Childhood is Bill Cosby country. In this entertaining and endearing book, which ranges from the warmly to the wildly funny, Cosby holds forth with the most marvellous stories he has ever told about his childhood. Here are tales you'll never forget, including his heroic quest for Spanish Fly and his day as a school crossing guard - when he fell dizzily in love that he almost waved his heartthrob under a bus.

Childhood finds Bill Cosby in the territory he knows best: amid the trials of bedtime (fears of bedwetting and the Loch Ness Monster) and the tribulations of bad table manners; coping with the early demise of his children's pets and his own days spent smoking in the boys' room; out on the streets playing stickball; and back home lusting after Wonder Woman.

Youth may be wasted on the young, but Bill Cosby's boyhood - which hasn't completely ended - is an international treasure.