A collection of short, lively and often amusing essays on various problem and mysteries about children’s literature, raising serious as well as light-hearted issues which will appeal to the general readers as well as the scholar.

This is an encyclopedic work, arranged by broad categories and then by original authors, of literary pastiches in which fictional characters have reappeared in new works after the deaths of the authors that created them. It includes book series that have continued under a deceased writer's real or pen name, undisguised offshoots issued under the new writer's name, posthumous collaborations in which a deceased author's unfinished manuscript is completed by another writer, unauthorized pastiches, and "biographies" of literary characters. The authors and works are entered under the following categories: Action and Adventure, Classics (18th Century and Earlier), Classics (19th Century), Classics (20th Century), Crime and Mystery, Espionage, Fantasy and Horror, Humor, Juveniles (19th Century), Juveniles (20th Century), Poets, Pulps, Romances, Science Fiction and Westerns. Each original author entry includes a short biography, a list of original works, and information on the pastiches based on the author's characters.

Billy Bunter is not numbered amongst the brightest pupils at his school - except for one rare talent - his remakable gift of ventriloquism! And the sole talent lands him in the worst trouble of his fat life - expulsion from his alma mater.