This progressive phonics series helps beginning readers to build reading confidence. Each volume contains an engaging fiction story, accompanied by beautiful illustrations--along with a pronunciation guide to all the sounds in the story. Also included are parent and teacher notes that point out tricky words and offer tips and extended learning activities.
A hardcover picture book (with audio CD) about Josiah: a bad rat, but a good kid and a talented artist. He and his friends escape a world without color by rekindling their professor¿s imagination and his belief in the value of creativity. Beautiful soft expressive illustrations by James Muscarello gradually gain in color as the characters commit to expressing themselves through their creativity. The companion ¿Book-on-CD¿ comes with each book and will transport young readers into Josiah¿s world with sound effects and wonderful performances by children and adults. The dramatic storytelling is narrated by the author and features his young nephew, Eli Drachman, among other delightful voices! (Audible page turns help children follow along as they learn to read.)
When an eight-year-old boy went from playing cops and robbers in the streets around Boston to chasing down criminals with a real badge and gun, he knew that there was nothing else he’d rather do for a living. High-speed pursuits, drug busts, domestic assaults, burglaries, kidnappings, medical calls. Ed has seen it all. For six years, he patrolled the streets, proud of serving the community where he and his family called home. Until the day it all came crumbling down around him... Ripped from the headlines. Suddenly, the lead story on news outlets around the country, Ed found himself going from hero to zero overnight at the evil intent of the Nobodies. A series of false accusations and being in the wrong place at the wrong time, he now faced going to prison as a disgraced cop. Hitting rock bottom, and the bottom of a bottle, he found himself back where it all began, only this time he had nothing to lose. Everything built to a single moment that would define the rest of this life and realized that being on the wrong end of that gun could make a police officer do unspeakable things. Leaving all law enforcement and everything he ever loved behind, he must do something he never thought he would have to. He regretted nothing, did what he had to, and found himself in the most unexpected place. Breaking his twenty-one years of silence, this is the first time Ed Canto will tell his true story.
Emmy was a good girl. At least she tried very hard to be good. She did her homework without being told. She ate all her vegetables, even the slimy ones. And she never talked back to her nanny, Miss Barmy, although it was almost impossible to keep quiet, some days. She really was a little too good. Which is why she liked to sit by the Rat. The Rat was not good at all . . . Hilarious, inventive, and irresistably rodent-friendly, Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat is a fantastic first novel from acclaimed picture book author Lynne Jonell.
ore chills and terror from the New York Times bestselling author of Intensity. When Vietnamese-American detective/novelist Tommy Phan finds a strange rag doll on his doorstep, he has no idea of its terrifying nature. Soon, Tommy finds himself being hunted in his own house after the doll grows into a monster determined to kill him.
Helen Potter lived a happy life until she got lost in a nightmare of sexual abuse. Now she's on a journey, a journey which takes her through urban and rural England along the same path that another Potter, Beatrix Potter, once took. Across the decades, two lives touch, and Helen discovers that the strength of two is far greater than one. Bryan Talbot constructs a very special story in The Tale of One Bad Rat which immediately endears the reader. The victim of child sexual abuse, Helen Potter becomes the armored knight before her own personal demons in this story of heroism and courage.
“An astonishing novel. Were Terry Pratchett not demonstratively a master craftsman already, The Amazing Maurice might be considered his masterpiece.” —Neil Gaiman The Amazing Maurice runs the perfect Pied Piper scam. This streetwise alley cat knows the value of cold, hard cash and can talk his way into and out of anything. But when Maurice and his cohorts decide to con the town of Bad Blinitz, it will take more than fast talking to survive the danger that awaits. For this is a town where food is scarce and rats are hated, where cellars are lined with deadly traps, and where a terrifying evil lurks beneath the hunger-stricken streets.... Set in bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett's beloved Discworld, this masterfully crafted, gripping read is both compelling and funny. When one of the world's most acclaimed fantasy writers turns a classic fairy tale on its head, no one will ever look at the Pied Piper—or rats—the same way again! This book’s feline hero was first mentioned in the Discworld novel Reaper Man and stars in the movie version of his adventure, The Amazing Maurice, featuring David Tenant, Emma Clarke, Hamish Patel, and Hugh Laurie. Fans of Maurice will relish the adventures of Tiffany Aching, starting with The Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky! Carnegie Medal Winner * ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults * New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age * VOYA Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror * Book Sense Pick
Pearl deals with death, life, and family in this haunting, humorous, and poignant debut that School Library Journal calls a “well-written depiction of adolescence and the pervasive, perplexing nature of loss.” The world can tip at any moment…a fact that fifteen-year-old Pearl is all too aware of when her mom dies after giving birth to her baby sister, Rose. Rose, who looks exactly like a baby rat, all pink, wrinkled, and writhing. This little Rat has destroyed everything, even ruined the wonderful relationship that Pearl had with her stepfather, the Rat’s biological father. Mom, though…Mom’s dead but she can’t seem to leave. She keeps visiting Pearl. Smoking, cursing, guiding. Told across the year following her mother’s death, Pearl’s story is full of bittersweet humor and heartbreaking honesty about how you deal with grief that cuts you to the bone, as she tries not only to come to terms with losing her mother, but also the fact that her sister—The Rat—is a constant reminder of why her mom is no longer around.
Some extraordinary rats come to the aid of a mouse family in this Newbery Medal Award–winning classic by notable children’s author Robert C. O’Brien. Mrs. Frisby, a widowed mouse with four small children, is faced with a terrible problem. She must move her family to their summer quarters immediately, or face almost certain death. But her youngest son, Timothy, lies ill with pneumonia and must not be moved. Fortunately, she encounters the rats of NIMH, an extraordinary breed of highly intelligent creatures, who come up with a brilliant solution to her dilemma. And Mrs. Frisby in turn renders them a great service.
Having survived the end of the world, the Queens follow Hannah back to where it all began: Mage University. A long perilous journey awaits the Rat Queens as they attempt to find out what happened to Hannah's father while battling their own demons. Collects RAT QUEENS #11-15.