A lovestruck merpig, a peppermint-stick Parthenon, a vegetarian spider and so much more! From R.A. Spratt, bestselling author of Friday Barnes and Shockingly Good Stories , comes this collection of twenty terrific tales perfect for fans of Roald Dahl, David Walliams and Paul Jennings. Featuring Greek myths and fractured fairytales as told by Nanny Piggins (the world’s most glamorous flying pig), a mystery investigated by Friday Barnes (girl detective) and a series of tales so tall they will give you altitude sickness. This book will delight children from four to one hundred and four. Just the thing for reading at bedtime, when you’re supposed to be doing your homework or when you’ve been chased up a tree by an escaped rhinoceros and you’re waiting for the zookeeper to arrive. "Mary Poppins, move over-or get shoved out of the way. Nanny Piggins has arrived... This is smart, sly, funny, and marvelously illustrated with drawings that capture Nanny's sheer pigginess."― Booklist, starred review of The Adventures of Nanny Piggins "Reluctant and avid readers alike will get caught up in this book's humor, charm, and adventure."― School Library Journal on The Adventures of Nanny Piggins "Readers looking for nonstop giggles and cheerful political incorrectness will devour this as quickly as Nanny Piggins can consume a chocolate cake."― Publishers Weekly on The Adventures of Nanny Piggins R.A. Spratt is the author of The Peski Kids , Friday Barnes and The Adventures of Nanny Piggins . In her previous life she was a television writer. Unlike the Peski kids, R.A. Spratt never fights with her brother, but only because he moved to Tokyo to get away from her. R.A. lives in Bowral, NSW, where she has three chickens, five goldfish and a dog. She also has a husband and two daughters. For more information, visit raspratt.com Did I ever tell you the story about my cousin the cobbler?’asked Nanny Piggins. Nanny Piggins, Boris and the children happened to be eating apple cobbler at the time. Apple cobbler is a delicious dessert made with stewed apples and sweet dumplings baked on top. Nanny Piggins’ version of apple cobbler was particularly delicious because she had tweaked the recipe. Instead of just apples, she added chocolate. In fact, five kilos of chocolate for every one kilo of apple. She said this was necessary to ‘balance’ the flavour. And the children did not argue. After just one serving, Derrick, Samantha and Michael were too sugar-addled to say anything rational anyway. So when Nanny Piggins said she was related to a cobbler, this did somewhat confuse poor Michael. ‘You’re related to a fruit-based dessert?’ he asked. This was not such a ridiculous question. Nanny Piggins was a pig and yet she managed to be related to a bear (her brother) and, they had recently discovered, a goat (a distant cousin). To be related to dessert might seem strange for a normal person, but Nanny Piggins was in every way so extraordinary it was just the type of thing she’d find some way of doing. ‘No, of course not,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I do have a distant aunt who claimed to be a pavlova, but it turned out that she was simply the ballet dancer the pavlova was named after, so we stopped being impressed.’ ‘Right,’ said Michael. Although he still did not understand in the least. ‘No, this relative was a cobbler, as in a person who makes shoes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Ooooh,’ said the children, catching on. ‘Of course, her life was terribly hard,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Was she bad at making shoes?’ asked Derrick. ‘No, quite the opposite,’ said Nanny Piggins.‘Her life was hard because of the rampant pigism in the shoe industry.’ ‘The what?’ asked Samantha. ‘Pigism,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You’ve got to understand that back in the olden story days, people were not as forward-thinking as they are today. People were so narrow-minded that they preferred to wear shoes that had not been made by a pig.’ The children thought about this for a moment. Nanny Piggins had raised them to know that pigism was wrong. But,that said, they could understand someone having a preference for a shoe made by an animal with opposable thumbs. They realised, however, that saying this to Nanny Piggins would not be wise. ‘So anyway, my poor cousin Madge and her husband struggled year-after- year to make ends meet,’continued Nanny Piggins.‘It got to the point where they had so little money,theycouldnotevenaffordtobuy...’Nanny Piggins got emotional here and struggled to continue. ‘It’s all right, Nanny Piggins,’ said Samantha kindly. ‘If it’s too hard for you to go on, we don’t need a story.’ ‘No,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Poor Madge’s story needs to be told. It may be brutal, heartbreaking and distressing for young ears such as yours to hear, but you cannot be sheltered from the grim reality of life forever.Madge and her husband were so poor ... they could not afford cake.’ Boris broke down and wailed, ‘That’s terrible!’ ‘It gets worse,’ said Nanny Piggins.‘Because