Comparing the short, happy lives of rats with the long, complicated, dissatisfied lives of humans can lead to depression for the humans. The answer: simplify.

A family of wizards and witches living in an ordinary neighborhood in an ordinary town decides that they have had enough of the noisy family living next-door and makes them disappear.

The funny, touching story of an unlikely friendship from master storyteller Colin Thompson George lives with his grandmother and a big empty space where his mother and father should be. One Friday on his way home from school, George visits the animal shelter. There, in the very last cage, is Jeremy, a sad dog who looks as lost and lonely as George feels. When Jeremy comes home to live with George and his granny, their whole lives change, and they learn that when it comes to love, it's quality not quantity that counts . . .

Hidden within the pages of this intriguing book are the letters and numbers which make up Ruby's numberplate. Ruby was made in 1934 by Austin Motor Company in Longbridge, England. She’s shiny, she’s beautiful and this is her story.

Every night for two years Peter searches in the library for the lost book on how to live forever, and when he finds it, he makes an important decision.

"The Smith family has always been a little bit different. Their food is usually burnt, homework is a foreign country that they prefer not to visit, and their house is full of strange and unusual things. Other children might collect stray animals, but Peter and Sally Smith bring home an old lady from the local shopping mall. Mr and Mrs Smith aren't quite sure she should stay, but Granny bustles past them and settles right in. Maybe she's just what they've been missing."--Provided by publisher.

"Everything in this book is true. You might think some things are just too unbelievable or funny or silly to be true, but every tiny detail really did happen." Take one small boy; add manic depression, three wives, three daughters, two divorces, amazing creative talent, and Asperger's syndrome. In this memoir, Colin Thompson invites you to explore his almost-unbelievable life from past to present, though not necessarily in that order. Filled with family photographs and mesmerising illustrations drawn by the author himself, prepare to step inside the life and mind of an extraordinary man. If you, or your friends or relations, have ever felt that you do not fit in this world, then this book will tell you how one person survived it all.