192 pages, inner pocket

When a bear named Mack wakes up with a boy on his back, we know instantly that we’re back in the droll and sweetly wacky world created by Sean Bryan and Tom Murphy in their first two highly successful picture books about a bunny-wearing boy and his sister Claire, who wakes up with a gator on her hair. Like A Boy and His Bunny and A Girl and Her Gator, this new picture book will entertain young children and their parents, and put smiles on the faces of their grandparents too.

A funny and affectionate look at all the things your parents do for you. It's not all tidying up and making you brush your teeth ...

You may think your parents just boss you around and tell you what to do. And there's no getting away from it - they do have to do quite a lot of that! But there's so much more to them - did you realise they are also tent poles for dens that are wonky, dustbins for bits you don't want to eat up and grandstands to make you grow tall?

Bella is an indoor cat who lives inside a lighthouse and who has always imagined exploring the high seas. One day, Bella hops onto a sailboat and drifts away. . . . In this whimsical picture book, author-illustrator Ryan O'Rourke introduces lovable Bella, whose travels bring her to new friends and magical under-the-sea adventures and, ultimately, return her home. O'Rourke's distinctive artwork conveys the humor and curiosity of Bella and her friends, including a friendly whale and a wise octopus. Sea dogs and landlubbers alike will delight in the beautiful seascapes inspired by O'Rourke's summers on Cape Cod.

A renowned authority on the secret world of opium recounts his descent into ruinous obsession with one of the world’s oldest and most seductive drugs, in this harrowing memoir of addiction and recovery. A natural-born collector with a nose for exotic adventure, San Diego–born Steven Martin followed his bliss to Southeast Asia, where he found work as a freelance journalist. While researching an article about the vanishing culture of opium smoking, he was inspired to begin collecting rare nineteenth-century opium-smoking equipment. Over time, he amassed a valuable assortment of exquisite pipes, antique lamps, and other opium-related accessories—and began putting it all to use by smoking an extremely potent form of the drug called chandu. But what started out as recreational use grew into a thirty-pipe-a-day habit that consumed Martin’s every waking hour, left him incapable of work, and exacted a frightful physical and financial toll. In passages that will send a chill up the spine of anyone who has ever lived in the shadow of substance abuse, Martin chronicles his efforts to control and then conquer his addiction—from quitting cold turkey to taking “the cure” at a Buddhist monastery in the Thai countryside. At once a powerful personal story and a fascinating historical survey, Opium Fiend brims with anecdotes and lore surrounding the drug that some have called the methamphetamine of the nineteenth-century. It recalls the heyday of opium smoking in the United States and Europe and takes us inside the befogged opium dens of China, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. The drug’s beguiling effects are described in vivid detail—as are the excruciating pains of withdrawal—and there are intoxicating tales of pipes shared with an eclectic collection of opium aficionados, from Dutch dilettantes to hard-core addicts to world-weary foreign correspondents. A compelling tale of one man’s transformation from respected scholar to hapless drug slave, Opium Fiend puts us under opium’s spell alongside its protagonist, allowing contemporary readers to experience anew the insidious allure of a diabolical vice that the world has all but forgotten.

Once upon a time there was a crocodile not just any old crocodile with big sharp teeth and powerful jaws, but a crocodile with the kindest of hearts that was gentle and sensitive, and dreamed of one day being a beloved pet in a happy family. Through the magic of a picture book and with an irrepressible desire to please, this ferocious-looking crocodile that tidies toys, washes dishes, and even fights monsters in bad dreams makes his own dream come true.

192 pages, inner pocket