Having a parrot foisted upon him isn't Harry's idea of a decent legacy. But soon Harry discovers that his parrot has hidden talents. He's an ace at board games, a fund of useful information and a natural mimic.

Poppet is a little African elephant. When he is born, his mother warns him against mice because they run up elephants' trunks. Poppet spends some time asking various creatures if they are mice and then, to his horror, one of them says 'Yes'. However, Momo the mouse persuades Poppet that he's been told an old wives' tale and the two become friends. Poppet's mother is horrified but is won over in the end by Momo's eloquence.

The great thing about being 75 years old is that you can wear your slippers everywhere - Percy Sloggett wears his in the garden and to the shops as well as in the house. In time his battered old slippers need to be replaced and he gets something of a surprise when he discovers that his new pair are magic. They make him feel years younger and also make him strong and clever. Percy is desperate to tell someone his secret and so tells his friend's grand-daughter, Lollie - for of course children understand magic better than adults do. Percy's slippers turn out to be life-savers as they enable him...

Laurence Higgins, an enormously fat black cat, has breakfast with Mrs Higgins, lunch with the Normans, tea with old Mr Mason and supper with the Barclay-Lloyds. None of them know why he is so fat on just one meal a day Lawrence is happy until he finds the walking from house to house tiring and begins to get indigestion. His friends tell him to lose weight if he wants a girl friend so he begins to spend one day in four with all his owners. He gets thinner but the cat he fancies down the road tells him she doesn't like slim boys - she's lost her heart to an enormously fat black cat she used to...

Dick King-Smith, creator of Babe the Sheep-Pig, presents the cleverest guinea pig in the world Judy s classmates snigger when she claims guinea pigs are brainy. But, when her guinea pigs have a baby son, she decides to call him Jenius and train him to prove her point. Soon he can do all kinds of clever tricks, and Judy can t wait to show him off at school. After all, what could possibly go wrong?"

Dumpling wishes she was long and sausage-shaped like her two brothers and other dachshunds, instead of being short and stumpy. One day she goes to the woods and meets a witch's cat who grants Dumpling her wish, but the spell goes wrong and Dumpling gets longer and longer She's very happy to return to her own shape again.

When Farmer Buzzard's collie, Kay, has four puppies, he doesn't know what to do. Three are fine puppies which he can sell, but the fourth is the ugliest puppy ever. No one wants to buy him and, as he grows, it becomes clear he'll never make a sheepdog - and he certainly isn't house-trained.

Laura is amazed when her baby brother George starts talking to her when he's only four weeks old, particularly as he sounds like a grown-up It's a big secret to keep from their parents and the rest of the family and leads to all sorts of comic confusion until George's first birthday - when he makes a speech to his startled family.

Flora was born on the first day of term in the new school year, which might be why she s a very special mouse indeed a mouse who has taught herself to read Flora lives in a classroom, and is determined to learn all sorts of things that no mouse has ever learned before. Her family is horrified at first, but then Flora s reading saves their lives "

A nonsense story about Og and Ut, the gombrizils, who make friends with Tumblerum Wollycobble, the slobbadunk. They cure his indigestion and he helps them hatch their egg and bring up their daughter, Okay. Now part of the family, Tumblerum watches Okay grow up and saves her life when a tree falls on her during a storm.