In Coketown, there's no place for imagination. There are facts and figures and absolutely nothing else - or so Thomas Gradgrind thinks. When the circus appears in town, it brings Sissy Jupe with it. A young girl who has been abandoned by her father and is taken in by Thomas Gradgrind. Full of fun and energy, will Sissy save the Gradgrind children from a life of fact-and-figure-filled misery before it's too late?

Philip Gooden is a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford and taught English for many years and is a member of the Medieval Murderers group who have written ten books together. He is the author of the Nick Revill series and of The Durham Deception and The Ely Testament. He has also written a large number of non-fiction books including literature guides for students and popular reference titles about language.