Ruthless killers are hunting Ty so the police move him and his mum to a quiet seaside town. But a horrific attack and a bullet meant for Ty prove that he's not safe. On the road again, Ty's in hiding with complete strangers . . . who seem to know a lot about him. Meanwhile he's desperate to see his girlfriend Claire, and terrified that she may betray him. Ty can't trust his own judgement and he's making dangerous decisions that could deliver him straight to the gangsters. A thrilling sequel to When I Was Joe, shot through with drama and suspense.
When Ty witnesses a stabbing, his own life is in danger from the criminals he's named, and he and his mum have to go into police protection. Ty has a new name, a new look and a cool new image - life as Joe is good, especially when he gets talent spotted as a potential athletics star, special training from an attractive local celebrity and a lot of female attention. But his mum can't cope with her new life, and the gangsters will stop at nothing to flush them from hiding. Joe's cracking under extreme pressure, and then he meets a girl with dark secrets of her own. This wonderfully gripping and intelligent novel depicts Ty/Joe's confused sense of identity in a moving and funny story that teenage boys and girls will identify with - a remarkable debut from a great new writing talent.
Meet Ryan Fisher—a self-assured real estate agent who’s looking for an edge in the market. While watching a news special late one night, he sees evangelical Christians raising their hands in worship. It’s like they’re begging for affordable but classy starter homes. Ryan discovers the Christian business directory and places an ad complete with a Jesus fish. His business doubles in a week. But after visiting an actual church, Ryan realizes that with his business savvy, he could not only plant a church—he could create an empire. The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher is a hilarious, spot-on, and often heartbreaking satire in the tradition of Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Perrotta, and Douglas Adams.
The gift of reading. There could not be a greater Christmas gift. Throughout history, I ask you what circumstances have compelled any and all would-be authors to put quills-to-parchments (or, in more recent generations, put fingertips-to-keyboards) to create their miasma of pages to be collected together and called a book? It s a good question and I haven t a clue as to any short, finite answer. I only know that there are lots and lots and lots of compelling circumstances. In my particular case, at an early age I found myself interested in the How? and Why? of things I had read about or heard about or saw. No doubt there have been others like me throughout history who have bumbled, stumbled and fumbled their way through life because they were looking through curious eyes - and not necessarily through practical, comprehending eyes. Let me tell you, one stumbles frequently when trying to get somewhere while looking upward rather than downward. But it is still a trip worth taking .and while looking upward. In the late 1940s I heard on our family entertainment center (which in the late1940s was only an RCA Victor radio) Gene Autry singing the song, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and I was fascinated by the lyrics of the song. Yet I wanted to know, But why did Rudolph s nose glow? No answers to that question were forthcoming and the question remained in the catacombs of my memory for all the years thereafter. Once I had retired from my career and began to write serialized Christmas stories, I plucked the glowing nose dilemma from its dormancy and began to ask, What if . In order to write this book s first Christmas story, The First Christmas Glowing, I felt compelled to examine (and for story purposes, hypothetically answer) the following What if s : - What if, say a hundred years ago or so, there had been a long-distance message runner making deliveries amongst neighboring villages in the Great Rift Valley of eastern Africa and what if, on one of his runs, the message-runner made a substantive discovery? - What if that substantive discovery, as found on the slope of an old volcano crater, would change Christmases forever and ever? - What if that discovery had something to do with the wing-flap speed of a certain kind of insect? - What if the message-runner put his substantive discovery into a small earthen jar and what if that jar over the course of the next sixty years found its way to a once well-traveled trunk in the home of the brother of a traveling circus entertainer named Maximillian? - What if Maximillian was the uncle of a young girl (his brother s daughter) who also lived in that home? - What if Uncle Max s young niece found the jar and years later would find herself positioned and prepared to come to the aid of one of the most important Christmasses of the 20th Century? - What if there are several other adventures along the way involving magic tricks, singing wolves, a Japanese fishing boat , and an intuitivie Inuit weatherman? - And, yes, what if there is a happy ending, and it is one that you know very well and certainly have even sung about? In order to write this book s second Christmas story, A Long-Distance Christmas Greeting, I had to answer a whole raft of completely different What if s . And that is because the second story has resulted from my memory of an incident that occurred in the mid 1950s. The remembered incident occurred somewhere on the east coast of the United States and involved some historical society or a university or a city council or something-or-other creating a time capsule, filled with objects. The objects were something like tooth paste, Argyle sox, automobile hubcaps, and square-dance instructions, all to be hermetically sealed, buried, and not opened for a hundred years or so... something to provide clear evidence as to how the residents of our country lived back in the 1950s. I liked that idea, but at the time I was curious about the assembling of
A magical pen causes creative chaos in this quirky, comic-style story from the Sid Fleischman Award–winning author of Milo. Best friends Matt and Larry “Craz” Crazinski couldn’t be more different. Matt loves order, while Craz lives on the edge. The boys share a passion for cartooning, but thanks to the school paper gatekeeper (and kind-of bully), Skip Turkle, it seems their cartoons will never be published. But then the boys discover a pen that promises to help them DRAW BETTER NOW!—and quickly realize it’s no ordinary pen: Whatever they draw comes to life! They start small with their drawings—bags of cash, cool gadgets. Next, they get their pesky English teacher to take a unique and extended vacation. But when the boys get a little bolder in their magical drawings, they realize that things don’t always end up as perfect as the art they create... In this funny, slightly zany, and ultimately heartwarming story, Sid Fleischman Award–winner Alan Silberberg demonstrates the power of friendship—and that the best life is not always sketched out in advance.
On July 2, 1970, tourists in Australia spotted a smashed car, teetering precariously on a cliff edge, overlooking the raging ocean below. It seemed the car would fall into the water at any moment, but the car lingered as did a mystery, revealed when police traced the license plate to the Crawford household. Here, the police discovered the shocking truth: a mother and her three children had been murdered, with the husband and fathernow missingthe main suspect. The quadruple homicide sent a wave of panic through Australia. Where was the husband? And what would make a father kill his own children? There was much speculation but few answers, as the Crawford patriarch remained missing. Forty years passedforty years of Australias Most Wanted, police dead ends, and silence until an unidentified body appears in a Texas morgue. Almost Perfect is the firsthand look at a terrible crime from the perspective of Greg Fogartya neighbor to the Crawford family and later a member of the Victoria Police Force, Australia. Using his skills of observation and investigation, Fogarty has put together a tragic and detailed crime narrative with a shocking conclusion. Could a morgue in San Angelo, Texas, hold the body of Australias most sought-after murderer or will the Crawford homicide remain unsolved forever?
Paul McGowan tells all (and then some) in this riotous tale of misbegotten success that's 99% true in all the best ways. From his not-so-innocent youth growing up in the shadow of Disneyland and summer evenings in the innocent 1950s, to his dope-smoking, snake-eating, draft-dodging, loony-bin misadventure through Europe, to his struggles to build a thriving enterprise from a stack of dusty albums-see how the CEO of a worldwide company took fifty years to become an overnight success.Unlike Paul, you may never get picked up by the Secret Service or carry the shame of bankruptcy, but you just might see yourself in his repeated failures or in his refusal to let life keep him down. You'll laugh and you'll cry as Paul describes the struggle of finding his place in a community you never knew existed. Through it all, you'll discover what Paul did: life's detours offer the best opportunities to find your way.
Who in his right mind wants to talk to a shrink? I don't want to talk about anything. I don't want to feel anything, taste anything ... or anything. The lyrics "just dying to die" run around in my brain day and night... Fifteen-year-old Sam is in pain. He comes to the therapist's office unwillingly, angry, depressed, and filled with guilt over his own self-destructive behavior. He is being drawn deeper and deeper into a black hole of despair from which he sees no way out. The Road Back This is the Real-life story of Sam's Recovery, told from tapes of his therapy sessions. It tells what drove him to leave home, how he survived on the street, and why he was desperate to escape from the brutality of the gang that had become his "family" and from the torment of his own self-loathing. For every teen who has experienced the pain and loneliness of a no-way-out darkness, and for all those who love them, here is the light that can lead the way back.
A Washington Post best nonfiction book pick of 2021 “It is biography as an expression of love.” – The New York Times New York Times–bestselling author Julie Klam’s funny and moving story of the Morris sisters, distant relations with mysterious pasts. Ever since she was young, Julie Klam has been fascinated by the Morris sisters, cousins of her grandmother. According to family lore, early in the twentieth century the sisters’ parents decided to move the family from Eastern Europe to Los Angeles so their father could become a movie director. On the way, their pregnant mother went into labor in St. Louis, where the baby was born and where their mother died. The father left the children in an orphanage and promised to send for them when he settled in California—a promise he never kept. One of the Morris sisters later became a successful Wall Street trader and advised Franklin Roosevelt. The sisters lived together in New York City, none of them married or had children, and one even had an affair with J. P. Morgan. The stories of these independent women intrigued Klam, but as she delved into them to learn more, she realized that the tales were almost completely untrue. The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters is the revealing account of what Klam discovered about her family—and herself—as she dug into the past. The deeper she went into the lives of the Morris sisters, the slipperier their stories became. And the more questions she had about what actually happened to them, the more her opinion of them evolved. Part memoir and part confessional, and told with the wit and honesty that are hallmarks of Klam’s books, The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters is the fascinating and funny true story of one writer’s journey into her family’s past, the truths she brings to light, and what she learns about herself along the way.
How did Jon Scieszka get so funny, anyway? Growing up as one of six brothers was a good start, but that was just the beginning. Throw in Catholic school, lots of comic books, lazy summers at the lake with time to kill, babysitting misadventures, TV shows, jokes told at family dinner, and the result is Knucklehead. Part memoir, part scrapbook, this hilarious trip down memory lane provides a unique glimpse into the formation of a creative mind and a free spirit. Watch a QuickTime trailer for this book.
