Poppy has graduated from picture books into these reassuring, well-observed, read-alone stories about the nature of friendship and a small girl's hopes and fears

Great gung-ho stuff

A powerful and original young writer. By the time I'd finished the book, I wanted to go on a Creep myself

One can't help thinking that if there were more writers like Keith Gray, more teenagers would read

This book tackles adolescence head on; it deals with themes of friendship and loss, bullying and revenge

All demand to be read in translation of the originals and not sanitized retellings. Here, by examining letters, journals, annotations and posthumously unavailable papers, Zipes found some hitherto untranslated "ironic and macabre fables, humorous anecdotes, stories about the crusades, Norwegian legend, one 'feminist' tale among other things