Faber Children’s buys MG adventure by Bell

Faber Children’s has acquired the UK and Commonwealth rights to a middle-grade adventure involving zebra unicorns, pygmy dinosaurs and polar bears by Alex Bell.

The Polar Bear Explorers' Club is about a girl called Stella, who is desperate to join her father's expedition to the Icelands, despite girls being forbidden. When she is finally permitted to join, she and three other young explorers get separated from the rest of their party, and have to outsmart frostbite fairies, carnivorous cabbages and ice magic that can freeze the heart before they can get home.

Publisher Leah Thaxton bought the UK and Commonwealth rights in a three-book deal from Thérèse Coen at Madeleine Milburn.

Thaxton said: “This gorgeously imaginative, frosty, fantasy adventure had the whole team in raptures. Eye-wateringly beautiful, confident and assured, there is something of Philip Pullman's Northern Lights about it. This is a very very special book and a major acquisition.”