Things are not looking good for Zoe. Her stepmother Sheila is so lazy she gets Zoe to pick her nose for her. The school bully Tina Trotts makes her life a misery – mainly by flobbing on her head. And now the evil Burt from Burt’s Burgers is after her pet rat! And guess what he wants to do with it? The clue is in the title.

Real witches dress in ordinary clothes and look like ordinary women. But they are not ordinary. They are always plotting and scheming with murderous, bloodthirsty thoughts – and they hate children. The Grand High Witch hates children most of all and plans to make every single one of YOU disappear. Only one boy and his grandmother can stop her, but if their plan fails the Grand High Witch will frizzle them like fritters, and then what…?

High up in a tall building lives Mr Hoppy all alone.
Downstairs lives Mrs Silver. Mr Hoppy loves her. And Mrs Silver loves her tortoise, Alfie. Oh, if only Mr Hoppy could perform some great feat that would make him a hero in her eyes! Then one day his mind goes click and an amazing idea rushes into his head.
With the help of a magical spell, some cabbage leaves and one hundred and forty tortoises, can shy Mr Hoppy win Mrs Silver’s heart?

Boggis is an enormously fat chicken farmer who only eats boiled chickens smothered in fat.
Bunce is a duck-and-goose farmer whose dinner gives him a beastly temper.
Bean is a turkey-and-apple farmer who only drinks gallons of strong cider.
Mr Fox is so clever that every evening he creeps down into the valley and helps himself to food from the farms.
Now the farmers have hatched a plan to BANG-BANG-BANG shoot Mr Fox dead. But, just when they think Mr Fox can’t possibly escape, he makes a fantastic plan of his own.

Matilda Wormwood’s father thinks she’s a little scab. Matilda’s mother spends all afternoon playing bingo. And Matilda’s headmistress Miss Trunchbull? Well, she’s the worst of all. She is a big bully, who thinks all her pupils are rotten and locks them in the dreaded Chokey. As for Matilda, she’s an extraordinary little girl with a magical mind – and now she’s had enough. So all these grown-ups had better watch out, because Matilda is going to teach them a lesson they’ll never forget.

‘Human beans is not really believing in giants, is they? Human beans is not thinking we exist.’
On a dark, silvery moonlit night, Sophie is snatched from her bed by a giant. Luckily it is the Big Friendly Giant, the BFG, who only eats snozzcumbers and glugs frobscottle. But there are other giants in Giant Country. Fifty foot brutes who gallop far and wide every night to find human beans to eat. Can Sophie and her friend the BFG stop them?

If you imagine you are going to read of model children you had better lay down this book immediately. Not one of the seven is really good, for the very excellent reason that Australian children never are. Every so often, there comes a story so brilliant and lively and moving that it cannot be left in the past. Rediscover the magic of our country’s most memorable children’s books in the Penguin Australia Children’s Classics series of stories too precious to leave behind.

Seven Little Australians has been read and loved by children all over the world, and it has been continuously in print for over 100 years

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