Pappy Mashy loves newspapers, he reads them all. He spends so long sitting in his favourite armchair reading that he has no time for his nine children or to help Mommy Mashy with the housework. As the days go by, poor Mommy Mashy gets thinner and thinner, until one morning she is too ill to get out of bed. That is when Rosie, the cleverest of all the Mashy children, takes charge. Kathy Henderson's other books include Sam and the Big Machines (one of Parents Magazine's Best Books for Babies), 15 Ways to Go to Bed (shortlisted for the Smarties Book Prize), Second-Time Charley , Jim's Winter and In the Middle of the Night .