The Garden Creatures of Fairfax Lane: The Dipping Dragonfly

At the end of the road on Fairfax LaneBehind a small wall—surprisingly plainThere is a garden that’s full of lifeTenderly cared for by Mr Crankshaw’s wife The Dipping Dragonfly learns to focus on one thing at a time, getting twice as much done, to have double the fun. Follow along with our rhyme…The aim of this picture book series, The Garden Creatures of Fairfax Lane, is to supply your children with the tools to manage their mental health. Each story provides an example of a subtle change you and your child can make to manage your thinking. It provides you with a medium to navigate developmental themes and, therefore, project the characteristics of the creatures in real-life scenarios.

The Forest – Big Oak

As Ashton was cycling home from school one autumn day, he heard an almighty sigh coming from the forest, “Aaaahhhhh…” and then a loud crying, sniffling and weeping noise. When he eventually got home after cycling as fast as he could, he asked his daddy, mammy and two big brothers what the noise could have been. They all had suggestions but Ashton knew that they were not the right answers.

With the help of his best friend, Jack, they decided to investigate themselves. Walking through the forest in fear, the two boys stumble upon a very big oak tree crying out loud to himself. After they befriend the big oak tree, they invite their school friends, family and teacher Miss Brownson to join them in decorating the big oak tree for Christmas. Along the way, they make more friends including two crows and get a surprise that happens right beside the big oak tree.

Ashton asked his granny for help as winter was coming. The days are getting colder with snow starting to fall. All of Granny’s friends join her in the forest knitting woolly scarves and jumpers for the big oak trees. There are grannies knitting, laughing and singing everywhere. They are high up and low down with their legs wrapped around the branches holding onto the big oak trees. This is just the start of many more adventures to follow in the forest.

The Fat Boy

Phat lives on an isolated farm with poor facilities. He is often surrounded by sporty pupils who seem to laugh and have fun. So, he enters a “keepie uppie” competition and deals with the many problems he encounters in the hope that he can also be a happy schoolboy. Hopefully this story will inspire others to overcome life problems and help those who live in some sort of isolation, like loneliness, to achieve a better and more fulfilling life by working hard to achieve this goal.

The Fairies Who Lost Their Powers

The fairies sit together in the glen, where they devise a plan to restore power to some of the fairies who have lost theirs. It is not going to be an easy task, so careful planning is called for.
Sonya, the leader of the group, outlines what has happened to the fairies. Some have lost their sparkle, some their skip, others their jumping skills and some have lost their ability to flip. She knows whose help is needed to restore these powers.
Georgie Grasshopper, Sammy Seal, Skippy the Kangaroo and the fairies, Melanie, Glenda and Rosie will be asked to help Sylvie, Simone and Fay. These are good friends, and Sonya knows they will gladly help out. Losing their powers is something the fairies do not like, and they will be ever so grateful to their friends for helping them. Sometimes all it takes to make things right is a little help from friends. The world looks a brighter place for all when this happens.

The Eraser Quest

Blotch is a seemingly ordinary eraser, living in a classroom and being used and worn away. However, he actually possesses a huge imagination and is very creative.

One day, he decides to retrieve all the lost dust that’s come off him. So what happens as he journeys across the classroom?

The Dreamling

Dreams are our mind’s way of showing us things, sometimes they take us to places where our imagination can run wild.

Most of us have dreams and we all hope our dreams come true, this is what we hope you will understand from reading this book.

Let your imagination take you to the places the characters are going to and join them on their adventures.

The Dream Machine

Meet Ella, at 5 years old she knew she was a big girl and a big sister too, but she just couldn’t seem to sleep in her own bed at night.

Even Joseph was sleeping through the night and he was only one!

Ella’s parents had tried everything and they had run out of ideas.

One day, Grandad comes to stay. Could he be the one to help Ella?

Join Ella as she embarks on a night time adventure. Will she ever be able to sleep in her own bed at night?

The Dragon Who Could Not Fly

Dave is sad as he is the only dragon in his class who cannot fly, but he and his classmates learn that Dave has a different talent. Something that makes him just as special.

Read on to find out what happens in this beautifully illustrated children’s book!

The Day After Christmas

The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore has been a popular Christmas story for many years, but what happened forty-eight hours later? The Day After Christmas is a charming story from the viewpoint of a young girl, written in verse but doubling up as a colouring book. Share Boxing Day with ten-year-old Samantha and her younger brother Mark and then enjoy colouring in the pages.

The Dancing Magpie

The Dancing Magpie, which you are holding in your hands, is written by the well-known and award-winning writer Marina Kretova. The purpose of the book is to adapt the child to the processes of life and help him learn to find contact with the natural world and with people. This simple and easy-to-read book shows how parents can develop a child in a fun way and prepare them for social interaction.

It is written in the genre of short, funny stories that combine fantasy with reality and serve the purpose of building moral ideals and improving family communication and understanding. They are also pleasant bedtime stories.

The book will be useful to children as well as parents and grandparents.

The Crumb Monster

In a small town like many others, people used to throw away over-bought and unconsumed food that began to attract the little Garbage Monsters. In a short time, these monsters came to invade the city and become more and more greedily in search of food waste.

In the fight with the Garbage Monsters, the Crumb Monster comes to the aid of the people, and he becomes best friends with Vlad, the naughty and food-wasting child.

The two go through all sorts of adventures trying to stop the food waste and to carry out an education campaign for the citizens so they not to waste the food anymore.

When the Crumb Monster come to help the people, inexplicable things start to happen in the city.

The Crumb Monster is an educational story for both children and parents to stop food waste.

The Crowbars of Jikerie Island

Mrs Kerie Crowbar is unable to find her rascal of a son after returning home from the Sunday market. Much is going on with her husband, a tour guide, who drives the bus and often takes tourists by boat into the sea, spending days away from home. After coming home late last night from his job, he is sleeping. The boy was left in his care before Kerie and her daughter went to the market and at this hour of late morning, he is still sleeping like a dead log.

Kerie looks for her son in every possible place. She goes to the neighbours asking if they have seen him and goes to every meadow of the island to see if he has been chasing lizards and seagulls, but she cannot find him. Returning home utterly disappointed, she now finds her daughter to be missing as well. Kerie goes out again to search for them but finding none of her children, she comes home frustrated and disgusted. To make her go mad, this time she finds that her husband is not in his bed, or even in the whole cottage.

Where could they all have gone? Do the rhymes in the 'birdie language' of the crested cockatiel have any clues?