Boot: The Creaky Creatures

This is a thrill-ride of an adventure, with illustrations by Ben Mantle bringing Boot's world to life. Fans of Toy Story and Charlie Changes into a Chicken will love this hilarious, warm-hearted story about a small robot on a big adventure: full of fun, friendship, and a large number of malfunctioning robot pets.

'Fast, funny and furious. These are definitely my favourite robots.' Eoin Colfer

Boot was once a toy robot, but it has come a long way since it was scrapped and woke back up with only two-and-a-half glitchy memories. When Boot catches sight of a robot pet it used to know - Mr Piggles - our hero and pals follow it to a beautiful green square in the city of skyscrapers.

Here they find not just real nature, but also a haven for broken and rejected pets. They also meet the children who look after the pets, and for whom this green space is a sanctuary too. But Boot is distracted by its emotions, swinging from happy to sad ... maybe Boot is broken? Can it work out what is wrong, with the help of its friends?

Illustrated throughout in glorious black and white by the award-winning Ben Mantle, this is an unforgettable tale of resilience and hope.

Read more of Boot's adventures - shortlisted for the Sainsbury's Book Award - including Boot: small robot, BIG adventure and The Rusty Rescue.

Shane Hegarty (Author)
Shane Hegarty was a journalist and editor of the Irish Times, and before that worked in radio and the music business. Now a full time writer, he is the author of the bestselling middle-grade series, Darkmouth - which is currently being developed into a big screen animation. Darkmouth was nominated for the Waterstones Prize. Boot is his first series for younger readers. He lives near Dublin with his wife and a brutally honest young readers focus group - otherwise known as his four children.

Ben Mantle (Illustrator)
Ben was born in Leamington Spa in 1980, and developed a very early interest in things artistic, designing programme covers for school productions and even coming first in his local library colouring-in competition. From there he went on to study animation at Surrey Institute of Art & Design, graduating in 2003. He moved to Brighton to work as 'Head of Animation' in a media company, focusing on Character and Background design. Since 2008, Ben has been working as a Children's Book Illustrator from his shared studio in Brighton.