Alex Bell

Bestselling author Alex Bell serves up mystery and dark humour aplenty in this Willy Wonka-esque middle-grade tale of toys brought to life. Shadows of teddy bears flit across windows. Dolls whisper behind closed doors. Something has gone very wrong at Hoggle's Happy Toys. But five years after shutting its doors, the toy factory is opening again, and Tess Pipps has...

Twelve-year-old Eli is an apprentice librarian at the largest library in the world. But when his grandmother falls ill, he enters the Glorious Race of Magical Beasts to raise money for her treatment. This annual race is always held in the most perilous places and is full of spiky dangers. Most participants seek out unicorns and dragons to help them...

All aboard for The Train of Dark Wonders! The second book in the magical must-read middle-grade series. Bess can’t wait to see her friends from the Train of Dark Wonders and head off on another adventure together. But she has her duties as owner of the Odditorium to think about. Most importantly, the gateway to other worlds needs a new...

Ursula knew the submarine wasn't designed to go this deep, but what choice did they have? No one wanted to get swallowed up by a colossal sneezing jellyfish!In a distant watery corner of the Explorers Kingdom, a submarine engineer, Ursula, is determined to become an explorer. Unfortunately, she hides an extraordinary secret, which makes her the sworn enemy of the...

Explorers on Witch Mountain by Alex Bell follows Stella Starflake Pearl, who is eagerly anticipating her next expedition. Suddenly, disaster strikes when Stella's father, Felix, is snatched by a fearsome witch. Stella must bring her magic ice princess tiara to Witch Mountain, or she will never see Felix again! But no one ever returns from Witch Mountain... Stella, along with...

Ice princess Stella Starflake and her father Felix are in trouble: President Fogg has expelled them from the Polar Bear Explorers' Club, and banned them from going on any further expeditions. Stella's not going to be put off by rules and regulations though. She knows her friend Shay is in danger of turning into a witch wolf himself, since receiving...

Trouble is brewing for Bess at the Odditorium, where the secret door to the dark and dangerous Land of Fairytales is about to open… Can she finish what her grandfather started and bring down the Evil Queen Cinderella once and for all? Escape from the Castle of Illusions by Alex Bell takes readers on a thrilling adventure where the stakes...

The Poison Tentacle Sea was home to the powerful Bone Current. As they had feared, it gave a sudden surge and pulled them in. Half-mermaid Ursula Jellyfin has always longed for adventure, and this time the stakes are higher than ever. The Collector is holding a group of children prisoner on Pirate Island, and it's up to Ursula and her...

Directly below was a sight none of them had ever seen before - a kind of spiral, with glowing ruby-red lights that curved outwards like tentacles. In the middle was a dark circle, inky black. It had the look of a really, really deep well. Ursula and her friends are in a race against time. The Collector has taken Stella...

It sounded like a respectable and worthy enough death for an explorer - tumbling from an ice bridge to be impaled upon a mammoth tusk - but Stella really, really didn't want that to happen, just the same. Join Stella Starflake Pearl and her three fellow explorers as they trek across the snowy Icelands and come face-to-face with frost fairies,...

On Bird Rock, gannets circle and thick mist surrounds the lighthouse at its centre, hiding the secrets of a tragic past within … From the second they set foot on the island to join their dad and his new family, Jess and Rosie feel that something’s wrong. Nightmares haunt their dreams and there seems to be someone, or something, else...