The naughty step is the place where Sam has to go when he has done something he knows he really shouldn't have. There is nothing to do there except think, and normally he has the step all to himself. Then one day someone else sits down bedside him. It's Captain Buckleboots - a pirate who has been very very naughty indeed and needs some help to work out how to say sorry.
Mark Sperring fell in love with books after reading Gobbolino the Witch's Cat as a child. For many years Mark worked in a storeroom unpacking boxes of books before finally writing some of his own. Mark currently lives in Bristol.
After studying illustration at Falmouth College of Arts Tom worked as a full-time political cartoonist before he stumbled into the world of animation when he won a bursary to direct his short animated film, The Girl With The Pink Shoes, as part of the Animated Exeter festival. Since then he has gone on to design and create a number of animated TV concepts with Honeycomb Animation. Tom lives in Devon with his wife, two sons and a scruffy cat.