Showing results by narrator "Thomas Judd" in All Categories

Alex has the concerns every 12-year-old has but lately, ever since his brain surgery, everyone in his life is behaving a little mysteriously. He decides it's time to investigate. So begins the journey that will take him to the limits of his understanding and take you back to the wonder and conviction of your own adolescence, to a time when you understood the world so much better than it understood you.

Billy Slipper is a fairly normal boy with a not-so normal family. All he wants to do is add to his 'Collectabillya' (an assortment of weird and wonderful objects) in peace, but his cleaning-mad mum and his horrid twin sister have other ideas. However, they don't bargain on Billy finding his best ever Collectabillya - Jumblecat! Jumblecat is...well, a jumbled-up cat (who talks, by the way), and he's set to change their lives forever.

A witty memoir about the trials of adolescence, the tribulations of family life and the embarrassment that ensues from having larger-than-life parentsNeville and Liz Hodgkinson bought into the Thatcherite dream of home ownership, aspiration and advancement. The first children of their working class parents to go to university and have professional careers, they lived in a semi-detached house in Richmond, sent their sons Tom and Will to private school, and went on holiday to Greece once a year. Neville was an award-winning science writer and Liz was a high-earning tabloid hack....

Hari Patel is dead; he was killed by a lorry as he stepped out into the road without looking. Now he's a ghost, and that's where the real trouble starts.... This terrifying ghost story will chill your blood! From acclaimed author, Eleanor Updale.

Dan and his little sister, Claudia, aren't really religious - though Claudia is obsessed with asking questions about Christianity. Dan's just obsessed with the Muppets. Then, one day, they both get to answer the big question about what happens when you die.... A funny, touching story about the afterlife from acclaimed teen author Philip Ardagh.

When Will takes home a small, smooth stone from Poldavy Wood as a holiday souvenir, he begins to have strange dreams - dreams of a huge forest, and of something big and black that is trying to get in his room. The Ghost Wood is a terrifying ghost story that will chill your blood, from acclaimed author Philip Reeve.

The Mickledean Parish Workhouse is known to be a place of dread. Though it has long ceased to be a workhouse, no one wants to live there, and tales are told of frightful spirits and a ghostly carriage. Then Rosie and Doug arrive, and fall in love with the tumbledown old house... A terrifying ghost story that will chill your blood, from acclaimed author Jamila Gavin.

Jez is spending the holidays at his Uncle Jack's cottage in Cornwall. One night, there is a storm, and through the noise of the howling wind and rain, he thinks he hears a child's voice moaning.... The Little Ship's Boy is a terrifying ghost story that will chill your blood, from much-loved author Berlie Doherty.

Alex has a lot of the same concerns most of us do growing up (exams, puberty and, in his case, a punctuation obsession plus a little quantum mechanics) but since his brain surgery, everyone in his life is behaving a little mysteriously. Maybe it's adjusting to life after epilepsy or maybe it's the pressure of his pending scholarship application, but Alex is starting to see the world differently.

Prepare to discover a fascinating country; a land buffeted for centuries by power-struggles and revolts, lorded over by Turks, carved up by its neighbours, and subsumed into the Soviet Union. Yet also a land of proud and resilient people, of crawfish hunters and bagpipe makers, shepherds and gypsies, in which daily life goes on.

For anyone who is even thinking of getting married. The Stag and Hen Weekend is the story of Phil and Helen, a couple in their 30s about to commit their lives to one another . . . that is of course if they can just manage to get through their respective stag and hen weekends (his: Amsterdam; hers: a country house and day spa in the Peak District) without falling apart. Told in the unique form of two separate stories that have common characters as well as themes and conclusion. Feisty, fun and thought provoking.

When Tom Finn is almost jailed for confronting two burglars in his own home, this taxi driver takes his young family to live on the tropical island of Phuket, Thailand. Phuket is all the Finn family dreamed of - a tropical paradise where the children swim with elephants, the gibbons sing love songs in the jungle, the Andaman Sea is like turquoise glass, and this young family is free to grow. But both man-made disaster and the unleashed forces of nature shatter this tropical idyll for Tom Finn's family.

When fiercely independent chambermaid Nancy Nettleton first moved to London and the Buckingham hotel, the last thing on her mind was finding love, let alone falling for the debonair demonstration dancer Raymond de Guise. As the festive season approaches, life at the exclusive hotel is busier than ever, with guests arriving from around the world, seeking comfort, relaxation and refuge as tensions build across Europe and it looks like another war is imminent.

When James Cook's daughter was nearly one, he began to suspect that she wasn't simply a 'late bloomer', as he and his wife were telling friends and family. Emily was strongly taken by images and patterns around the house, had a marked response to music, but never pointed at anything, and hadn't crawled yet. At the age of two-and-a-half, after months of invasive tests, Emily was finally diagnosed with severe autism and everything changed.

Brat has always lived in the isolated castle on the island, taking care of the vicious creatures that his master creates, waiting in terror for the moment when they are ready to be put to use. But then the unthinkable happens. The monsters get out. Now Brat must overcome his fears and venture into the world he has hidden from his whole life. For the fate of everyone rests on his shoulders alone....

TV presenter Nadia and her husband, Mark, took their two children out of mainstream school five years ago. Since then they have homeschooled them. At a time when so many of us are being forced to rethink our roles as parents and teachers, Mark and Nadia bring their experiences - the good and the bad - and offer a candid and practical guide to teaching at home. Statistics show that the number of homeschooled children in the UK has increased by 40 percent over the last three years, and the rate is steadily increasing.

In this entertaining collection, dogs of all kinds are brought to life. Working dogs, dogs who are mistreated by humans, dogs who save lives and the ones that make us laugh; they all leap and bound in stories by our most accomplished writers, including Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, Jack London and Jerome K. Jerome.

Jack found the love of his life when he met Kate. But their happiness was shattered when she opened the door to a cold-blooded killer. Jack will never forget the face of the man who stole his future. The only person who loved Kate as much is Emily, her twin. So when Jack tells her that he’s found the man who murdered her sister she doesn’t hesitate to help him exact revenge. As the plans for vengeance lead to unforeseen danger, Emily has to trust Jack more than she has ever trusted anyone. Can you always believe what you see?

Despite the many films and television programmes over the decades since the end of the Second World War that portrays our allied heroes as grown-up men and women, the Battle of Britain was in the main actually fought and won by teenagers. The average age of an RAF fighter pilot was just 20 years old. Many of the men and women who designed and built their planes were even younger.

A space-obsessed child conjures up a vortex in his mother's airing cupboard. A musician finds her friendship with a flock of birds opens up unexpected possibilities. A rat catcher, summoned to a decaying royal palace, is plunged into a battle for the throne of a ruined kingdom. Two newlyweds find themselves inhibited by the arrival in their lives of an outsized and watchful stuffed bear.