Scholastic New Zealand Limited began its innovative publishing programme in the mid-1970s with the world's first Big Books for shared reading in the classroom. Currently the small publishing team produces over forty new titles per year, featuring the best New Zealand writers and illustrators. The breadth of their list covers interest levels from 0 to 16 years of age. Visit our site at http://www.scholastic.co.nz/

The Bedtime Treasury of Real Fairy Tales

Four much-loved stories are retold in a style and length best suited for reading to children and bedtime. The readings are accompanied by wonderfully produced photographic images that will have children fascinated with their life-like interpretations of these traditional stories.

The King's Bubbles

King Bill is admiring the bubbles he blows … but is dismayed when they all float away. He demands that they be brought back, so the hapless royal advisors devise all sorts of schemes to try and retain a roomful of bubbles.

The King's mood gets grumpier and grumpier, until he goes to the top of the hill and blows some more bubbles … and, on further contemplation, decides that the glorious thing about bubbles is that they DO float away.

The Adventures of Denzil, Apprentice Wizard

That crazy medieval wizard's apprentice is back in print! Creating mayhem wherever he goes, Denzil is laugh-out-loud fun.

Now there's a fourth title in the series, never before published - The Silver Dragon. Denzil lives in a time when monks copy books by hand using quills and ink, and write on parchment made from animal skins. Books are rare and very precious, and only the rich can ever learn to read. However, Denzil has travelled by magic to the future and there, in the home of his friend Sam, he has seen books made on machines - and suddenly Denzil wants to invent such a machine.

But as usual, Denzil's spell gets out of hand and puts himself, and his friends from the future, and even the history of his world, in the most terrible danger.

Duck's Stuck

Duck waddled.
Duck quacked.
Duck ate grass.
Duck napped.

Grumbling tummy
woke Duck up.
What's the time?
Time to sup!

But duck's gobbling of food leads to one stuck duck! The other animals have suggestions for solving the problem but it is rat who has the answer - and who gets the food in the end.

The Mouse That Danced

Margaret Beames' charming text tells of little Fay Mouse's love of dancing, and the danger it causes the other mice when they all gather to watch. Look out for the clever names in the text - Fay Mouse (the aspiring dancer), Nonny Mouse (the shy one) and Enor Mouse (the big, brave one).

Yo, Shark Bait!

Rory loves fishing more than anything … but as the story opens he is involved in an incident that sees him overboard with a huge mako shark.

The event changes him. Now he has developed a fear of the water, and fishing doesn't have the same appeal.

So when his school principal decides to put him in charge of their fundraising effort - a fishing competition - Rory is torn between two fears … fear of the water and fear of appearing foolish.