From the world of Babette Cole
Welcome to The Trouble With Series
A brilliantly upside-down world of chaotic families, suspicious grown-ups and children who are usually the most sensible people in the room.
Enter the world
There is trouble everywhere
Explore the series, step inside the illustrations and discover the artist behind the chaos.
Meet the troublesome grown-ups
Five books and no sensible adult supervision.
Explore the series
Gran is not quite what she seems
A seaside trip becomes considerably stranger when Gran reveals her true talents.
Meet Gran
Uncle goes looking for treasure
There are whales, pirates, shipwrecks and one rather unexpected romance.
Meet Uncle
Original artwork from the books
Explore selected illustrations and pieces available through the website.
View original artworkThe original series
Meet all the Troublesome families
Five unforgettable picture books published between 1983 and 1992, each taking an ordinary family relationship somewhere completely ridiculous.
The Trouble with Mum
The Trouble with Dad
The Trouble with Gran
The Trouble with Grandad
The Trouble with Uncle
From the original books
Explore the illustrations behind the trouble
Discover our collection of original illustrations from The Trouble With series, with artwork details, book connections and stories from the archive.
The imagination behind the trouble
Babette Cole
Babette wrote and illustrated more than 70 books, delighting generations of readers with stories that challenged conventions, celebrated unruly imaginations and rarely allowed grown-ups to remain in charge.
This website focuses on the worlds, books and characters she created.
Read more about Babette
Her stories combined anarchic humour with sharp observations about family life, growing up and the rules adults expect children to follow. She trusted young readers to understand the joke and was never afraid to make the grown-ups look ridiculous.
Across books including The Trouble With series, Princess Smartypants and Mummy Laid an Egg, Babette created worlds full of independence, mischief and wonderfully unexpected behaviour.
Where will the trouble begin?
Choose a book and meet the family
Start with Mum, meet Dad’s robots, travel with Gran, inspect Grandad’s vegetables or sail away with Uncle.