Charlie Small

No one knows the full story of Charlie Small. His battered journal was found washed up on a remote, windswept shore. And at first we thought it an elaborate hoax. Surely no eight-year-old could have had so many wild adventures, witnessed so many extraordinary things, lived such an incredible life - and still only be eight. And yet ...there was something so vivid in the telling, that we were persuaded to send the journal for analysis. The results were absolutely astonishing. Everything in the journal of Charlie Small is true. He really has wrestled a deadly river croc, ridden a steam-powered rhino and been tribal chief in a city of gorillas. And countless other things besides. And ...not only that ...even though Charlie Small is only eight, he must have lived for over four hundred years.

No one knows the full story of Charlie Small. At least, not yet. His original battered journal was found washed up on a remote, windswept shore in the north of England. This second volume was found encased in ice, high on a glacial plateau in the Himalayas. It details even more remarkable deeds and thrilling acts aboard the Jolly Roger with the dastardly lady-pirates of perfidy - and a lot more besides.

No one knows the full story of Charlie Small. At least, not yet. His original battered journal was found washed up on a remote, windswept shore in the north of England. Now, a third instalment has been tracked down and salvaged from beneath the seat of a bus shelter in Pimlico. Having finally escaped from the perfidious pirates, Charlie travels through icy waters and hair-raising mountains and encounters man-eating bats, a wolf whose bark is worse than his bite, and ultimately finds himself ensnared by the evil Puppet Master, a figure of pure unadulterated evil. Will Charlie manage to escape his clutches, or will he remain a puppet for ever, never to adventure again?

This fourth volume of Charlie Small's journal was found by one of our editors propped behind a bottle at the back of a dusty bar in the valley where Charlie was last seen, and it's full of more adventures than ever! Having escaped the clutches of the evil Puppet Master, Charlie joins The Daredevil Desperados of Destiny, whose sole aim is to get rid of the outrageous outlaw, Horatio Ham. Charlie, aka The Lariat Kid, brings down Ham's posse of gunslingers, takes part in a daring bank raid, is caught up in a ferocious gunfight, lands up in jail, and is about to be sacrificed to The Great Bird of Death. Can Charlie possibly escape?

In the fifth journal found by us, the lucky and smug publisher, we learn that Charlie Small has become embroiled in an underworld from his nightmares ...Previously, Charlie had bumped into the infamous Jakeman - but when the mad professor was dragged down into the Underworld, Charlie had to follow - otherwise, how would he discover how to get back to his mum and dad? This latest adventure takes him into an unreal darkened world, where anything is possible. But will Charlie Small ever find a way out, or will he be trapped underground forever?

At the end of his fifth journal, Charlie Small rocketed out of the strange and dark Underworld, over desert sands and a snowy white mountain range. With a table cloth over his head and a cushion strapped round his bottom, Charlie parachuted right into the middle of a small, swampy island. Clutching a mainly blank map that's supposed to help him find the infamous Jakeman, he sets off for the next island, only to find himself face to face with a slimy, stinking, roaring swamp monster ...Will Charlie manage to slip through its gloopy claws?