Item category 1: Picture Books

This is a wonderfully wild and enjoyable midnight fantasy about a pillow that comes to life, illustrated in a strip style by one of the world's favourite illustrators. Other titles by Ormerod include Sunshine, Gemma and The Story of Chicken Licken.

Mudge the smuggler is not the world's best smuggler, in fact he is pretty terrible. So when Granny Grogblossom, the leader of the infamous Grogblossom Gang, enlists his help in smuggling a barrel of brandy, it's bound to end in disaster!

It was a warm, sunny evening and Captain Pugwash was teaching his crew to sing sea shanties when Cut-throat Jake launched his attack. It seemed all was lost until Tom, the quick-witted cabin boy thought of a wonderful plan to rescue the gallant captain.

The cowardly Captain Pugwash and his crew are marooned on an island with his most deadly enemy, the villainous Cut-throat Jake. And somewhere on that island lies buried treasure.

One day Captain Pugwash bought some cheap paint in a sale and decided to spring clean the Black Pig. But he didn't find out until too late that the paint was luminous. Once again it was up to Tom the cabin boy to come to his aid and rescue him from Cut-throat Jake.

In an old Spanish fort, on Cactus Island in the Caribbean, Cut-throat Jake and his ugly crew are having a party. Little do they suspect that Captain Pugwash is menacingly close by, followed by an extraordinary sea monster! Pugwash's plans go awry, but all ends happily with help from cabin boy, Tom.

Captain Pugwash can hardly believe his luck. Five hundred gold crowns, just for taking four barrels of brandy over the channel! Only Tom, the cabin boy, knows what the barrels really contain: some of the most villainous scoundrels around and their most terrible leader, Cut-throat Jake.

When eccentric Professor Dupont tries to track down his troupe of brightly-coloured cockatoos, they're always just one step ahead of him. This counting book won the 1992 Smarties Children's Choice Award.