Showing results by publisher "Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd" in Growing Up & Facts of Life

Poor Ed Cooper seems to have one problem after another - his life is never boring. This time around Ed is having problems in school. He just can't get his head around his time-tables.

At home things are bad too - Ed has started to wet his bed. What is Ed to do?

It's spring midterm, and Alice has invited Megan to visit her in Dublin. Megan is hoping for a nice trouble-free few days with her best friend. No such luck! She soon discovers that Alice is once again plotting and scheming. It seems that Alice's mum, Veronica, has a new boyfriend. The plan is to discover who he is and to get rid of him. Alice (with poor Megan in tow) becomes totally horrible in an effort to scare the poor man away.

On the run from the redcoats, the two young highwaymen, Will and Bess, find themselves in Galloway, Scotland, blamed for a murder they did not commit. Here they are captured by smugglers and become embroiled in a story of hatred and revenge that goes back for generations, to the days of the Killing Times.

Hugo has to choose who to stay with while his mum’s having a baby. Who will care for him and his dog Henry the best? Will it be Granny? Mrs Mariposa next door? Or Uncle Jack?

Stanley Potts is just an ordinary boy, but when all the jobs in Fish Quay disappear his Uncle Ernie develops an extraordinary fascination with canning fish. Suddenly their home is filled with the sound of changing machinery and the stench of mackerel, and Uncle Ernie's obsession reaches such heights that he would even can Stan's beloved goldfish! Stan, however, has his own destiny, which leads him - via a hook-a-duck stall - to Pancho Pirelli, the blue-caped madman who swims with piranhas.

Calypso Kelly might have pulled Prince Freddie, heir to the British throne and fittest boy in the world, but life becomes a lot more complicated when her mad mother pitches up in England to 'spend more quality time with her boodjie woodjie'. Apart from Calypso's determination to make the national sabre team, sorting out her mad 'rentals', and making time for her prince, she's got the queen of the psycho toffs, the not so Honorable Honey O'Hare breathing down her neck.

When an immaculately dressed woman steps out of an iridescent bubble and asks you if you'd like to become a substitute princess, do you a) run, b) faint, c) say Yes! For Desi Bascomb, who's been longing for a bit of glamour in her Idaho life, the choice is a definite C - that is, once she can stop pinching herself. As her new agent Meredith explains, Desi has a rare magical ability: when she applies the ancient Egyptian formula "Royal Rouge," she can transform temporarily into the exact lookalike of any princess who needs her subbing services. Dream come true, right?

A little girl wakes up to find she is a statue in a room in a grand house with only a tiger rug for company. Is anything the tiger says to be trusted? Is he a real tiger, a fake or a magic carpet? Is she really just a statue or is she bewitched - was she once turned to stone? Will she ever come to life? By turns comical and lugubrious, the tiger gives the little girl plenty of versions of the truth, but how will she decide what is true, and will it set her free?

Written in 1940 in Yiddish, this heart-wrenching story of two nine-year-old friends caught up in the earliest tremors of anti-Semitic hatred in Vienna is all the more shocking because its author had no idea of what was still to come. Despite the casual violence done to their families - Karl's parents were socialists and Emil is Jewish - the boys find moments of kindness, courage and hope along their painful journey.

Mark is scared of the dark, but when he thinks his Great Gran is in trouble, nothing is going to stop him from coming to her rescue.

Young Angela is obsessed with Jimmy Jelly, her favourite TV personality, though the rest of the family can't stand him - that is, until he comes to open a shop in the local shopping mall!

Olive is an only child. She lives by the sea in a ramshackle old house with her mother, Mog, successful, busy and hardly ever at home. Olive is very pale and very quiet and she doesn't quite fit in. But she has a best friend, Mathilda, and that's what matters. And then Mathilda decides to be someone else's best friend. Just as life really can't get much worse, Pip shows up. Brash, loud Pip, who is everything that Olive is not, and is about open Olive up to a whole new world of possibilities.

In book two of the delightfully energetic Beatrice Zinker series, Operation Upside is finally in full swing! But when Beatrice's overenthusiasm lands Mrs Tamarack with a Strictest Certificate, the team has to hold off on any new missions to avoid suspicion. Lying low is not exactly Beatrice's strong suit, especially when she sees someone who desperately needs to be recognised. But when the certificate meant for him falls into the wrong hands, Beatrice and Lenny must find a way to widen their circle once again to save Operation Upside, and themselves, from trouble.

Safiya and her mum have never seen eye to eye. Her mum doesn’t understand Safiya’s love of gaming, and Safiya doesn't think they have anything in common. As Safiya struggles to fit in at school, she wonders if her mum wishes she was more like her confident best friend, Elle. But then her mum falls into a coma and, when Safiya waits by her bedside, she finds herself in a strange alternative world that looks a bit like one of her games. And there’s a rebellious teenage girl, with a secret, who looks suspiciously familiar....

A poignant and uplifting story of family, connection and imagination. Tabby’s fed up. Fed up with losing her best friend and fed up that Grandad has come to stay. Grandad’s always telling the same old silly, made-up stories, and now Tabby has to walk his smelly dog, Buster, every day after school. When one of Tabby’s walks takes her to a lonely hilltop house she spots something strange going on. So strange she can’t help but mention it to Grandad, who of course turns it all into another fantasy.

Penelope Magnificent's life doesn't live up to her name. Her dad thinks only about making money and her mum loves her handbag more than her daughter. But she gets through the hard times remembering the lovely French woman Perrine who looked after her when she was little. Even after Pear was sent away, she wrote to Nell every week, telling her about her new life. But then the letters stopped. So when Nell gets the chance to go to Paris with her parents, she is determined to track down Pear. But the mystery gets deeper when Pear isn't where she told Nell she'd be – and never had been!

A heart-expanding story of hope, friendship, and the power that comes with realising that magic, like family, doesn't always look the way you expect it to. Eleven-year-old June is a problem solver. Some people might call her a busybody, but that's okay. However, when June learns that her parents are getting divorced, she has to face the fact that there are some problems too big even for her. At least, that's what the adults in her life keep saying.

Clara has lived a life of solitude, home schooled under her mean uncle's strict regime...until now! The day that Uncle abandons Clara, leaving her with nothing but a wedge of 'guilt money' and a half empty, crumbling manor house, she is determined to do things her way for a change. And when streetwise Peter turns up, with his rescue cat and a surprising array of knowledge, she is sure that between them they have everything they need to survive.

Operation Upside has grown to a team of three: Beatrice, her best friend Lenny and her mysterious neighbour Sam. With several successful missions under their belts, the trio is preparing for another great week when the unthinkable occurs – an impostor delivers an imitation Upside Award! As Beatrice hunts for clues to the culprit, Lenny suspects one of their own. Will they solve the mystery before Operation Upside is ruined once and for all? Or is the situation much bigger than any of them imagines?

Two refugee brothers from Mongolia are determined to fit in with their Liverpool schoolmates, but bring so much of Mongolia to Bootle that their new friend and guide, Julie, is hard-pressed to know truth from fantasy as she recollects a wonderful friendship that was abruptly ended when Chingis and his family were forced to return to Mongolia. Told with the humour, warmth, and brilliance of detail which characterises Frank Cottrell Boyce's writing, The Unforgotten Coat is a magical and compelling story.