London is poised on the brink of World War 11. Timid, scrawny Willie Beech -- the abused child of a single mother -- is evacuated to the English countryside. At first, he is terrified of everything, of the country sounds and sights, even of Mr. Tom, the gruff, kindly old man who has taken him in. But gradually Willie forgets the hate and despair of his past. He learns to love a world he never knew existed, a world of friendship and affection in which harsh words and daily beatings have no place. Then a telegram comes. Willie must return to his mother in London. When weeks pass by with no word from Willie, Mr. Tom sets out for London to look for the young boy he has come to love as a son.
Puffin Classics: the definitive collection of timeless stories, for every child. Tom tucked a blanket round him, drew up a chair by the fire and watched Willie fall asleep. The tales he had heard about evacuees didn't seem to fit Willie. 'Ungrateful' and 'wild' were the adjectives he had heard used, or just plain 'homesick'. He was quite unprepared for this timid, sickly little specimen. Britain, 1940. With World War Two raging all around, young children are being sent from their homes in the city to the countryside for safety. When eight-year-old Willie Beech first arrives on Tom Oakley's doorstep, neither are quite sure what to make of each another. Brought up in terrible poverty, Willie is terribly shy, and totally unprepared for village life - but the gruff-but-gentle 'Mister Tom' quickly takes him under his wing. Neither he nor Willie could ever have predicted the journey they will go on together - nor the unbreakable bond that will be formed. Winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, and rightly hailed as a true classic of children's literature, Goodnight Mister Tom is a beautifully told, deeply moving story about the power of friendship, kindness, hope - and love. 'Everyone's idea of a smash-hit novel: full-blown characters to love and hate, moments of grief and joy, and a marvellous story that knows just how to grab the emotions' - Guardian
WW2 has just ended and twelve-year-old Rusty comes back home to Britain after being evacuated to the US. The greyness and bleakness of life in England is a shock, but even worse is adapting to the strict discipline of her family, including a brother she's never met, after the warmth and openness of her adopted American family. Rusty is sent to an horrific boarding school, before finally running away as her search for happiness becomes more and more desperate.
"Sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life, wellness, and longevity ... An explosion of scientific discoveries in the last twenty years has shed new light on this fundamental aspect of our lives. Now ... neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker gives us a new understanding of the vital importance of sleep and dreaming"--Amazon.com.
Told with humor and heart, The Boy at the Back of the Class offers a child's perspective on the refugee crisis, highlighting the importance of friendship and kindness in a world that doesn't always make sense. There used to be an empty chair at the back of Mrs. Khan's classroom, but on the third Tuesday of the school year a new kid fills it: nine-year-old Ahmet, a Syrian refugee. The whole class is curious about this new boy--he doesn't seem to smile, and he doesn't talk much. But after learning that Ahmet fled a Very Real War and was separated from his family along the way, a determined group of his classmates bands together to concoct the Greatest Idea in the World--a magnificent plan to reunite Ahmet with his loved ones. This accessible, kid-friendly story about the refugee crisis highlights the community-changing potential of standing as an ally and reminds readers that everyone deserves a place to call home. "This moving and timely debut novel tells an enlightening, empowering, and ultimately hopeful story about how compassion and a willingness to speak out can change the world." --School Library Journal, Starred Review Overall Winner of the 2019 UK Waterstones Children's Book Prize Winner of the 2019 UK Blue Peter Book Award A CLIP Carnegie Medal Children's Book Award Nominee
The two-time Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt delivers the shattering story of Joseph, a father at thirteen, who has never seen his daughter, Jupiter. After spending time in a juvenile facility, he's placed with a foster family on a farm in rural Maine. Here Joseph, damaged and withdrawn, meets twelve-year-old Jack, who narrates the account of the troubled, passionate teen who wants to find his baby at any cost. In this riveting novel, two boys discover the true meaning of family and the sacrifices it requires.
Section 1 provides a biography of the author pertinent to the creation of this trilogy. This look at the author's unique experience sheds light upon the origins of this work. Section 2 logically justifies the basic conceptual building blocks needed to construct My Big TOE's foundation. It discusses the cultural beliefs that trap our thinking into a narrow and limited conceptualization of reality, defines the fundamentals of Big Pictureepistemology and ontology, and examines the inner-workings and practice of meditation. It defines and develops the two basic assumptions upon which this trilogy is based. From these two assumptions, time, space, consciousness, and the basic properties, purpose, and mechanics of our reality are logically inferred.Section 3 develops the interface and interaction between "we the people"and our digital consciousness reality. It derives and explains the characteristics,origins, dynamics, and function of ego, love, free will, and our larger purpose. It develops the psi uncertainty principle as it explains and interrelates psi phenomena, free will, love, consciousness evolution, physics, reality, human purpose, digital computation, and entropy.Section 4 describes a model of consciousness that develops the results of Section 3 and supports the conclusions of Section 5. The origins and nature of digital consciousness are described along with how artificial intelligence (AI) leads to artificial consciousness, which leads to actual consciousness and to us. It derives our physical universe, our science, and our perception of a physical reality. The physical reality is directly derived from the nature of digital consciousness.Section 5 pulls together Sections 2, 3, and 4 into a model of reality that describes how an apparent nonphysical reality works, interacts, and interrelates with our experience of physical reality. Probable realities, predicting and modifying the future, teleportation, telepathy, multiple physical and nonphysical bodies, and the fractal nature of an evolving digital consciousness reality are explained and described in detail.Section 6 is the wrap-up that puts everything into a personal perspective. It points out My Big TOE's relationship with contemporary science and philosophy. It solidly integrates My Big TOE into traditional Western scientific and philosophical thought.
Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
