the cards, Maeve must find out everything she can about the vengeful tarot spirit in order to finally defeat her. Crossing over into a parallel dimension inside the old school building, she explore...

A hilarious new middle-grade from Justin A. Reynolds that asks: What happens when five unsupervised kids face the apocalypseunder outrageously silly circumstances?   Twelve-year-old Eddie Gordon Holloway has concocted his most genius plan ever to avoid chores... especially the dreaded L-A-UN-D-R-Y. If he can wear all the clothes he owns, he'...

Brought to you by Puffin. A heartwarming story about family, friendship and finding your inner fire.Between bullies at school and changes at home, Charlie Challinor finds life a bit scary. And when he's made guardian of a furry fox cub called Cadno, things get a whole lot scarier.Because Cadno isn't just any fox: he's a firefox - the only one of hi...

Listen to everyday words and phrases in British English, then repeat, practise and refine! A relaxing way to pick up the language. Follow the words using the free booklet, also available at: collinsdictionary.com/resources Covers the words you need for modern life in the UK with topics on home life, work and school environments, shopping, food and...

"Dear Aunt Lucy, I expect this will come as a great surprise to you, but not only have I arrived in England, but I have an address! I'm staying at number 32 Windsor Gardens and it isn't at all like the Home for Retired Bears..." This delightfully engaging series of letters from Paddington to his Aunt Lucy showcases his uniquely charming and hilario...

Saints and Misfits is an unforgettable debut novel that feels like a modern day My So-Called Life…starring a Muslim teen.There are three kinds of people in my world:1. Saints, those special people moving the world forward. Sometimes you glaze over them. Or, at least, I do. They’re in your face so much, you can’t see the...

Harvey is a small boy in a giant world. On stilts. When Harvey accidentally sets fire to his headteacher's trousers, Mum decides it's time for a BIG change. So, she packs him off to Madame Bogbrush's School for Gifted Giants. He'll grunt. He'll clomp. He'll bash things with clubs. But Harvey's not a giant. He's a boy on stilts. And if his classmate...

An extraordinary story about friendship and betrayal. Of revenge and retribution but also redemption. Perfect for 11+ readers who enjoy Stranger Things. Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Illustration in 2023. Hex never meant for the girl to follow him and his friend Tommo into the woods. He never meant for her to fall off the rope swing and br...

You won’t believe your eyes… or ears or nose….! Learn how our bodies make sense of reality in this fact packed book about sensory perception.They say that seeing is believing – and there’s some truth in that. Highly sensitive receptor cells in our eyes, ears, noses, tongues and skin relay messages to the brain and al...

The sun loves to make people happy. But beneath his glorious smile, he doesn't always feel so shiny. At the end of the day, when the sun goes home, he sometimes feels a little lonely.The sun believes he has no choice but to carry on shining, no matter what ... until one day, disaster strikes. He finds himself falling from the sky!Will anyone hear h...

Gail Pirkis and Hazel Wood are founding editors of Slightly Foxed, the quarterly magazine and independent publishing house. As specialists in books that have stood the test of time even while falling out of fashion, Gail and Hazel bring us titles so good, they deserve to be heard as audiobooks, too.

Natasha Lipman writes about what it means to live, and live well, with chronic illness. Here she talks to Jessica about the strategies she’s adopted to return her to the pleasures of reading.

Emilie Pine, author of the personal essay collection Notes to Self and her recently published novel Ruth and Pen, tells us what it was like to narrate her emotionally difficult first book, what factored into the casting of Ruth and Pen’s audiobook narrator, and the sometimes surprising responses she’s received from readers. There is als...

Jess is joined by colleagues Amy and Lieve to talk about notable books adapted to film—for better and for worse! Of course, this is all just a warm-up for the true highlight, which is of course our Very Serious Literary Game. Will Amy triumph against her new opponent, or will Lieve take down the reigning champion?

Author Florence Wilkinson talks about her book Wild City: Encounters with Urban Wildlife, giving lots of suggestions for noticing and encouraging the wildlife right on our doorstep.

Author Jonathan Whitelaw joins Jess for a cosy chat about cosy crime. He tells us how he landed such a fantastic narrator in Sid Sagar, how he approached character development in The Bingo Hall Detectives, why he chose the Lake District for the setting, and what we should be reading while we wait for his next book, The Village Hall Vendetta.

Clinical psychologist and author Dr Julie Smith joins Jess to share some of the practical wisdom from her bestselling book Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? Want to know one of the most versatile tools to have in your mental health tool kit? Do you ever wish you could summon motivation when you need it most? Julie warns us of the pitfalls of chas...

Annie Aldington has voiced hundreds of audiobooks, and among them are some of the most popular titles in the Listening Books collection, including novels by Dilly Court, Martina Cole, Katie Price, Aoife Walsh, and Kitty Neale. Here Annie tells us how she happened into audiobook narration, shares her secret tricks for conquering difficult accents, a...

Clan of the Cave Bear is the first novel in Jean M. Auel's magnificent best-selling epic of life 35,000 years ago. Leave the 21st century and go back to Ice Age Europe. Follow Ayla, a Cro-Magnon child who loses her parents in an earthquake and is adopted by a tribe of Neanderthal, the Clan. See how the Clan's wary suspicion is gradually transformed...