Showing results by author "Di Riddell" in All Categories

Lord Goth is throwing a music festival at Ghastly-Gorm Hall, with performances from the finest composers in the land. Ada can't wait, but it's quite distracting when her grandmother is trying to find her father a fashionable new wife, there's a faun living in her wardrobe and Maltravers is up to his old tricks. Ada must make sure everything goes to plan...and luckily, help is at hand from a very interesting houseguest.

Introducing Miss Ottoline Brown, an exceptionally inquisitive mistress of disguise, and her partner in crime, Mr. Munroe. No puzzle is ever too tricky for the two of them to solve.... Ottoline lives in a stylish apartment in Big City with a small, hairy creature called Mr. Munroe. Together they look after the Brown family's eclectic collections - and dabble in a spot of detective work. So they are the first to the scene of the crime when a string of high-society dog-nappings and jewel thefts hits Big City.

Meet Ottoline and her hairy, helpful friend, Mr. Munroe. Ottoline is off to the Alice B. Smith School for the Differently Gifted, but she is rather worried that she doesn't have a special gift. Mr. Munroe is more worried about the ghost who is said to haunt the school halls at night. Does Ottoline discover her hidden talent, and can they expose the spook?

Ottoline and Mr. Munroe do everything and go everywhere together. That is until the day Mr. Munroe mysteriously disappears, leaving a strange clue written in string.... Armed with her Amateur Roving Collectors' travel pass, Ottoline sets off on a journey over, under, and on top of the sea to find her hairy best friend - and bring him back home.

Ottoline is back in Ottoline and the Purple Fox, a brand-new adventure from Children's Laureate Chris Riddell. Ottoline and Mr Munroe love puzzles, clues and mysteries. One day they meet an enigmatic purple fox who offers to take them on a nighttime urban safari. The fox shows them all the hidden animals of the city, and Ottoline makes notes on them in her field notebook. Mr Munroe is making notes, too - on the anonymous poems he finds stuck to lampposts on their journey. Who is the secretive poet, and how can he and Ottoline help them mend their broken heart?

Carter Godwin Woodson (December 19, 1875-April 3, 1950) was an American historian, author, journalist, and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). He was one of the first scholars to study the history of the African diaspora, including African American history. A founder of The Journal of Negro History in 1916, Woodson has been called the “father of black history."

The Keepers are a secretive tribe of little people who live in the middle of Whispering Woods, caring for the countryside and rewilding it when humans (or Ruffins as they know them) are careless with it. On their very first venture into the Big Outside as fully trained Keepers, Cora and Jax come across a barn owl caught in a tree by a discarded fishing line . Determined to help free it, Jax climbs on to the owl's back to loosen the line but the owl takes to the air - with Jax on board. Will Cora ever see him again?

Two tales from the golden age of supernatural fiction.

Rook Barkwater dreams of becoming a librarian knight - sent out to explore the mysteries of the Edgeworld. So when his chance comes, he grabs it. Breaking all the rules, he sets out on a journey to the Free Glades and beyond.

Far over the Edge, the Mother Storm is brewing: a storm more terrifying than any seen in the lifetime of any Edgelander. Sweeping in from the open sky, it must strike the source of the Edgewater River to bring new energy to the land. But in its way is Sanctaphrax: a magnificent city built on a floating rock and tethered to the land by a massive chain.

River Hall, the uninhabited house in question, is a place of ghosts and secrets, and it simply cannot keep a tenant. Inherited by the too-young Miss Helena Elmsdale after her father’s death, it falls to her aunt, Miss Susannah Blake, to attend to the house. In order to see that it remains rented out, Miss Blake brings the property to Messrs. Craven and Son for management. The lawyers do their best, but there is something sinister at River Hall, and the tenants cannot seem to leave fast enough, threatening to leave Miss Blake and her orphaned niece in dire financial straits. 

Kitty Marion was sent across the country by the Pankhurst family to carry out a nationwide campaign of bombings and arson attacks, as women fought for the vote using any means necessary. But in the aftermath of World War One, the dangerous and revolutionary actions of Kitty and other militant suffragettes were quickly hushed up and disowned by the previously proud movement, and the women who carried out these attacks were erased from our history. Now, for the first time, their untold story will be brought back to life.

Preparations for the Ghastly-Gorm Garden Party and bake-off are under way. Celebrity cooks are arriving at the hall for the big event and Maltravers, the indoor gamekeeper, is acting suspiciously. Elsewhere at Ghastly-Gorm Ada's wardrobe-dwelling lady's maid Marylebone has received a marriage proposal. Ada vows to aid the course of true love and find out what Maltravers is up to, but amidst all this activity, everyone appears to have forgotten her birthday!

High in the crumbling Palace of Statues, oily Vox Verlix - nominally the Most High Academe but no more than a prisoner in reality - is brewing a terrible plot to destroy the goblins and the shrykes at a stroke, leaving him free to take over once again. Rook Barkwater, a young librarian knight, stumbles upon the truth when he is taken captive and forced to work for Vox. But can Rook foil Vox's plan and save the lives of his librarian colleagues?

Fleeing from the ruins of New Undertown, Rook Barkwater and his colleagues - the librarian knights, Felix Lodd and his banderbear friends - must lead the escaping population to a new life in the Free Glades. But perils aplenty are ahead for the crowd - not to mention some goblins with plans of their own. A dramatic and exciting conclusion to the Rook Barkwater sequence that takes the reader on a thrilling journey across the Edgeworld.

Cade Quarter is building a new life for himself in the wild of the Farrow Ridges, miles away from civilisation - and from the enemies who are seeking him. His lakeside home is idyllic, and he lives a peaceful existence with his prowlgrin, Rumblix, and Tug, the nameless one. But when his new home is threatened by villainous mire-pearlers, Cade and his friends must find a way to defend the land they love. The arrival of the ship Doombringer means Cade must leave the Farrow Ridges and compete in an ultimate challenge to bring aid to the Lakes. 

When Terri and Paxton meet during their teen years, their worlds collide into a messy, beautiful, forbidden love.

The exceptional talents behind some of the nation’s best-loved books - from The Gruffalo to The BFG, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt to the Charlie and Lola series - the Children’s Laureates are the perfect ambassadors for children’s literature. It’s been 20 wonderful years of the Laureateship and now all 10 former honourees have banded together to celebrate the only way they know how: through stories and poems. 

Barnaby Grimes is a tick-tock lad, running errands in his city, day and night, and "high-stacking" around the rooftops in search of new mysteries to solve. In this first adventure, Barnaby is attacked one night by an enormous dog. He kills it: but that's not the end of this particular mystery...as Barnaby finds himself swept up in a world of crooked doctors, poor and ill-advised patients, strange tonics, and very expensive furs.

In Legion of the Dead, Barnaby finds himself embroiled in a plot that includes a legion of zombies raised from the dead. In Dickensian times, people were terrified of being buried alive, and so were left in their coffin with a wire, attached to a bell, running from above the ground, down through the earth and the lid of the coffin, and tied to the little finger of the buried body. Those who found themselves awake in the darkness of their coffin could wiggle their finger and summon help.