Twenty-Five December Lane

On Christmas Eve, a girl looking for the perfect present finds a magical shop with every toy possible, and meets a mysterious customer buying all of them up...

In all the bustling streets on Christmas Eve, one girl can't find anywhere selling the right present. That is, until she finds one warm shop on a very cold street, with a pointy-eared shopkeeper welcoming her into Twenty-Five, December Lane.

Inside is every toy she could ever dream to find, but as she looks around for just the right one, a large, bearded stranger is sweeping everything into a sack - but who is he, and who are all those presents really for?

A reissue of Helen Ward and Wayne Anderson's classic Christmas tale, perfect for families to read together through the winter.

About the Author

Helen Ward trained as an illustrator at Brighton School of Art, under the direction of well-known children's illustrators such as Raymond Briggs, Justin Todd, Chris McEwan and John Vernon Lord. In 1985, her final year at Brighton, Helen was awarded the first Walker Prize for Children's Illustration.

Awards for Helen's work include The National Art Library Awards 1998 and 2001 for The Hare and the Tortoise and her version of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows in the Templar Classic series, and The National Art Library Award for The Tin Forest. She was shortlisted for the prestigious Kate Greenaway Award in 2003 for The Cockerel and the Fox. This book also won the award in the children's trade category at the British Book Design and Production Awards presented in November 2003.

Helen Ward lives in Stroud, Gloucestershire.

About the Illustrator

Wayne Andersen has been illustrating in his colour pencil style for over 40 years and is renowned for his playful imagination and fantastic imagery. His titles for Templar include contributing illustrations to the worldwide best-seller Dragonology.