The Naked Ghost, Burp! and Blue Jam
The Naked Ghost, Burp! and Blue Jam is a miniature collection of short stories by Australian author Paul Jennings. It was released in 1991 and is part of the Clipper Fiction series.
The Naked Ghost
A boy goes down a well, believing a legend about a boy who went missing there many years ago. When he enters the room at the bottom of the well, he is attacked by the boy from the legend – who is alive, corporeal, but naked and invisible (a "naked ghost"). The naked ghost steals the boy's clothes, which causes the pair to trade places: the naked ghost becomes visible and escapes, while the boy becomes the new "naked ghost", and is left trapped in the room at the bottom of the well.
The boy remains trapped alone in the room for 50 years. Eventually, another boy ventures into the well; the naked ghost steals his clothes and escapes, exactly as had been done to him before. Once he returns to civilisation, he finds the new technology strange; for example, he refers to a TV as "a box with moving pictures that talk".
Burp!
A boy buys junk food from the school canteen every day. His teacher gets annoyed, as does one of his classmates. But when he moves to a new house, he finds a spellbook; one of the spells allows him to pass his obesity to others. So every day, he eats enough junk food to make him sick; whenever someone insults him, he casts the spell on them.
Peppi, the ice-cream man from the Unreal story Smart Ice-Cream, makes a cameo appearance.
Blue Jam
A man who lives in an opal-mining town makes a living by selling jam. One day, he buys an enchanted plum tree that 1) grows very quickly, 2) produces fruit even during winter, and 3) tries to strangle him whenever he picks its fruit. However, he makes the plums into jam that the whole town becomes obsessed with.
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| Short story collections | |
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| Picture books | Rascal series |
- Rascal The Dragon
- Rascal In Trouble
- Rascal's Trick
- Rascal Takes Off
- Rascal At The Show
- Rascal And The Cheese
- Rascal And Little Flora
- Rascal And The Hot Air Balloon
- Rascal And The Monster
- Rascal Goes Fishing
- Rascal And The Dragon Droppings
- Little Rascal To The Rescue
- Rascal Plays Up
- Rascal Runs Away
- Rascal's Shadow
- Rascal and the Bad Smell
- Rascal Bumps His Head
- Rascal's Big Day
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| Miscellaneous |
- Teacher Eater (1991)
- Grandad's Gifts (1993)
- The Fisherman and the Theefyspray (1994)
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| Chapter books | Cabbage Patch series |
- The Cabbage Patch Fib (1988)
- The Cabbage Patch War (1996)
- The Cabbage Patch Pong (2002)
- The Cabbage Patch Curse (2004)
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- The Paw Thing (1989)
- Singenpoo Strikes Again (1998)
- Singenpoo Shoots Through (1999)
- Singenpoo's Secret Weapon (2001)
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| Gizmo series |
- The Gizmo (1994)
- The Gizmo Again (1995)
- Come Back Gizmo (1996)
- Sink the Gizmo (1997)
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| Miscellaneous |
- The Spitting Rat (1999)
- Sucked In (2000)
- Maggot (2003)
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| Novels | |
- The Slobberers (1997)
- Battering Rams (1997)
- Croaked (1997)
- Dead Ringer (1997)
- The Creeper (1997)
- Till Death Do Us Apart (1997)
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| Deadly series (with Morris Gleitzman) |
- Nude (2000)
- Brats (2000)
- Stiff (2000)
- Hunt (2000)
- Grope (2000)
- Pluck (2000)
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| Miscellaneous | |
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| Puzzle and joke books |
- Spooner or Later (1992)
- Freeze A Crowd (1996)
- Duck For Cover (1997)
- Spit It Out (2003)
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| Compilations and bind-ups |
- Thirteen! Unpredictable Tales (1995)
- Wicked: All six books in one (1998)
- Uncollected: Every Story from Unreal!, Unbelievable!, and Quirky Tails (1998)
- Uncollected: Volume Two: Every Story from Uncanny!, Unbearable!, and Unmentionable! (1999)
- Uncollected: Volume Three: Every Story from Undone!, Uncovered!, and Unseen! (2000)
- Deadly: All six books in one (2000)
- The Fantastic And Amazing Gizmo (2002)
- The Many Adventures of Singenpoo (2002)
- The Cabbage Patch Fibs (2002)
- Paul Jennings' Funniest Stories (2005)
- Paul Jennings' Weirdest Stories (2006)
- Paul Jennings' Spookiest Stories (2007)
- Paul Jennings' Trickiest stories (2008)
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| Miscellaneous |
- Round the Twist (1989–2001)
- The Reading Bug...and how to help your child to catch it
- Round The Twist #1: Pink Bow Tie & Nails (a graphic novel) (1993)
- The Paul Jennings Superdiary 1996
- The Paul Jennings Superdiary 1997
- The Paul Jennings Superdiary 2002
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