It is an ordinary tale of not so ordinary circumstance, where nothing is as it seems. It is a tale where heroes aren't exactly heroes and villains save the day. It is a test of endurance and a journey that leads to a cryptic discovery that perhaps we are nothing more than scarecrows on our perches dreaming of better lives. It is ultimately the age old tale of good verses evil, but in this case, the lines between those domains are as clear as chalk lines beneath a tempest storm.
On a mission to circumnavigate the universe, the crew of the Eldorado discovers an entire hidden universe, separated from our universe by the speed of light, composed of temporal dimensions. Yet the astronauts, their overtaxed minds pushed beyond rational thought, are increasingly unable to study the very phenomena they were sent to discover. Then the fighting breaks out. Colleagues gun one another down, friends turn against friends, and in the irrational combat the ship itself is damaged. The mission itself is part of the structure of the cosmos; the end of time is both the cause and the effect of the relativistic journey. Human nature becomes part of the physics of spacetime, and whoever controls the Eldorado controls the fate of the universe.
Josh and Safi dream of winning the scarecrow competition, but dreams turn to nightmares when the scarecrows go missing. Have they been stolen ... or did they walk? Graphic novels serve a number of needs. They encourage reluctant readers because of the high ratio of pictures to text and because they are viewed as a leisure activity rather than school work. In spite of this perception, pupils can learn a lot from them, such as the use of direct speech, the logical order in which to read text boxes and, of course, narrative forms. This brilliantly illustrated series of six books will excite and engage readers of about 11-13 who have a very low reading age of 6-7.
Exploring the fate of the ideal of the English gentleman once the empire he was meant to embody declined, Praseeda Gopinath argues that the stylization of English masculinity became the central theme, focus, and conceit for many literary texts that represented the "condition of Britain" in the 1930s and the immediate postwar era. From the early writings of George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh to works by poets and novelists such as Philip Larkin, Ian Fleming, Barbara Pym, and A. S. Byatt, the author shows how Englishmen trafficking in the images of self-restraint, governance, decency, and detachment in the absence of a structuring imperial ethos became what the poet Larkin called "scarecrows of chivalry." Gopinath's study of this masculine ideal under duress reveals the ways in which issues of race, class, and sexuality constructed a gendered narrative of the nation.
Goosebumps now on Disney+! Jodie loves visiting her grandparents' farm. Okay, so it's not the most exciting place in the world. Still, Grandpa tells great scary stories. And Grandma's chocolate chip cookies are the best.But this summer the farm has really changed. The cornfields are sparse. Grandma and Grandpa seem worn out. And the single scarecrow has been replaced by twelve evil-looking ones.Then one night Jodie sees something really odd. The scarecrows seem to be moving. Twitching on their stakes. Coming alive . . .
Themes: Mean Girls, Arrogance, Selfishness, Social Media, History, Helping Others, Kindness, Zombies, Mystery. Heather and Sasha need a good idea for their history project. After a mailbox at Vintage Rose catches their interest, they discover a mysterious letter inside. Have the girls found what they need for their project, or are they about to encounter something they never saw coming? In the fictional town of Scarecrow, California, tweens keep discovering mysterious and sometimes magical objects at the Vintage Rose Antique Shop. When they take these objects home, strange things begin to happen. Does the family who inherited the store have an active imagination? Or is the store really haunted?
Seventeen-year-old Meridian Page has a rich imagination. To escape her quiet and boring town of Biddleborn, she makes up stories in her head—stories about a magic-filled world called Detritus and its inhabitants, including a princess named Lanora and a man called the Cat Lord. Not realizing how thin the walls of reality can be in a town where children have nothing better to do than tell stories, Meridian is shocked when the Cat Lord shows up in Biddleborn and warns her that imaginary characters like him are slipping through from Detritus to the real world. With a doorway from the imaginary world of Detritus open, Meridian’s imaginary characters—talking lawnmowers, a friendly skeleton, mutant animals and other creatures, living appliances, a wise dragon, zombies, dangerous creatures called shadow wights, and more—are increasingly slipping through to Biddleborn. By the time other Biddleborn residents’ imaginary characters begin showing up as well, the town is awash in chaos as evil characters battle good ones and the town’s residents. Can Meridian, her friends Artie and Cheese Fry, their parents, and Biddleborn’s other residents save the town from Meridian’s imagination? Read and find out.
From the traditional straw guy to a painted sheet-metal mermaid, these 30 scarecrows and their yard figure cousins are simply out of the ordinary—and that’s great news for the many crafters who compete in “Best Scarecrow” contests held at fairs and other venues throughout America. It’s easy to construct one of these wildly creative figures with the information and instruction contained in this whimsical, charming celebration of scarecrow art. Some are crafted from organic materials such as gourds and bamboo. Others use recycled items, including a “Tin Can Man” and a quirky woman made from old umbrellas. A few double as a planter, trellis, or address marker. Whether to scare away birds or attract attention to the garden, these make great additions to any outdoor space.
Titled after the US Air Force song, this engaging debut explores the legacy of the Greatest Generation from the perspective of Generation Y, the fallout of war through the eyes of a pacifist, and the enduring human desire for love, adventure, truth, and understanding. Pensive in the wake of 9/11, a young man—our “correspondent between the past and the present”—launches a mission to reunite his beloved grandfather, an American bombardier, with Luddie, the woman who saved him during WWII. Armed only with the address on the back of an old photograph and his grandfather’s memories, the young man begins writing letters to Luddie. Undaunted by her lack of response, the narrator travels to Poland with his girlfriend and grandfather. As they come closer to finding the site where the bombardier was shot down, the letters to Luddie become more personal and the saga of a family with a long and storied history emerges. Beautifully orchestrated and eloquently original, each sentence slowly builds upon the next in a charming style both poetic and engrossing. A tale of soldiers and saviors, of burning and bombing, of fathers and sons and brothers and lovers, this is also the story of what we find when we dare to revisit the past. Born in Iowa in 1979, Travis Nichols now lives in Chicago. An editor at the Poetry Foundation, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Believer, Details, Paste, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and The Stranger. Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder is his first novel.
