Do you like bears called Padlock? Course you do. Do you like hot-air balloons? Course you do. Do you like tall sailing ships with mad sea captains, and horrifying old villains and words like wab', 'tungler' and 'kelp'? Course you do! Well, guess what, you lucky little nibbleheads? This book's got all of those things - and a lot more besides.

Good evening, brave reader! But you are brave enough to join Polly and Friday as they climb Goblin mountain to battle the forces of evil? For be warned. This book is full of swords and trolls and witches and a thing that looks like a gherkin. And somehow that old roo-de-lally Mr Gum is all mixed up in it too.Shabba me whiskers , it's a Burpin Epic!

Okay, this book's a bit hard to describe. There's this gingerbread man with electric muscles, see? And he's rich as a mushroom, right? And Mr Gum and Billy William are planning to get the cash, yeah? And it's up to Polly to save the day. And there's a funfair and hot dogs, and Friday O'Leary shouts out some crazy stuff, and... hey, that wasn't so hard to describe after all!

Mr. Gum is a complete horror who hates children, animals, fun and corn on the cob. This book's all about him, an angry fairy who lives in his bathtub, Jake the dog, and a little girl called Polly. YOU'RE A BAD MAN, MR. GUM! is the first book in the internationally best-selling series by Andy Stanton, which has won everything from the Blue Peter Book Award (twice) to the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and the Red House Children's Book Award. This edition celebrates the 10th anniversary of its first publication.PRAISE FOR YOURE A BAD MAN, MR. GUM:"Worryingly splendid." - Guardian

Good evening, children, on this dark and windy night. Now, come gather round the fireplace, for 'tis time for strange tales to be spun. Like the tale of Polly and that old tumbledown windmill by the riverside. But just what is the windmill's terrible secret? Why is Mr Gum lurk-lurk-lurkin' about? And how much does Old Granny know? Gather closer, children, for all shall be revealed... BRRR! SPOOKY!

A brand-new lowered reading age edition of a laugh-out-loud tale from the bestselling author of the Mr Gum series. Sterling Thaxton is in love. In love with Lizzie Harris - the beautiful new girl. Her hair is the colour of magic. Her nose is as sweet as music. Her arms are as slender as rainbows. Problem is, she's not interested. Luckily a small yellow canary turns up with some excellent advice. A brand new edition of this laugh-out-loud story of young love from Mr Gum author and King of Funny Andy Stanton, now with a lowered reading age of 7.

AI is changing the world at frightening speed. A bestselling author decides to find out more… ‘Something profound and utterly brilliant is going on… hilarious.’ THE TIMES Is ChatGPT the end of creative industries as we know them? An ethical quagmire from which there is no return? A threat to all our jobs, as we keep hearing on the news? Bestselling children’s author Andy Stanton has made a career out of writing differently – from the unconventional ‘hero’ of his bestselling Mr Gum series to his penchant for absurdist plots, his children’s books are anything but formulaic. When a friend introduces him to ChatGPT, the new large language chatbot, Andy is as sceptical as he is curious. Can this jumble of algorithms really mimic the spontaneity of human thought? Could it one day replace human authors like him for good? And are we soon to be ruled over by despotic robot overlords? He decides there’s only one thing for it – he must test this bot’s capabilities. Eventually, he settles on a prompt that will push the algorithm to its creative limits: ‘tell me a story about a blue whale with a tiny penis.’ Chaos ensues. What follows is a surprising and illuminating battle between Andy and ChatGPT that maybe, just maybe, might help us all understand AI a little bit better. Join Andy and his beleaguered AI lackey on a rollicking metafictional journey through the art of storytelling. Presenting his prompts and the AI-generated narrative alongside extensive commentary, Stanton provides a startling paean to the art of a good story and boundless human creativity. Hopeful and hilarious, Benny the Blue Whale provides a joyfully anarchic meditation on AI, literature and why we write. *** A WATERSTONES AND NEW SCIENTIST BEST BOOK OF 2023 ‘There’s no book like it. Scholarly, childish, fascinating and hilarious – one of our funniest writers dissects what it takes to build a story and what that tells us about being human. It’ll really make you think, if you can stop laughing.’ Chris Addison, co-creator of BREEDERS ‘Entertaining and alarmingly relevant, provocative and philosophically satisfying, it’s ultimately a profoundly human text.’ OBSERVER ‘A magnificent experiment by a perfect fool – deep and shallow and stupid and clever – the perfect use of AI (Andy Intelligence).’ Robin Ince, author of THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING INTERESTED ‘Benny the Blue Whale is many things. It’s a fascinating discourse on the nature of language and storytelling. It’s a philosophical treatise on the possibilities of artificial intelligence. It’s a receptacle for obscenely hilarious jokes... A brilliant and beautiful cyborg: part human brain, part computational muscle. It’s a post-post-modern work of genius.’ Anthony McGowan, Carnegie Medal-winning author of LARK

Recovering Abundance: Twelve Practices for Small-Town Leaders invites readers to live a new story--to join a movement of renewal for small towns and rural communities. Andy Stanton-Henry provides twelve civic-spiritual practices, rooted in Jesus's miracle among the multitude, that rural and small-town leaders can use to renew their congregations and communities. Each chapter explores how one practice was demonstrated in the story, has been embodied in small-town and rural leaders and communities, and can be applied today. Through these twelve practices, Stanton-Henry helps readers tune in to an alternative story, one he discovered in his own rural Ohio community. Yes, he saw the commonly lamented decline and devastation that have brought suffering to rural Americans and that seem to foster resentment and despair. However, as he dug deeper into the stories of his neighbors, he began to notice that small towns and rural regions are working. They are working to build inclusive, thriving, local economies, to weave a welcoming social fabric in their region, to cocreate a positive future--following the practices he explores in this book. Recovering Abundance is a new story about the agency and creativity of what Stanton-Henry calls "ordinary leaders," not a story about scarcity and deprivation but one of abundance and generosity.

There is an ancient curse on the town of Lamonic Bibber. The old roo-de-lally Mr Gum and his trusty sidekick Billy William the Third have something to do with it. But heroes Polly and Friday and the gingerbread biscuit Alan Taylor are determined to save the town.

The inhabitants of Lamonic Bibber are terrorised by a mysterious fearsome hound.