Rooktime It is an ordinary summer's day when Mark and Laura Murray set off for a picnic. To their astonishment, as they ride round a familiar corner they find their way blocked by a high hedge. Abandoning their bikes, they push through the tangle of spiky twigs and find themselves not in Pike Lane, as they had expected, but standing at the edge of a vast lake. Although they do not know it, they are in Rookland, kingdom of Silver Crest, lord of the birdmen: creatures with the bodies of men and the heads and talons of giant birds. Two of Silver Crest's servants are at this moment rowing across...