It's unbearable... The bird's perch is swinging to and fro and hitting me on the nose. I can see my eye in its little mirror. Unbearably weird... You have the foulest feet ever. There are flies for lunch. A goat swallows your opal. And you have lived before.

"This is unbelievable. This is unreal. What is going on here? First I get a toilet seat stuck around my face and now this little parrot is following me around."

Unseen events like... the dead coming back to life...

Here are six magical stories to thrill and enchant you. Listen as Blackberry Blue rises from the bramble patch; follow Emeka the pathfinder on his mission to save a lost king; and join Princess Desire as she gallops across the Milky Way on her jet-black horse. These beautifully written and original stories will delight listeners of all ages.

Billy Slipper is a fairly normal boy with a not-so normal family. All he wants to do is add to his 'Collectabillya' (an assortment of weird and wonderful objects) in peace, but his cleaning-mad mum and his horrid twin sister have other ideas. However, they don't bargain on Billy finding his best ever Collectabillya - Jumblecat! Jumblecat is...well, a jumbled-up cat (who talks, by the way), and he's set to change their lives forever.

When Nelson's beloved big sister goes missing on a school trip, Nelson is devastated - he's not that good at making friends, and his sister is the only person he can talk to. His parents join the search party and leave Nelson in the care of his mad uncle Pogo. Uncle Pogo is the caretaker of St Paul's Cathedral, and it is here that Nelson stumbles across a machine, invented by Christopher Wren and buried for hundreds of years. Designed to extract the seven deadly sins, the machine has a fault - once extracted, the sins become living, breathing monsters.

George loves to help out at hidden Wormestall Farm, even though it's full of 'extinctly' scary creatures, like the dodo in the dog bed and the dinosaurs in the duck pond. When Mortifer the giant basilisk goes missing, it's up to George to find him before wicked taxidermist Diamond Pye can add to her stuffed animal collection...

Twelve-year old twins, Mika and Ellie, live in a future behind a wall - safe from the plague animals beyond. Or so they've been told. But when one of them disappears, and the other takes part in a sinister virtual reality game, they begin to discover their concrete world is built on lies. Determined to find each other again, they go in search of the truth. And as a strange sound in their heads grows to a roar, they find out that children and the planet have never mattered more.

Chipo and his little sister Gentle live on Papa Fudu's dumpsite in Rubbish Town, searching for valuable things amongst the rubbish to try to stay alive. Life isn't easy - luckily, Chipo has spirit, courage and lots of imagination! But when he finds something precious that Papa Fudu wants for himself, he knows they are in danger. Suddenly they're on the run.

Tam often takes refuge in the ruins of Thowt It Farm when he is unhappy at home. One day he follows an old beggar woman and her dog to the farm and is transported back to the Second World War. There he makes friends with May, who has been rescued from a bombed-out house and now refuses to eat or sleep indoors. When Tam gets into trouble in the town, May comes to his rescue.

Elise loves the farm that is her home; she loves playing with beetles and chameleons in the garden, buying sweets from the village shop and listening to the stories of spirits and charms told by her nanny, Beauty. As a young white girl in 1990s Zimbabwe, her life is idyllic. Her clothes are always clean and ironed, there is always tea in the silver teapot, gin and tonics are served on the veranda, and, in theory at least, black and white live in harmony.

Wicked wolves and a grim governess threaten Bonnie and her cousin Sylvia when Bonnie's parents leave Willoughby Chase for a sea voyage. Left in the care of the cruel Miss Slighcarp, the girls can hardly believe what is happening to their once happy home. The servants are dismissed, the furniture is sold, and Bonnie and Sylvia are sent to a prison-like orphan school. It seems as if the endless hours of drudgery will never cease.

When the mysterious Nowhere Emporium arrives in Glasgow, orphan Daniel Holmes stumbles upon it quite by accident. Before long the 'shop from nowhere' and its owner, Mr Silver, draw Daniel into a breath-taking world of magic and enchantment. Recruited as Mr Silver's apprentice, Daniel learns the secrets of the emporium's vast labyrinth of passageways and rooms - containing wonders beyond anything Daniel has ever imagined.

Summers span decades. Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun. As Warden of the north, Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of the Hand. His honour weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he must...and a dead enemy is a thing of beauty. The old gods have no power in the south, Stark’s family is split and there is treachery at court. Worse, the vengeance-mad heir of the deposed Dragon King has grown to maturity in exile in the Free Cities. He claims the Iron Throne.

Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!

Odd's luck has been bad so far. He lost his father on a Viking expedition, his foot was crushed beneath a tree and the winter seems to be going on forever. But when Odd flees to the woods and releases a trapped bear, his luck begins to change. The eagle, bear and fox he encounters reveal they're actually Norse gods trapped in animal form by the evil frost giants who have conquered Asgard, the city of the gods....