The Peterkin Papers record the antics of the most memorably and hopelessly bumbling of respectable American families.

Jenny Linsky, the famous little black cat of Greenwich Village, has never been to school before. When her master, Captain Tinker, sends her to a boarding school in the country she is a little afraid, among strangers, and so far from home.

Father has had a sorely trying day, but what he finds when he comes home isn't going to make it any better.

Supposing a very beautiful lady fell in love with me and wanted me to marry her but I just yawned and said Maybe . . .

One summer's eve Ola, Lina, Sina, and Trina leave their village to gather firewood, when a giant rooster, the terrible troll-bird, pops up out of the treetops and devours their beloved horse Blakken. Little does the terrible troll-bird know that he has finally met his match.

Even if she is ten years old, terrible, horrible Edie really isn't terrible and horrible at all, but rather one of the most charming and engaging and gutsy children in American children's fiction.

Little Ola, the hero of Too Big has a shock of blond hair, a devoted dog, and a frisky cat, but today he's discovering that he's too big to do lots of things he wants to do. One day, he might just find that there's quite a bit a big boy can do after all.

On a moonlight night an old jalopy and a shiny new sports car race through the streets to find out who is the fastest and best. The d'Aulaires, whose books of Greek and Norse myths have enchanted older children for generations, present younger children with a modern take on the fable of the tortoise and the hare.

Unimaginably rich, invariably swathed in a magnificent purple dressing-gown, Uncle oversees a vast ramshackle castle full of friendly kooks while struggling to fend off the sneak attacks of the incorrigible Badfort Crowd.

Uncle will need all the help he can get from his faithful assistant Old Monkey and from Goodman the literate cat-and possibly a wizard's spell-to get through the mess created from the celebrations of their triumph over Badfort.