Emma Laybourn: 23 books

Custard Castle has three hundred dusty rooms, and only seven people - not to mention a Thing that guards the treasure room…These four easy, humorous stories for younger children are perfect for reading aloud, or for confident readers to enjoy on their own.Princess Fifi’s Frog: when Fifi...

Thackeray's Vanity Fair opens as two girls are leaving school together: the gentle, innocent Amelia and the sharp-witted, impoverished Becky. Their fortunes are intertwined over the next twenty years, through the Battle of Waterloo and after, in a novel full of lively and perceptively drawn characters.Though...

"Daniel Deronda", George Eliot's last, great novel, was highly acclaimed on its first publication in 1876. It tells the intertwining stories of two young people seeking their paths in life: the beautiful Gwendolen Harleth, and Daniel Deronda, whose parentage is a mystery to him. The work...

Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, first published in 9 volumes between 1759 and 1767, is considered one of the great works of English literature.It is also widely regarded as one of the most difficult to read because of its density and erratic, leap-frogging plot. This abridgment shortens the...

It's a huge, silver, table-tennis trophy, and it has Abby's name on it. So she's devastated when her brother Liam gets to keep it first. He won't even let her take it into school for Prize Assembly. So Abby decides to steal the trophy back - and revenge herself on Liam. But neither task proves...

Donal's school trip to the zoo turns into an unexpected journey across space. Accompanied only by a lofty camel and a stowaway lemming, he finds himself trapped on a alien spaceship which is hurtling towards a distant planet. The little green Meerie who greet him look friendly enough. But when...

Horace the dog is in despair. Christmas is cancelled – and it’s all his fault! He decides to make it up to his family by pretending to be Santa. But where is he going to get a Santa costume, and presents – to say nothing of a sleigh? A Christmas Special about Horace the driving dog and his friends...

Ned’s gotten into an elite new school. But there’s a problem—everyone there can do magic. And Ned can’t.  Ned tries to adjust to his new situation, avoid making enemies, and jump-start his magic skills, all with very little luck. Then, just as he’s getting accustomed to having his hair...

Jack's mum insists he has new school shoes and the only ones they can find are horrid, black lace-ups. They are so stiff, noisy and uncomfortable that Jack suspects they must be monster shoes, especially when they seem to kick his classmates for no reason and make the football go in completely the...