Dixie O'Day: Up, Up and Away!

Dixie, Percy and their new friend, Ariel, are off on an adventure in the clouds. Making a speedy getaway from their archenemy Lou Ella, they find themselves soaring away in a hot-air balloon! But there are stormy skies ahead"

Be swept away with Dixie and Percy in an action-packed airborne escapade from mother-daughter pairing Shirley Hughes and Clara Vulliamy. These first chapter books have chapter for each night of the week and are full of maps, extra activities, and everything needed to empower a new reader.

"A witty and beautifully designed series for emerging readers" THE SUNDAY TIMES

Shirley was born in West Kirby, near Liverpool, and studied fashion and dress design at Liverpool Art School, before continuing her studies at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford. She then embarked on a career as a freelance illustrator in London, where she still lives today. She illustrated other writers' work, including Noel Streatfeild, Alison Uttley, Ian Seraillier, Margaret Mahy and notably Dorothy Edwards'sMy Naughty Little Sisterseries.

Shirley began to write and draw her own picture books when her children were young. Her first book -Lucy and Tom's Day- was published in 1960, and she followed it with, among others,Doggerand theAlfieseries.

Shirley Hughes has won the Other Award, the Eleanor Farjeon Award, and the Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration twice, forDoggerin 1977 and forElla's Big Chancein 2003. In 2007Dogger wasvoted the public's favourite Greenaway winner of all time. Shirley received an OBE in 1999 for services to Children's Literature.

A runaway hot air balloon, a parrot in search of a new home, and the dastardly Lou-Ella hot on their heels - Dixie and Percy are Up, Up and Away!