There's never been anything scary under the bed since I was born, and there is nothing scary now. I really believe that. I keep believing it for about five minutes. Then I get less sure. Mum, Dad, Harry and Nana are at their wits' end. How can they prove to Toby that there are no monsters under the bed, so that they can finally get some sleep? Will a new bicycle help? Or a magic spell? Or does this call for something completely different...? This is a wonderful new Blue Banana about facing fears as a family, from Anne Fine, a former Children's Laureate whose awards include the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Book Prize. All Bananas are book banded, making them perfect for use in schools and for parents keen to support their children's reading.

Author Biography

Anne Fine is one of Britain's most distinguished writers for both adults and children. She has twice won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award, as well as the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, the Smarties Prize and numerous other regional and foreign awards. She has twice been voted Children's Author of the Year. The BBC have screened adaptations of several of her books, and her novel Madame Doubtfire was transformed into a Hollywood film starring Robin Williams in 1993. Anne was Children's Laureate from 2001-3, during which time she set up www.myhomelibrary.org, a website that continues to offer a host of freshly designed and freely downloadable modern bookplates to enthuse children to form their own home libraries from the second hand books around them. She also published three classic anthologies of poetry for different ages, called A Shame to Miss 1, 2 & 3. She has published eight highly acclaimed black comedies for adults, and her work has been translated into forty-five languages. In 2003 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and awarded an OBE. Anne has two daughters and seven grandchildren, and lives in County Durham, UK. Her most recent book for Egmont is: UNDER THE BED.