Showing results by narrator "Thomas Judd" in All Categories

Mary Poppins takes Jane and Michael on a topsy-turvy day. A boy watches over a beautiful swan. These classic stories are wonderful to share and enjoy with your child at any time of the year.

Paddington Bear tries to buy a birthday present, the animals of Brambly Hedge set off to the seaside. A greedy queen insists on having the biggest tree in the world, but will Cinderella get to go to the ball?

Jason Cowley, editor-in-chief of the New Statesman, examines contemporary England through a handful of the key news stories from recent times to reveal what they tell us about the state of the nation and to answer the question Who Are We Now? Spanning the years since the election of Tony Blair’s New Labour government to the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, the book investigates how England has changed and how those changes have affected us.

It’s nearly midnight on the eve of the millennium when 18-year-old Joel’s heart stops. A school friend, Kerry, performs CPR for almost 20 exhausting minutes, ultimately saving Joel’s life, while her best friend, Tim, freezes, unable to help. That moment of life and death changes the course of all three lives over the next two decades: each time Kerry, Joel and Tim believe they’ve found love, discovered their vocation, or simply moved on, their lives collide again.

Despite the many films and television programmes over the decades since the end of the Second World War that portrays our allied heroes as grown-up men and women, the Battle of Britain was in the main actually fought and won by teenagers. The average age of an RAF fighter pilot was just 20 years old. Many of the men and women who designed and built their planes were even younger.

In Human Frontiers, Michael Bhaskar draws a vividly entertaining and expansive portrait of humanity's relationship with big ideas. He argues that stasis at the frontier is the result of having already pushed so far, taken easy wins and started to hit limits. But new thinking is still possible. By adopting bold global approaches, deploying cutting-edge technology like AI and embracing a culture of change, we can push through and expand afresh.

Alex loves magic tricks - and he's good at them, too. But when he stumbles into eccentric Mr Olmos' back garden, he sees a kind of magic he can't explain: three tiny flames floating in the air. Soon, Alex and Mr Olmos are swept up in a great adventure of secrets, genies and an ancient, bitter rivalry.

Twelve-year-old Jones is an orphan, training as an apprentice hunter alongside his mentor, Maitland, tackling ogres, trolls and all manner of creatures that live in the Badlands. When an ogre hunt goes wrong and Maitland is killed, Jones finally has a chance to find out where he came from. But the truth he uncovers isn’t what he’s expecting, and it seems that if Jones is going to make his dream come true he’ll have to defeat a creature not even Maitland had dared take on, and he won’t be able to do it alone....

Jones, Ruby and Thomas Gabriel have spent the summer apart following the extraordinary events of last winter - Jones is now a “normal” boy living with his parents, Ruby is secretly training to be a Badlander and Thomas Gabriel has commenced and has his own Badland area to protect. But magic is about to pull them back together once more, as they are tasked with hunting down the all-powerful magical artefact The Black Amulet, with each hoping it will hold the secret to their problems....

3rd September 1938. Martin Preston is in his second year of Oxford when his world is split in two by a beautiful redhead, Nancy Whelan. A whirlwind romance blossoms in the Buckinghamshire countryside as dark clouds begin to gather in Europe. 3rd September 1939. Britain declares war on Germany. Martin is sent to the battlefields of France, but as their letters cross the channel, he tells Nancy their love will keep him safe. Then, one day, his letters stop.

Everyone has one. An ex you still think about. The one who makes you ask, 'What if?' Fifteen years have passed since Stella and George last saw each other. But something makes Stella click 'yes' to the invite to her school reunion. There's still a spark between them, and although their relationship ended badly, they begin an affair. But once someone gets you back, sometimes they're never going to let you go again....

The North Atlantic, 1816. John Sackhouse, a native Greenlander, drifts in his canoe perilously close to death. He is rescued by a passing whaler whose captain, the enigmatic Owen Chase, believes John is a gift from God destined to lead his ship to untold riches. But the ship's crew do not trust John and decide he must be done away with - until a spectacular event changes everything. Soon the ship is bound for the bustling port of Nantucket, where John must learn to cope with his celebrity status.

He's going to a place he's never been before: home. Moon Two is a space station that orbits approximately 250 miles above Earth. It travels 17,500 miles an hour, making one full orbit every 90 minutes. It's also the only home that 15-year-old Leo and two other teens have ever known. Born and raised on Moon Two, Leo and the twins, Orion and Libra, are finally old enough and strong enough to endure the dangerous trip to Earth.

School has finished for good, and Jack and his friends - Ella, Austin, Ava and Sai - are giving their online social media platform, Generation Next, the ultimate relaunch: a stage takeover at the world's biggest musical festival. When you're interviewing famous stars and streaming the footage all over the globe, what could possibly go wrong? The takeover is the gang's most epic task yet, and when they meet TV producer Ethan, he seems like the perfect person to help out.

They say there's no place like home. It's where the heart is....Meet the little boy who believes in miracles. Meet the mother who loves to bring babies home from the newborn aisle of her supermarket. Meet the husband who carves a longed-for baby out of ice as a gift for his wife. Meet the widow who is reminded of romance whilst standing at the kitchen sink. In this prize-winning short story collection, Carys Bray weaves together moments of joy, heartache, sadness and unwavering love as told through 17 very different notions of home.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS prevent Britain descending into war-torn anarchy? Great Britain, 1995: With terrorist bombs destroying town and city streets, rising crime and a teenage drug problem that is out of control, police forces are stretched beyond their limits. And now a new threat is looming. A fanatical right-wing movement is spreading into the UK.

James Patterson's BookShots. Fast-paced, high-impact entertainment. When former SAS captain David Shelley goes looking for an old comrade who has taken to a life on the streets, he finds his friend is dead. An MI5 agent contacts Shelley and arranges a meeting. All the signs point to murder, and the agent believes this is part of something much bigger. The only way Shelley can discover the truth is to put himself on the streets - and into the same danger that got his friend killed.

July 1981: while Gambian President Jawara attends a royal wedding in London, Marxist rebels seize power. Fearing armed intervention from neighbouring Senegal, they take hostages - including one of the president's wives and several of his children - and empty the prisons in a desperate search for allies in the coming struggle. As opposing factions of the police force wrestle for control, prisoners settle old scores, slaughtering almost 2,000 Gambians. In tourist beach hotels, hundreds of Europeans fear the worst.

The debut novel from YouTube sensation Oli White. Things haven't been easy for Jack recently - life as a teenager has its ups and downs. But when he meets a new group of friends who are every bit as geek as they are chic, his luck seems to be changing. Each of the group is talented, and when they pool together to create Generation Next, an incredible new kind of social media platform, it's clear that they're on to something special.

In a future London, Concentr8 is a prescription drug intended to help kids with ADD. Soon every troubled teen is on it. It makes sense, doesn't it? Keep the undesirable elements in line. Keep people like us safe from people like them. What's good for society is good for everyone. Troy, Femi, Lee, Karen, and Blaze have been taking Concentr8 as long as they can remember. They're not exactly a gang, but Blaze is their leader, and Troy has always been his quiet, watchful sidekick - the only one Blaze really trusts.