Tractor Trouble

by Steve Augarde, Elinor Bagenal

For all children who are fascinated with tractors and the workings of big machines, here's a humorous pop-up book about a tractor that breaks down and gets fixed. When the wheel on Ted's tractor goes WIBBLE, WOBBLE, WIBBLE, WOBBLE, he takes it to the repair shop. There Fergus and the reader study the Tractor Repair Manual and use the Big Thumper to get the wheel off and straighten it out. When the tractor is working again, Ted drives it through the tractor wash and children will love pulling the tab and watching the tractor get a good scrubbing. There's a lot for young readers to do on every page, with many ingenious pull-tabs and pop-ups. Bright, appealing art and sturdy construction for even the littlest tractor drivers make this a great gift for kids who love big vehicles.

10 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

I began writing children's books when I was at art college, which means that I’ve spent over thirty years as a children's author. Must be nearly time to grow up. About eighty titles published to date, I think. These include story books and pop-ups for younger readers, as well as my more recent novels for older children. I'm also an illustrator and paper-engineer, and you can see examples of this type of work around the site.

Sometimes I provide the paper engineering for pop-up books by other artists and children's authors - Jan Pienkowski, for example, Emma Chichester-Clark and Damien Hirst.

Finally I'm a semi-pro musician, playing mostly jazz. I provided the music and artwork for two BBC children's television series of Bump the elephant. Mind you, that was ages ago, and so it's high time somebody sampled it for a dance track and made me a fortune.

My first major work for older children was The Touchstone Trilogy, completed in January 2008, the three titles being The Various, Celandine and Winter Wood. The Various was an award winner in The Nestle Smarties Book Prize 2003. Both Celandine and Winter Wood have been nominated for the Carnegie Medal.