The Little Bookroom

27 illustrated short stories full of heart and whimsy, by the Carnegie Medal–winning author—a perfect read-aloud collection for middle grade readers who love folklore and fairy tales.

In The Little Bookroom, Eleanor Farjeon mischievously tilts our workaday world to reveal its wonders and follies. Her selection of her favorite stories describes powerful—and sometimes exceedingly silly—monarchs, and commoners who are every bit their match; musicians and dancers who live for aft rather than earthly reward; and a goldfish who wishes to “marry the Moon, surpass the Sun, and possess the World.”

Featuring an afterword by Rumer GoddenSelected as one of 100 Must-Reads (Age 13) by Instructor magazine

“To this day, a copy of The Little Bookroom sits on my nightstand. . . . I don’t remember a time when I didn’t own it.” —Sadie Stein, The Paris Review Daily

"Eleanor Farjeon’s stories and poems have been a delight to children for many years, and here she has brought together a new collection of some of her own favorite stories. . . . Storytellers will welcome it." —Library Journal

"A selection of treasures from Eleanor Farjeon’s full store of writing for children. Including some stories which have not appeared before in book form. They make a rich combination: gems for storytelling and reading aloud, for children’s own reading, and a few that may be appreciated most fully by adults." —The Horn Book

"27 heartwarming tales. . . ." —Publishers Weekly

"Twenty-seven of Eleanor Farjeon’s stories have been selected by the author herself to make an anthology in the classical fairy tale tradition yet lit with the sparks of reason needed to pry young minds loose from their moorings and to widen reading." —Kirkus Reviews

Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965) grew up in England in a house filled with books, and she and her brothers enjoyed reading stories to one another and writing their own. In America, Farjeon’s best-known work may be the hymn “Morning Has Broken,” later recorded by Cat Stevens, but in her native country she is beloved as the author of Elsie Piddock Skips in her Sleep, Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard, and, of course, The Little Bookroom. Farjeon was pleased when The Little Bookroom won the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award and the Carnegie Medal, but she turned down another honor—Dame of the British Empire—explaining that she “did not wish to become different from the milkman.” At her death, the Children’s Book Circle established the Eleanor Farjeon Award in her honor.