This is an utterly delightful tale where animals come to life one night in a shop starting with a stuffed stripy horse who wants to know his name. But who can help? That’s when the adventure begins – thrills, spills and some seriously silly situations occur until he and his friends meet Ming…
In the tick-tock quiet, a shaft of moonlight tickles the nose of something sleeping. It's a stuffed, stripy horse. He twitches. Then an enormous dusty sneeze echoes round the room. He's awake. So begins this charming story, all about a forgotten toy who can't remember his name. He is befriended by Muriel (a hummingbird who flutters off the pattern on a lamp), Hermann (a daft draught excluder), and Wedgie and Woodie (penguin-shaped salt and pepper shakers), and embarks on an adventure to meet Ming, a wise and ancient Chinese vase cat, who is the only person in the shop who might be able to tell him who he is.
Jim and Karen live in South London. Karen still works as a textile designer when she’s not creating picture books, and Jim works in the publishing industry. They won the picture book category of the Sheffield Book Award for their first book Letterbox Lil (OUP) in 2007. They also recently won first prize at the Dundee Picture Book Award for Who Are You, Stripy Horse? and last year it was awarded silver in the Practical Pre-School Awards.