Rats come to life and eat book

Could this...

these....

and these

be responsible for this...

and this... or it just because IT'S REALLY OLD?

Paddy and the Ratcatcher

Naughty town council doesn't pay the ratcatcher's bill. In revenge, he magics away all the parents with his saxophone playing and infests the town with a plague of rats, leaving the kids in charge until the town council coughs up.

Laurie's verdict: I loved this story but the book's so old it makes you feel dirty when you read it.

Fat-legged spider boy

Mum pulls off the legs of a large spider and attaches them to her son

Kelso takes his spider legs to bed much to the horror of dinosaur

Look out behind you

Shame he can't fix the book 

 Kelso's Carnival

Kelso's Carnival sees Kelso dress up as a rather too convincing spider to raise money to plant trees in this 1994 falling-apart-at-the-seams special.

Laurie's verdict: The pictures freak me out. He looks too like a real spider.

Tim and the Hidden Illustrations

The front page has almost been washed away by the waves...or 20 years of little fingers? 

Inside fares little better with the pages looking like they've been soaked by the sea 

The Storm over the Sea 

A boy and his friends are trying to escape some witches but their boat gets caught up in a storm in this 20 year-old cellotaped special.


Tom's verdict:  A bit grubby and a bit boring.

Spineless Toey and his creepy owner

Poor Toey looks on aghast at the state of his spine

No wonder he's taking refuge in the jungle 

Journalist Fred Dinenage

Mark and Josie get a new ginger kitten called Toey but one day they go to the jungle at the bottom of their garden and lose him. Or do they? Has Toey in fact run away, deciding to fend for himself rather than being fed and petted by a young Fred Dinenage wearing a toupe and pinny? After giving up hope of ever finding Toey, they get a new kitten, a tabby with shiny paws. But a few weeks later they come across poor Toey in the jungle and make him return home.

Laurie's verdict: Apart from the creepy mum and the fact that it looks as though it's going to fall apart at any moment, I really liked the story.

Cops and robber hats

Ben and Katy see bank robbers leaping into a Starsky and Hutch-style car

 Katy looks on in surprise as her friend levitates at the park entrance

Took him to see a what? 

Looks like the gap in the park railings has shrunk preventing the robbers escape

 Cross robber wearing cake mixture throws a dark look at the pesky kids

Katy and Ben mime the whole adventure to uninterested mum 

                             
The Bank Robbers

Katy and Ben watch inept bank robbers hide in a park with only one rapidly shrinking entrance and foil their escape.

Samuel's verdict: The plot is stupid. The robbers would take off their robber hats and go home.
                           

How do you make a princess cry?

Ghosts and sad stories don't work 

Not even 50 spiders crawling on her bed makes her shed a princessy tear

Neither does the wise man with his big dragon in the woods 

The Princess who could not cry

For some bizarre reason the King thinks there's something wrong with his daughter because she's always laughing and happy in this 1991 special. He employs the services of several wise men who devise various nasty surprises to make her blub, but they find that only onions do the trick.

Samuel's verdict: Reading our school books would make her cry.

Crazy, confused horses and kids



Reading all about Lucy's holiday and then...

we jump 12 pages to some horse facts before returning to the story



 Lucy's in despair with her spoilt story

The Spoilt Holiday

 

Lucy's holiday is spoilt by a rubbish cellotape repair job that interrupts her dream-like adventure with a fairground horse with some down to earth horse facts.

 

Samuel's verdict: What?