A collection of traditional and original stories that can be read aloud in five minutes, including tales from Alaska, Japan, and Africa.

Hetty /Anne Fine -- Strange egg / Margaret Mahy -- Town mouse and the country mouse / Aesop retold by Fiona Waters -- Glass Cupboard / Terry Jones -- Blind man catches a bird / Alexander McCall Smith -- Bear who liked hugging people / Ruth Ainsworth -- Zap! / Dick King-Smith -- Man who didn't wash his dishes / Phyllis Krasilovsky -- Woman who grew butterflies / Wendy Eyton -- Soup Stone / Leila Berg -- Thirteen cats / Daphne Lister -- Rip Van Winkle / Washington Irving retold by Fiona Waters -- Happy birthday, Nana Barbara! / Pippa Goodhart -- Keeping warmth in a bag / retold by Fiona Waters -- Eggs / Joan Aiken -- Brer Rabbit to the rescue / Julius Lester -- Milly-Molly-Mandy goes blackberrying / Joyce Lankester Brisley -- Ally Bally and the magic bag / Tony Mitton -- There's no such thing as a fairy / Simon Puttock -- Hunted hare / retold by Ethel Johnston Phelps -- What's the time, Rory Wolf? / Gillian McClure -- How the camel got his hump / Rudyard Kipling.