It was an ordinary Monday morning in Walla Walla—until Lulu walked up to her English teacher's desk. "Mrs. Bell, I feel like a nit-wit. My homework is all higgledy-piggledy. Last night it was in tip-top shape, but not it's a big mish-mash." With those few words, things become not so ordinary after all, for it seems that Lulu has opened up a super-duper, helter-skelter WORD WARP. Luckily for Lulu and the rest of the English-speaking world, the school nurse has an idea about how to handle this hodge-podge of topsy-turvy chit-chat. Will it work? Zig-zag through the jibber-jabber and the yakety-yak to find out!
Trick or treat? With nods to Tim Burton, Edward Gorey, and Neil Gaiman, this humorous picture book about a Victorian boy obsessed with monsters presents a dark and appealing world, created by debut author/illustrator Sam Streed. In the graveyard, between stone monuments for forgotten souls, lurks the Black Shuck. . . . Its one blood-red eye burns with an undying rage. After reading about the slimy Nixie, the angry Black Shuck, and the creepy Lantern Man in his beloved Book of Monsters, Alfred decides to invite the monsters to teatime with his crusty old aunty, who thinks monsters are an improper obsession for a respectable young boy.
A tale in haiku of one adorable dog. Let’s find him a home. Wandering through the neighborhood in the early-morning hours, a stray pooch follows his nose to a back-porch door. After a bath and some table scraps from Mom, the dog meets three lovable kids. It’s all wags and wiggles until Dad has to decide if this stray pup can become the new family pet. Has Mooch finally found a home? Told entirely in haiku by master storyteller Andrew Clements, this delightful book is a clever fusion of poetry and puppy dog.
Meet Greg Kenton, billionaire in the making. Greg Kenton has two obsessions -- making money and his long-standing competition with his annoying neighbor, Maura Shaw. So when Greg discovers that Maura is cutting into his booming Chunky Comics business with her own original illustrated minibooks, he's ready to declare war. The problem is, Greg has to admit that Maura's books are good, and soon the longtime enemies become unlikely business partners. But their budding partnership is threatened when the principal bans the sale of their comics in school. Suddenly, the two former rivals find themselves united against an adversary tougher than they ever were to each other. Will their enterprise -- and their friendship -- prevail?
In a rare memoir about the Negro Leagues and its celebrated players, Frazier "Slow" Robinson offers an inspiring and often entertaining view of the black baseball diamond through a catcher's mask. In 1939, at the age of 29—after playing professional baseball for twelve years—Frazier Robinson caught the legendary Satchel Paige in barnstorming games from New Orleans to Walla Walla. Robinson played several more seasons in the Negro Leagues before finishing his career in Canada. While his career was a solid one, it was less spectacular than that of his friend and Hall-of-Famer, Satchel Paige, and so more typical of the experience of most Negro Leaguers. Richly embroidered with the threads of black society and of life as a black athlete in a racially divided nation, Robinson recounts his long career with the skill and ease of a natural storyteller. He covers, in remarkable detail, the personal perspective of the men, the teams, and the times that shaped this uniquely American subculture. From playing catcher for obscure industrial teams to barnstorming with Satchel Paige, he chronologically traces his nationwide path through the 1920s, '30s, '40s, and early '50s. The Foreword by John "Buck" O'Neil and Introduction by Gerald Early place Robinson squarely in the world of sports, African American culture, and American history.
Ten years of infertility issues culminate in the destruction of music therapist Zoe Baxter's marriage, after which she falls in love with another woman and wants to start a family, but her ex-husband, Max, stands in the way.
Hailed as "toweringly important" (Baltimore Sun), "a work of scrupulous and significant reportage" (E. L. Doctorow), and "an unforgettable historical drama" (Chicago Sun-Times), Big Trouble brings to life the astonishing case that ultimately engaged President Theodore Roosevelt, Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, and the politics and passions of an entire nation at century's turn. After Idaho's former governor is blown up by a bomb at his garden gate at Christmastime 1905, America's most celebrated detective, Pinkerton James McParland, takes over the investigation. His daringly executed plan to kidnap the radical union leader "Big Bill" Haywood from Colorado to stand trial in Idaho sets the stage for a memorable courtroom confrontation between the flamboyant prosecutor, progressive senator William Borah, and the young defender of the dispossessed, Clarence Darrow. Big Trouble captures the tumultuous first decade of the twentieth century, when capital and labor, particularly in the raw, acquisitive West, were pitted against each other in something close to class war. Lukas paints a vivid portrait of a time and place in which actress Ethel Barrymore, baseball phenom Walter Johnson, and editor William Allen White jostled with railroad magnate E. H. Harriman, socialist Eugene V. Debs, gunslinger Charlie Siringo, and Operative 21, the intrepid Pinkerton agent who infiltrated Darrow's defense team. This is a grand narrative of the United States as it charged, full of hope and trepidation, into the twentieth century.
