Journeyman toymaker Stefan Drosselmeyer is recruited by his mysterious cousin, Christian, to find a mythical nut that will save Boldavia's princess and his own kidnapped father from a fanatical Mouse Queen and her seven-headed Mouse Prince, who have sworn to destroy the Drosselmeyer family.

IN JUST ONE year, Jack Knob has gone from being a young man beginning to realize his dreams to one whose desperate thoughts are aimed at helping his struggling family. Max Prentice, who has had his eye on Jack for sometime, is a successful toy-maker and the owner of a toy store in Chicago. Yet, when Jack's desperate thoughts begin to turn into action, Max intervenes, shows Jack the error in his thinking, and hires Jack to be his apprentice. Indeed, all is going well, until illness confines Max to bed and results in his wife Mildred running the store. With little remorse, her first act is to fire Jack. To learn what happens to Jack, Mildred, and even Max, turn the knob and enter the shop.

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Are curses real?After a toymaker magician gives a lecture at a collector's club soiree, an important spell is stolen and a man is found strangled. The investigation into his murder leads India and Matt to the colorful and dangerous world of the Romany gypsy where curses are used as weapons against their enemies. But nobody seems to know if curses are real or not.As Matt and India close in on the killer, old foes bring trouble into their lives. With the threat of exposure hanging over London's magicians, disaster is never far away. Then one fateful day, catastrophe strikes the Park Street household.

Toymakers of the Black Forest strive to create the perfect toy and win the king's prize of a thousand gold pieces.

A few weeks after I made an attempt to rocket power a Dinky Toy, nearly blowing up the Toolroom in the process, I left the Meccano factory to present myself at Cardington Air Force Base to do my National Service in the R A F. Three days later I was back, having been pronounced unfit to serve Queen and Country because I had suffered two severe bouts of pneumonia as a child. At a previous medical I had been graded A1. My family were happy to see the return of the ‘prodigal’, not so my current girlfriend, she had wasted no time in finding a replacement. After my explosive exit I was also less than welcome when I arrived back at Meccano on the following Monday but, because I had left to do my duty in the armed forces, by law they had to give me my job back. I was immediately moved into the Tool Repair, next door where, presumably, they thought I would be out of harm’s way, and the main Toolroom staff would be safer without a budding bomb maker in their midst. Life moved on, then one Sunday afternoon I happened to be near Binns Road and decided to pay a nostalgic visit to the old Meccano factory, now closed. Outwardly the building looked much as I remembered but when I peered in through a small window set in one of the massive doors I looked upon total devastation, demolition was well under way. For a long time I gazed as the memories flooded back so real and fresh, that I realised such unique experiences should not be allowed to simply fade away as the place in which they were created was fading away, they must be preserved. And so . . . . All the incidents in this narrative actually happened although, obviously, not precisely as depicted. This book has not been written to extol the wonderful products which poured from the Binns Road production lines for over fifty years, that has been done many times, but rather it is to bring to the reader the experiences, good and bad, happy and sometimes traumatic of a young apprentice growing up in the legendary factory that was Meccano. Except for the author most of the names have been changed to protect the innocent (and the not so innocent).

An orphan and thief, Hugo lives in the walls of a busy train station. He desperately believes a broken automaton will make his dreams come true. But when his world collides with an eccentric girl and a bitter old man, Hugo's undercover life are put in jeopardy. Turn the pages, follow the illustrations and enter an unforgettable new world!