The Old Nurse’s Stocking-Basket

A Puffin Book -- stories that last a lifetime.

'Children,' said the Old Nurse, 'stop quarrelling or you know what...'

Every night when the children were tucked up in bed, the Old Nurse would pull out a pair of stockings from the mending-basket and while she threaded her needle she would look in her memory for a story that fitted the size of the hole. The children always stopped their bickering at once, for none of them wanted to miss her extraordinary stories of princes and princesses, Greek gods, sea captains and other wonderful characters she had come across in her hundreds of years as a children's nurse. All the tales were so entrancing that the boys could hardly be blamed for sometimes making large holes on purpose, so that they'd have a long story to match!

The Old Nurse's Stocking Basket is a charming collection of fairytale stories, a classic bed-time story, with charming line drawings by Edward Ardizzone.

ELEANOR and her brother HERBERT FARJEON were born in the 1880s into a highly literary family. Eleanor published nearly 70 books, most of them were for children. She won many literary awards and the Eleanor Farjeon Award for children's literature is presented annually in her memory by the Children's Book Circle.