Item category 1: Picture book

"The Mousehole Cat" was the winner of the British Book Award for the Illustrated Children's Book of the Year and the British Design Production Award (Children's Books). It was also shortlisted for the Smarties Prize, the Kate Greenaway Medal and the Children's Book Award. A picture book favourite...

Follow the family's excitement as they wade through the grass, splash through the river and squelch through the mud in search of the bear. What a surprise awaits in the cave on the other side of the dark forest.

A little girl learns about the Masai tribe at school and daydreams about what her life would be if she had been born a Masai. Comparing her life and theirs she learns that their dignity is something that she can also acquire and that she has her own spiritual and even physical kinship with them.

Originally written by Juliana Horatia Ewing in the 19th century, this story is retold here by award-winning writer Berlie Doherty. Two children believe that an old man they meet in the snow is Father Christmas himself. Never realizing his true identity, they have the best Christmas ever with him.

A story in which three baby owls wake up one night in their hole in a tree to find that their mother has gone. Darkness gathers and the owls grow anxious, until at last she returns and they bounce up and down with joy. Illustrated by Patrick Benson in full colour.

Two brothers and their parents spend a day at the zoo, looking at the animals in the cages - or is it that the animals are watching the visitors? This winner of the 1993 Kate Greenaway Medal is a teasing examination of the relationship between man and animals, and the role of zoos.