Mr Majeika - Humphrey Carpenter

As a rule, magic carpets don't turn up in schools, but this is exactly what happens when Class Three's new teacher flies in through the classroom window and lands on the floor with a bump.

Mr Majeika can behave just like any ordinary teacher if he wants to, but something has to be done about Hamish Bigmore, the class nuisance, and so he uses a little magic to turn him into a frog. And to everyone's delight it looks as if Hamish will have to remain a frog because Mr Majeika can't remember the spell to turn him back again! With Mr Majeika in charge, suddenly life at school become much more exciting - there's even a magic-carpet ride to Buckingham Palace!

Humphrey Carpenter was born and educated in Oxford and worked as a broadcaster for the BBC before becoming a full-time writer in 1975. He wrote many award-winning biographies, including J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, Spike Milligan and others. He also co-wrote The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature with his wife, Mari Prichard. His highly popular Mr Majeika series was successfully adapted for television. From 1994 to 1996 he directed the Cheltenham Festival of Literature and for many years ran a young people's drama group, The Mushy Pea Theatre Company. Humphrey Carpenter died in 2005.