The blue whale is the biggest animal that has ever lived on Earth. Curious young minds will love reading this sensuous exploration of what a blue whale feels, sounds and smells like, and learning facts about a whale's size, life-span, diet, babies and more. Previously part of the acclaimed "Read and Wonder" series, "Big Blue Whale" has been re-launched in the new "Nature Storybooks" series with a brand new look and accompanying CD with fun facts, songs, sound effects and a story reading by TV actor Stephen Tompkinson.

12-year-old twins Matt and Emily Calder are Animare: they can bring art to life and enter paintings at will. They must do everything in their power to prevent a breach in Hollow Earth: a supernatural place that holds all the demons, devils and creatures ever imagined. The Hollow Earth Society are getting closer to finding the key that will release the beasts: an ancient bone quill whose powers can be only be used by a powerful Animare.

The quill has been lost for centuries, but important clues to its whereabouts lie somewhere on the island of Era Mina - as does the entrance to Hollow Earth itself. Matt and Em must find the quill and protect it through their drawings, through certain famous paintings and, ultimately, deep into the mists of time itself. But their lives in the relative safety of Auchinmurn Abbey are thrown into confusion with the arrival of a newcomer who threatens to ruin everything they have worked for.

'Eight years later the City of Dunce has forgotten about Bran. Even his foster parents don't seem to know he exists. But there are those who have been watching, biding their time, waiting to strike, people who know where Bran came from and why he was sent away.

Captain Teachum has a reputation as a wicked and terrible pirate. He has, so his readers are told, led a life of crime: capturing ships, making his enemies walk the plank, and burying stolen treasure all over the world.