Books published by publisher Troika

One morning, at the foot of a tree on the African plain, a strange creature is found. It's fluffy and puffy. What can it be? The meerkats declare that it is a wild Fluffalump. Eagle says there is no such thing, Buffalo thinks it must be a bird, Hyena says it squeaked and wriggled when he gave it a poke, and Giraffe finds it has toes. By now the Fluffalump is hungry and thirsty and when it is nipped on the bottom by Crocodile it trumpets loudly. And across the plain comes Elephant, who dumps it in the lake for a wash, and Fluffalump is revealed to be . . . ?

One morning, at the foot of a tree on the African plain, a strange creature is found. It's fluffy and puffy. What can it be? The meerkats declare that it is a wild Fluffalump. Eagle says there is no such thing, Buffalo thinks it must be a bird, Hyena says it squeaked and wriggled when he gave it a poke, and Giraffe finds it has toes. By now the Fluffalump is hungry and thirsty and when it is nipped on the bottom by Crocodile it trumpets loudly. And across the plain comes Elephant who dumps it in the lake for a wash and Fluffalump is revealed to be . . . ?

This is Spot's story and he tells it in his own words. Born rough on the streets of Brooklyn, he realises from an early age that he is destined to become a dog adventurer. One terrible day Spot's entire family are carted off by the god police. Spot is broken-hearted and realises his mission is to search for his mother and brothers. He vows he will go everywhere and do everything he can to to reunited with them. Living rough as a dare-devil street dog, a series of remarkable events occur. Spot meets some extraordinary new friends and a few terrible enemies.

1940. Like most of his London contemporaries, 15 year-old Jack Riley is evacuated into the countryside to escape a city menaced by bombardment. But Jack manages to escape farm life and return to London where he joins his father, an auxiliary fireman with ‘Blue Watch’, and experiences the London Blitz at first hand as he works for the fire service as a bicycle messenger.

This wondrous poetry collection captures eye-popping moments, tender observations and a thousand whimsical reflections on the sheer joy of the natural world. Thought-provoking, sensitive and delightfully original, Cherry Moon poses big questions about life with poems and other small gatherings of words; encouraging children of every age to explore the power, enchantment and sheer wonderfulness of nature.

More Zany fun from Vlad the tiny vegetarian vampire. In Vlad the Drac returns, Vlad comes back to England to pursue his career and chooses to stay in an expensive hotel. But the guests feel uncomfortable being under the same roof as a Vampire, even though as vegetarian Vlad faints at the sight of blood! He then moves in with Paul and and Judy but things go awfully wrong when he gets shut in the fridge, falls in the food mixer and is then Vladnapped!

Aife and Stray are a child and a pig (with an eye-patch). They are invited to a dazzling party by the ultra-trendy Prunella Bonbon. But what on earth will they wear? Looking for new clothes, they visit seven colourful eccentrics who paint Aife and Stray’s world in their own unique colours. Arriving at the party they realise that by trying to conform they have ended up looking like everyone else! They make a brave decision and return as themselves, dungarees, holey socks and all. Prunella’s joyful reaction to this teaches a valuable lesson in judgement, friendship and love and learning to like who you are and how you look.

A child and their dog explore the woods. As they look around they think what it would be like if dragons were actually living there. There are strange footprints in the mud, there is mist coming from a cave that looks like dragons' breath and, hidden in the fallen leaves, could those be dragon eggs? A wonderful, imaginative picture book to share with young readers with pictures that take their inspiration from medieval woodcuts of dragons and their glowing colors from stained glass windows.

To celebrate 50 years since the first moon landing by Apollo 11 in 1969, here is an original collection of 50 poems. In his poems Dom tells us of two incredible things—the Moon is incredible: it controls our tides, to give us 24-hour days, and it keeps our planet stable enough to have seasons. Dom reminds us that poetry too is incredible because it is the most flexible form of expressing ourselves and has been always how we used to tell stories, particularly about our ways of seeing this incredible Moon. The Moon is an inspiring rock of possibilities. To tell us this, Dom uses lots of poetry forms: short poems and long ones, silly ones and serious ones. There are haiku and sonnets, acrostics and shapes. He uses kennings and metaphors and slang. He uses established rhythms which you might find in older poems and he uses the rhythms he hears in his head when his son smiles at him. So take up the challenge: Read the poems, fly to the moon, land on it, orbit it. Go to walk on it, live on it, steal it, eat it!