Helen Cooper – författare

The definitive English version of the stories of King Arthur, Le Morte Darthur was completed in 1469-70 by Sir Thomas Malory, `knight-prisoner'. In a resonant prose style, Malory charts the tragic disintegration of the fellowship of the Round Table, destroyed from within by warring factions. Recounting the life of King Arthur, the knightly exploits of Sir Lancelot du Lake, Sir Tristram, Sir Gawain, and the quest for the Holy Grail, Le Morte Darthur depicts the contradictions that underscore the Fellowship's chivalric ideals. A pervading tension cumulates in the revelation of Lancelot and Guenivere's illicit passion, and in Arthur's powerlessness to prevent a related outbreak of violence and revenge. This generously annotated edition is based on the authoritative Winchester manuscript and represents what Malory wrote more closely than the first version printed by William Caxton. Intelligently abridged from the original to make a single substantial volume, the translation is supplemented by a fine Introduction, a Glossary, and extensive Notes

From first steps to final submission, this accessible guide takes students through each stage of the assignment-writing process and equips them with the skills they need to construct and develop convincing academic arguments.Concise and compact, it offers practical advice on forming ideas, structuring arguments and finding your academic voice. The authors, both of whom are experienced in working directly with students, also provide valuable guidance on a number of important subtleties in academic writing, including expressing reservations or enthusiasm in academic writing and using evidence to convey different viewpoints.The second edition contains new material on synthesizing ideas from different sources, as well as more varied examples of what ‘finding your academic voice means’ in the context of different assignments, including blogs and observations.Applicable to different types of assignment, this is an essential resource for all undergraduates and postgraduates who are looking to communicate their arguments effectively and improve the quality of their academic writing.

'Oh wow that was one hell of a book... full of family secrets and betrayal, filled with unforeseen twists. I read this late into the night because I was instantly hooked and I couldn't read fast enough... A fast paced domestic thriller' Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The perfect night.I had been so excited for our big New Year's Eve party. Hosting with my best friend Alice and our two beautiful boys - my Leo and her Robbie, who had grown up together like brothers.A shocking death.But then I heard the terrible crash. I remember the flashing lights of the ambulance and how everyone then turned on Leo. Saying that Robbie was dead because of my son.Who is to blame?The boys had argued, but Leo still won't tell me why. I know he's keeping a secret from me. I need to find out the truth, need to clear the name of my darling boy before something terrible happens to him, too.But I also need to make sure no one finds out the truth about me...A totally addictive, edge-of-your-seat domestic psychological thriller with a heartbreaking dilemma at its heart. Perfect for fans of Frieda McFadden, Andrea Mara and Lisa Jewell.Everyone is gripped by My Darling Boy:'Gripping and unputdownable. There are secrets, mystery, betrayal and twists. The characters were mysterious... The plot was clever and I didn't see the twists coming. The twists were jaw dropping' Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Twists and turns a plenty... A gripping read for your sunlounger this summer' Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'I was gripped by this beautifully, written, intricately plotted, tangle of secrets and lies' Louise Jensen'An extraordinary read, filled with unforeseen twists that kept me flipping through the pages rapidly. I absolutely adored it' Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Full of family secrets and betrayal. I was invested from the start and thought the relationships were all written and developed brilliantly. I really enjoyed this and was left thinking about it for days afterwards' Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'A brilliant read that had me gripped all the way through' Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'The finest translation in and for our time' (Kevin Crossley-Holland) Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, with its intricate plot of enchantment and betrayal is probably the most skilfully told story in the whole of the English Arthurian cycle. Originating from the north-west midlands of England, it is based on two separate and very ancient Celtic motifs of the Beheading and the Exchange of Winnings, brought together by the anonymous 14th century poet. His telling comprehends a great variety of moods and modes - from the stark realism of the hunt-scenes to the delicious and dangerous bedroom encounters between Lady Bercilak and Gawain, from moments of pure lyric beauty when he evokes the English countryside in all its seasons, to authorial asides that are full of irony and puckish humour. This new verse translation uses a modern alliterative pattern which subtly echoes the music of the original at the same time as it strives for fidelity. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

New Statesman's Children's Book of the Year, now in paperback: an exquisite story within a story, as told by a mouse to a cat who wants to eat him!'Beguiling . . . utterly delightful.' Books for Keeps'A classic fairy tale with beautiful illustrations.' The Week Junior'A delicious treat.' Guardian Brie the mouse is caught in the paws of Gorgonzola the cat, facing certain death. How can he survive? Well, the cheese shop where they live is a source of great inspiration. The cheese labels tell stories of a world beyond their four walls . . . So Brie starts telling a riveting story, of princesses who don't want to be married, of cats that can turn into panthers, of a magical realm deep within a mountain and an extraordinary quest to break a spell . . .Children will be dazzled by the extraordinarily detailed illustrations. This promises to be a book to treasure forever.

The definitive English version of the stories of King Arthur, Le Morte Darthur was completed in 1469-70 by Sir Thomas Malory, `knight-prisoner''. In a resonant prose style, Malory charts the tragic disintegration of the fellowship of the Round Table, destroyed from within by warring factions. Recounting the life of King Arthur, the knightly exploits of Sir Lancelot du Lake, Sir Tristram, Sir Gawain, and the quest for the Holy Grail, Le Morte Darthur depicts the contradictions that underscore the Fellowship''s chivalric ideals. A pervading tension cumulates in the revelation of Lancelot and Guenivere''s illicit passion, and in Arthur''s powerlessness to prevent a related outbreak of violence and revenge. This generously annotated edition is based on the authoritative Winchester manuscript and represents what Malory wrote more closely than the first version printed by William Caxton. Intelligently abridged from the original to make a single substantial volume, the translation is supplemented by a fine Introduction, a Glossary, and extensive Notes ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The English Romance in Time is a study of English romance across the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It explores romance motifs - quests and fairy mistresses, passionate heroines and rudderless boats and missing heirs - from the first emergence of the genre in French and Anglo-Norman in the twelfth century down to the early seventeenth. This is a continuous story, since the same romances that constituted the largest and most sophisticated body of secularfiction in the Middle Ages went on to enjoy a new and vibrant popularity at all social levels in black-letter prints as the pulp fiction of the Tudor age. This embedded culture was reworked for political and Reformation propaganda and for the ''writing of England'', as well as providing a generous reservoir ofgood stories and dramatic plots. The different ways in which the same texts were read over several centuries, or the same motifs shifted meaning as understanding and usage altered, provide a revealing and sensitive measure of historical and cultural change. The book accordingly looks at those processes of change as well as at how the motifs themselves work, to offer a historical semantics of the language of romance conventions. It also looks at how politics and romance intersect - the pointwhere romance comes true.The historicizing of the study of literature is belatedly leading to a wider recognition that the early modern world is built on medieval foundations. This book explores both the foundations and the building. Similarly, generic theory, which previously tended to operate on transhistorical assumptions, is now acknowledging that genre interacts crucially with cultural context - with changing audiences and ideologies and means of dissemination. The generation into which Spenser and Shakespearewere born was the last to be brought up on a wide range of medieval romances in their original forms, and they could therefore exploit their generic codings in new texts aimed at both elite and popular audiences. Romance may since then have lost much of its cultural centrality, but the universal appealof these same stories has continued to fuel later works from Bunyan''s Pilgrim''s Progress to C.S. Lewis and Tolkien.

''The finest translation in and for our time'' (Kevin Crossley-Holland) Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, with its intricate plot of enchantment and betrayal is probably the most skilfully told story in the whole of the English Arthurian cycle. Originating from the north-west midlands of England, it is based on two separate and very ancient Celtic motifs of the Beheading and the Exchange of Winnings, brought together by the anonymous 14th century poet. His telling comprehends a great variety of moods and modes - from the stark realism of the hunt-scenes to the delicious and dangerous bedroom encounters between Lady Bercilak and Gawain, from moments of pure lyric beauty when he evokes the English countryside in all its seasons, to authorial asides that are full of irony and puckish humour. This new verse translation uses a modern alliterative pattern which subtly echoes the music of the original at the same time as it strives for fidelity. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

''The finest translation in and for our time'' (Kevin Crossley-Holland) Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, with its intricate plot of enchantment and betrayal is probably the most skilfully told story in the whole of the English Arthurian cycle. Originating from the north-west midlands of England, it is based on two separate and very ancient Celtic motifs of the Beheading and the Exchange of Winnings, brought together by the anonymous 14th century poet. His telling comprehends a great variety of moods and modes - from the stark realism of the hunt-scenes to the delicious and dangerous bedroom encounters between Lady Bercilak and Gawain, from moments of pure lyric beauty when he evokes the English countryside in all its seasons, to authorial asides that are full of irony and puckish humour. This new verse translation uses a modern alliterative pattern which subtly echoes the music of the original at the same time as it strives for fidelity. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Recognised on its first appearance as the most comprehensive single-volume guide to The Canterbury Tales yet produced, this third edition brings the Tales up to date in relation both to recent criticism and to the changing expectations of modern readers. The Guide provide tale-by-tale information on textual variations and sources, together with a readable commentary on thematic issues, structure, style, generic affiliations, and the contribution of each tale to the work as a whole. It concludes with a survey of the many imitations of the tales down to the early seventeenth century. This new edition also takes account of the latest scholarship, theory, and criticism and new interpretations of the tales, including such matters as gender identity, consent, and racial and religious difference.The book is the most comprehensive single-volume guide to the Tales yet produced, bringing together a wide range of disparate material and providing a readable commentary on all aspects of the work. It combines the comprehensive coverage of a reference book with the clarity and coherence of a critical account. Since its first publication in 1989, the Guide has established itself as an indispensable aid for any reader looking to develop their understanding of The Canterbury Tales.

The Oxford History of Poetry in English is designed to offer a fresh, multi-voiced, and comprehensive analysis of ''poetry'': from Anglo-Saxon culture through contemporary British, Irish, American, and Global culture, including English, Scottish, and Welsh poetry, Anglo-American colonial and post-colonial poetry, and poetry in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, India, Africa, Asia, and other international locales. The series both synthesizes existing scholarship and presents cutting-edge research, employing a global team of expert contributors for each of the fourteen volumes.This volume occupies both a foundational and a revolutionary place. Its opening date--1100--marks the re-emergence of a vernacular poetic record in English after the political and cultural disruption of the Norman Conquest. By its end date--1400--English poetry had become an established, if still evolving, literary tradition. The period between these dates sees major innovations and developments in language, topics, poetic forms, and means of expression. Middle English poetry reflects the influence of multiple contexts--history, social institutions, manuscript production, old and new models of versification, medieval poetic theory, and the other literary languages of England. It thus emphasizes the aesthetic, imaginative treatment of new and received materials by medieval writers and the formal craft required for their verse. Individual chapters treat the representation of national history and mythology, contemporary issues, and the shared doctrine and learning provided by sacred and secular sources, including the Bible. Throughout the period, lyric and romance figure prominently as genres and poetic modes, while some works hover enticingly on the boundary of genre and discursive forms. The volume ends with chapters on the major writers of the late fourteenth-century (Langland, the Gawain-poet, Chaucer, and Gower) and with a look forward to the reception of something like a national literary tradition in fifteenth-century literary culture.

The Oxford History of Poetry in English is designed to offer a fresh, multi-voiced, and comprehensive analysis of ''poetry'': from Anglo-Saxon culture through contemporary British, Irish, American, and Global culture, including English, Scottish, and Welsh poetry, Anglo-American colonial and post-colonial poetry, and poetry in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, India, Africa, Asia, and other international locales. The series both synthesizes existing scholarship and presents cutting-edge research, employing a global team of expert contributors for each of the fourteen volumes.This volume occupies both a foundational and a revolutionary place. Its opening date--1100--marks the re-emergence of a vernacular poetic record in English after the political and cultural disruption of the Norman Conquest. By its end date--1400--English poetry had become an established, if still evolving, literary tradition. The period between these dates sees major innovations and developments in language, topics, poetic forms, and means of expression. Middle English poetry reflects the influence of multiple contexts--history, social institutions, manuscript production, old and new models of versification, medieval poetic theory, and the other literary languages of England. It thus emphasizes the aesthetic, imaginative treatment of new and received materials by medieval writers and the formal craft required for their verse. Individual chapters treat the representation of national history and mythology, contemporary issues, and the shared doctrine and learning provided by sacred and secular sources, including the Bible. Throughout the period, lyric and romance figure prominently as genres and poetic modes, while some works hover enticingly on the boundary of genre and discursive forms. The volume ends with chapters on the major writers of the late fourteenth-century (Langland, the Gawain-poet, Chaucer, and Gower) and with a look forward to the reception of something like a national literary tradition in fifteenth-century literary culture.

The Long Fifteenth Century is intended as a companion volume to Douglas Gray's ground-breaking Oxford Book of Late Medieval Verse and Prose and incorporates a bibliography of his published writings. Gray's anthology revolutionized critical appreciation of English and Scottish literature of the `long fifteenth century' from the death of Chaucer to the Reformation, but the literature of the period as a whole remains much under-read, undervalued, and under-studied. The contributors to this volume, all leading scholars in the field, bring to the fore the power of underrated writers, restore to the period writings often attributed to other centuries, open up new possibilities in neglected genres, offer radical rereadings of some more familiar works, and demonstrate how closely the literature of the period is bound up with political and social conditions. Written in honour of Douglas Gray, to mark his long and distinguished tenure of the J.R.R. Tolkein Professorship of English Literature and Language at Oxford university, the 15 essays in this volume portray the long fifteenth century as a major period of literature in its own right. They provide a comprehensive survey of fifteenth-century literature in print, from the morality play to the ballad, verse forms to prose romances, including Chaucer, Lydgate, Skelton, and Hoccleve, along with essays on the Middle French Poets and Scottish writings of the period.

The three Oxford Guides to Chaucer are written by scholars of international repute, with the purpose of summarizing what is known about his works and offering interpretations based on recent advances in both historical knowledge and theoretical understanding. They will provide readers at every level with new interpretations and ideas, with essential and up-to-date information on such matters as dating and sources and with analyses of thematic issues, structure, style rhetoric and generic relations brought right up-to-date for this second paperback edition. Helen Cooper's volume on The Canterbury Tales tackles these matters both for the whole work and for each individual Tale. It also includes a survey of literary responses to the Tales over the two centuries following Chaucer's death. The book is perhaps the most comprehensive single-volume guide to the Tales yet produced, bringing together a wide range of disparate material and providing a readable commentry on all aspects of the work. It combines the comprehensive coverage of a reference book with the coherence of a critical account and since its first publication in 1989, has established itself as a standard work on the Tales.

Recognised on its first appearance as the most comprehensive single-volume guide to The Canterbury Tales yet produced, this third edition brings the Tales up to date in relation both to recent criticism and to the changing expectations of modern readers. The Guide provide tale-by-tale information on textual variations and sources, together with a readable commentary on thematic issues, structure, style, generic affiliations, and the contribution of each tale to the work as a whole. It concludes with a survey of the many imitations of the tales down to the early seventeenth century. This new edition also takes account of the latest scholarship, theory, and criticism and new interpretations of the tales, including such matters as gender identity, consent, and racial and religious difference.The book is the most comprehensive single-volume guide to the Tales yet produced, bringing together a wide range of disparate material and providing a readable commentary on all aspects of the work. It combines the comprehensive coverage of a reference book with the clarity and coherence of a critical account. Since its first publication in 1989, the Guide has established itself as an indispensable aid for any reader looking to develop their understanding of The Canterbury Tales.

The Oxford History of Poetry in English is designed to offer a fresh, multi-voiced, and comprehensive analysis of 'poetry': from Anglo-Saxon culture through contemporary British, Irish, American, and Global culture, including English, Scottish, and Welsh poetry, Anglo-American colonial and post-colonial poetry, and poetry in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, India, Africa, Asia, and other international locales. The series both synthesizes existing scholarship and presents cutting-edge research, employing a global team of expert contributors for each of the fourteen volumes.This volume occupies both a foundational and a revolutionary place. Its opening date--1100--marks the re-emergence of a vernacular poetic record in English after the political and cultural disruption of the Norman Conquest. By its end date--1400--English poetry had become an established, if still evolving, literary tradition. The period between these dates sees major innovations and developments in language, topics, poetic forms, and means of expression. Middle English poetry reflects the influence of multiple contexts--history, social institutions, manuscript production, old and new models of versification, medieval poetic theory, and the other literary languages of England. It thus emphasizes the aesthetic, imaginative treatment of new and received materials by medieval writers and the formal craft required for their verse. Individual chapters treat the representation of national history and mythology, contemporary issues, and the shared doctrine and learning provided by sacred and secular sources, including the Bible. Throughout the period, lyric and romance figure prominently as genres and poetic modes, while some works hover enticingly on the boundary of genre and discursive forms. The volume ends with chapters on the major writers of the late fourteenth-century (Langland, the Gawain-poet, Chaucer, and Gower) and with a look forward to the reception of something like a national literary tradition in fifteenth-century literary culture.

Recognised on its first appearance as the most comprehensive single-volume guide to The Canterbury Tales yet produced, this third edition brings the Tales up to date in relation both to recent criticism and to the changing expectations of modern readers. The Guide provide tale-by-tale information on textual variations and sources, together with a readable commentary on thematic issues, structure, style, generic affiliations, and the contribution of each tale to the work as a whole. It concludes with a survey of the many imitations of the tales down to the early seventeenth century. This new edition also takes account of the latest scholarship, theory, and criticism and new interpretations of the tales, including such matters as gender identity, consent, and racial and religious difference.The book is the most comprehensive single-volume guide to the Tales yet produced, bringing together a wide range of disparate material and providing a readable commentary on all aspects of the work. It combines the comprehensive coverage of a reference book with the clarity and coherence of a critical account. Since its first publication in 1989, the Guide has established itself as an indispensable aid for any reader looking to develop their understanding of The Canterbury Tales.

Recognised on its first appearance as the most comprehensive single-volume guide to The Canterbury Tales yet produced, this third edition brings the Tales up to date in relation both to recent criticism and to the changing expectations of modern readers. The Guide provide tale-by-tale information on textual variations and sources, together with a readable commentary on thematic issues, structure, style, generic affiliations, and the contribution of each tale to the work as a whole. It concludes with a survey of the many imitations of the tales down to the early seventeenth century. This new edition also takes account of the latest scholarship, theory, and criticism and new interpretations of the tales, including such matters as gender identity, consent, and racial and religious difference.The book is the most comprehensive single-volume guide to the Tales yet produced, bringing together a wide range of disparate material and providing a readable commentary on all aspects of the work. It combines the comprehensive coverage of a reference book with the clarity and coherence of a critical account. Since its first publication in 1989, the Guide has established itself as an indispensable aid for any reader looking to develop their understanding of The Canterbury Tales.

This book is a study of English romance across the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It explores romance motifs - quests and fairy mistresses, passionate heroines and rudderless boats and missing heirs - from the first emergence of the genre in French and Anglo-Norman in the twelfth century down to the early seventeenth. This is a continuous story, since the same romances that constituted the largest and most sophisticated body of secular fiction in the Middle Ages went on to enjoy a new and vibrant popularity at all social levels in black-letter prints as the pulp fiction of the Tudor age. This embedded culture was reworked for political and Reformation propaganda and for the 'writing of England', as well as providing a generous reservoir of good stories and dramatic plots. The different ways in which the same texts were read over several centuries, or the same motifs shifted meaning as understanding and usage altered, provide a revealing and sensitive measure of historical and cultural change. The book accordingly looks at those processes of change as well as at how the motifs themselves work, to offer a historical semantics of the language of romance conventions. It also looks at how politics and romance intersect - the point where romance comes true.The historicizing of the study of literature is belatedly leading to a wider recognition that the early modern world is built on medieval foundations. This book explores both the foundations and the building. Similarly, generic theory, which previously tended to operate on transhistorical assumptions, is now acknowledging that genre interacts crucially with cultural context - with changing audiences and ideologies and means of dissemination. The generation into which Spenser and Shakespeare were born was the last to be brought up on a wide range of medieval romances in their original forms, and they could therefore exploit their generic codings in new texts aimed at both elite and popular audiences. Romance may since then have lost much of its cultural centrality, but the universal appeal of these same stories has continued to fuel later works from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress to C.S. Lewis and Tolkien.

The English Romance in Time is a study of English romance across the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It explores romance motifs - quests and fairy mistresses, passionate heroines and rudderless boats and missing heirs - from the first emergence of the genre in French and Anglo-Norman in the twelfth century down to the early seventeenth. This is a continuous story, since the same romances that constituted the largest and most sophisticated body of secular fiction in the Middle Ages went on to enjoy a new and vibrant popularity at all social levels in black-letter prints as the pulp fiction of the Tudor age. This embedded culture was reworked for political and Reformation propaganda and for the 'writing of England', as well as providing a generous reservoir of good stories and dramatic plots. The different ways in which the same texts were read over several centuries, or the same motifs shifted meaning as understanding and usage altered, provide a revealing and sensitive measure of historical and cultural change. The book accordingly looks at those processes of change as well as at how the motifs themselves work, to offer a historical semantics of the language of romance conventions. It also looks at how politics and romance intersect - the point where romance comes true. The historicizing of the study of literature is belatedly leading to a wider recognition that the early modern world is built on medieval foundations. This book explores both the foundations and the building. Similarly, generic theory, which previously tended to operate on transhistorical assumptions, is now acknowledging that genre interacts crucially with cultural context - with changing audiences and ideologies and means of dissemination. The generation into which Spenser and Shakespeare were born was the last to be brought up on a wide range of medieval romances in their original forms, and they could therefore exploit their generic codings in new texts aimed at both elite and popular audiences. Romance may since then have lost much of its cultural centrality, but the universal appeal of these same stories has continued to fuel later works from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress to C.S. Lewis and Tolkien.

A wonderfully inventive and heart-warming story starring a brave and adventurous lost rabbit, from the award-winning Helen Cooper.Molly's toy rabbit, Tatty Ratty, is lost again. But don't worry, he's on his way back to her - and there are lots of adventures on the way, including flying on a dragon, and jumping aboard a pirate ship.... all before waiting for her to come and pick him back up in the toyshop. This imaginative and heart-warming adventure story is perfect for little ones - especially those missing a teddy. With glowing illustrations from Helen Cooper, twice winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal.Other stories available by Helen Cooper:The Bear Under the StairsThe Baby Who Wouldn't Go to BedPumpkin SoupA Pipkin of PepperDelicious!

"Bedtime!" said the Mother."NO!" said the Baby.The Baby wants to stay up all night, so he revs up his car and sets off on an adventure. Before long, he finds himself all alone in a sleepy land. But there is someone else who's not asleep... someone who loves the Baby very much. A magical book whose soft yet sparkling artwork perfectly captures the twilight world of a small child, determined not to go to sleep.

Celebrate 25 years of Pumpkin Soup with Cat, Duck and SquirrelDeep in the woods, there's an old white cabin with pumpkins in the garden.There's a good smell of soup and at night, with luck,You might see a bagpiping Cat through the window and a Squirrel with a banjo,And a small singing Duck.Cat, Duck and Squirrel spend their days making pumpkin soup. Cat slices, Squirrel stirs and Duck adds the salt. But, when Duck decides that he wants to stir the soup, they start to squabble . . .A beloved, rhythmic story about the importance of sharing, this 25th anniversary edition of Pumpkin Soup belongs in every child's bedroom. Illustrated in autumnal colours, this story is the perfect bedtime read."Thanks to Cooper's uncanny ability to capture the dynamics of friendship, children will be able to laugh at this trio and themselves" - Publishers Weekly"Wonderfully atmospheric" - Story Snug

Something was bubbling in the old white cabin. What was in the cooking pot? Pumpkin Soup. Made by a Cat, a Squirrel and a Duck, waiting just for a pipkin of salt, to make it the best you ever tasted . . . But the salt jar smashes and there is none left for the Pumpkin Soup! Cat, Squirrel and Duck must go to the city to buy some more. Duck has the habit of wandering off but he promises not to get lost. But not everything goes to plan . . . Fans of Pumpkin Soup will be delighted by this sequel with its warm and vibrant illustrations.

Every day, Cat, Squirrel and Duck make pumpkin soup - the best you've ever tasted. But one day, disaster strikes - there's not a single ripe pumpkin to be found! So, they make fish soup, mushroom soup and beetroot soup, but will the new soups be as delicious as their favourite? Duck doesn't think so - in fact he won't even try them! Poor Duck gets hungrier and hungrier and grumpier and grumpier, until at last Cat comes up with a soup that might just be . . . delicious!

William is scared of the place under the stairs. He is absolutely sure there's a great big and probably hungry grizzly bear lurking there. He is utterly convinced that the bear will gobble him up if he doesn't feed it, so every day he carefully opens the door, throws in some food and slams it shut quickly - wham, bang, thump!Find out what happens when a nastly smell pervades the house and Mum and William decide to investigate . . .

NEW STATESMAN'S CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE YEAR! An exquisite story within a story as told by mouse to a cat who wants to eat him...'Beguiling . . . utterly delightful.' Books for Keeps'A classic fairy tale with beautiful illustrations.' The Week Junior'A delicious treat.' GuardianBrie the mouse is caught in the paws of Gorgonzola the cat, facing certain death. How can he survive? Well, the cheese shop where they live is a source of great inspiration. The cheese labels tell stories of a world beyond their four walls . . . So Brie starts telling a riveting story, of princesses who don't want to be married, of cats that can turn into panthers, of a magical realm deep within a mountain and an extraordinary quest to break a spell . . .Children will be dazzled by the extraordinarily detailed illustrations. This promises to be a book to treasure forever.