You can't just ask for the chance to fly . . . When his dad announced they were moving to Iowa, Brian looked forward to making some new friends. But on his first day there he makes an enemy instead -- Frankie Heller, the meanest kid in town. Brian needs to hang out with someone cool to get back on track. . . .Alex has always been the coolest guy around, and good with money, just like his dad. But now the family is struggling, and he needs to make some cash to keep up appearances. Then an opportunity falls in his lap . . . .Max is a scientific genius, but his parents are always busy with their own work. Building an actual plane should get their attention -- if only he wasn't scared of heights . . . The answer to all three boys' problems starts with Max's secret flyer. But Frankie and the laws of popularity and physics stand in their way. Can they work together in time to get their plan AND their plane off the ground?
A story about baseball, family, the American Dream, and the fight to turn Los Angeles into a big league city. Dodger Stadium is an American icon. But the story of how it came to be goes far beyond baseball. The hills that cradle the stadium were once home to three vibrant Mexican American communities. In the early 1950s, those communities were condemned to make way for a utopian public housing project. Then, in a remarkable turn, public housing in the city was defeated amidst a Red Scare conspiracy. Instead of getting their homes back, the remaining residents saw the city sell their land to Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Now LA would be getting a different sort of utopian fantasy -- a glittering, ultra-modern stadium. But before Dodger Stadium could be built, the city would have to face down the neighborhood's families -- including one, the Aréchigas, who refused to yield their home. The ensuing confrontation captivated the nation - and the divisive outcome still echoes through Los Angeles today.
A gripping graphic novel that tells a boy’s experience in a WWII Japanese internment camp, and the lessons that baseball teaches him. Sandy Saito is a happy boy who’s obsessed with baseball — especially the Asahi team, the pride of his community. But when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, his life, like that of every North American of Japanese descent, changes forever. Forced to move to a remote internment camp, he and his family cope as best they can. And though life at the camp is difficult, Sandy finds solace in baseball, where there’s always the promise of possibilities. Through his experience, Sandy comes to realize that life is a lot like baseball. It’s about dealing with whatever is thrown at you, however you can. And it’s about finding your way home.
A retired baseball player finds himself fighting for his life in this “fantastically hopped-up thriller [with] a wrong-man plot worthy of Hitchcock” (Entertainment Weekly, Editor’s Choice). “Wow! Brutal, visceral, violent, edgy, and brilliant.”—Harlan Coben In development as a major motion picture starring Austin Butler and directed by Darren Aronofsky Henry “call me Hank” Thompson used to play California baseball. Now he tends to a bar on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. When two Russians in tracksuits beat Hank to a pulp, he gets the clue: someone wants something from him. He just doesn’t know what it is, where it is, or how to make them understand he doesn’t have it. Within twenty-for hours, Hank is running over rooftops, playing hide-and-seek with the NYPD, riding the subway with a dead man at his side, and counting a whole lot of cash on a concrete floor. All because of some Russian hoods and a flat-out freakshow of goons. All because once, in another life, the only thing Hank wanted to steal was third base—without getting caught.
What do you do when your soulmate turns out to be a thief? Steal her, of course. Phoenix was raised within the Community, a gang of thieves with paranormal powers, under the control of a harsh master known as the Seer. The notion that there's a soul mate out there for every person with a paranormal gift is mere myth in Phoenix's world. That is until the Seer gives Phoenix the details of her next target, Yves Benedict. He's more than just her next victim, he is her destiny. To be together, Phoenix must break away from the Community but resistance against the Seer puts them both in mortal danger. Phoenix has never trusted anyone before, now it's time to trust Yves with her life. The second book in Joss Stirling's thrilling Savants series, with a beautiful cover designed by illustrator Johanna Basford.
As heard on NPR's This American Life “Absorbing . . . Though it's non-fiction, The Feather Thief contains many of the elements of a classic thriller.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air “One of the most peculiar and memorable true-crime books ever.” —Christian Science Monitor A rollicking true-crime adventure and a captivating journey into an underground world of fanatical fly-tiers and plume peddlers, for readers of The Stranger in the Woods, The Lost City of Z, and The Orchid Thief. On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London's Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin's obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins—some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin's, Alfred Russel Wallace, who'd risked everything to gather them—and escaped into the darkness. Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man's relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man's destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature.
"A hero who will melt your heart."—Jennifer Echols, national award-winning author of Such a Rush Parker Shelton pretty much has the perfect life. She's on her way to becoming valedictorian at Hundred Oaks High, she's made the all-star softball team, and she has plenty of friends. Then her mother's scandal rocks their small town and suddenly no one will talk to her. Now Parker wants a new life. So she quits softball. Drops twenty pounds. And she figures why kiss one guy when she can kiss three. Or four. Why limit herself to high school boys when the majorly cute new baseball coach seems especially flirty? But how far is too far before she loses herself completely? Praise for Catching Jordan: "A must-read for teens! I couldn't put it down!"—Simon Elkeles, New York Times bestselling author of the Perfect Chemistry series "With a clever, authentic voice, Kenneally proves once and for all that when it comes to making life's toughest calls-on and off the field-girls rule!"—Sara Ockler, bestselling author of Fixing Delilah
Princess Leonie Kolburg, aged nineteen and heir to a faded European spaceship, enters the engagement season hoping only to save her family from financial ruin, but is soon falling for her first, rejected love.
"Elizabeth is still reeling from the death of her husband that took place a year prior. She and her young daughter, Emma, took a year to stay with Elizabeth's mother. When the time has come, Elizabeth and Emma choose to return to their hometown of Meadows Creek, Wisconsin. On the drive back into town, Elizabeth accidentally hits a dog, and the owner grumpily dashes into the street and demands Elizabeth takes him and the dog to the vet. Tristan is the owner of the dog. He's cold and distant, but Elizabeth connects to him in some odd way, even if they didn't have the best first meetings. It is later discovered that Tristan Cole is Elizabeth's new neighbor, and he is tagged as the town's grumpy jerk who is closed-off to everyone around him, outside of Mr. Henson, Tristan's odd and quirky boss who owns the shop Needful Things. While Tristan tries his best to keep his distance from Elizabeth, their paths keep crossing in the small town. The townspeople warn Elizabeth to keep her distance from Tristan, as he's a bad seed, but she cannot help but feel drawn to his darkness. During one of their crossings, Tristan snaps at Elizabeth, telling her that he doesn't want to get to know her, or be her friend, even though she keeps insisting on that happening. He ends up kissing her, which throws them both for a loop, and after said kiss, he accidentally makes her fall down the hill they are standing on, making her get scrapped up and injured. During their next crossing, Tristan finds Elizabeth wandering drunk in the wooded area behind their homes, and he helps her to his house after realizing she's too wasted to be outside alone. They have a heart-to-heart and learn about one another's losses. It is after that connection that they come up with the bad idea to use one another to feel again. They began having a fling, using sex to feel connected to another, to make believe that their loved ones are still around, yet it goes sideways once Elizabeth's grief becomes too loud. It is at that point that Tristan decides that being friends with Elizabeth would be the right option instead of using sex to forget. While the two are building their friendship, and are falling more and more for one another, the best friend of Elizabeth's late husband, Tanner, makes it known that he has feelings for her. Elizabeth explains to Tanner that she cares for him, but not in that way. After Tanner takes the rejection, he is livid to find out that she is seeing the town's jerk, Tristan. Tanner threatens Tristan, and tries to trigger him from time to time, to make him snap in front of Elizabeth. After none of Tanner's tricks works, he goes the extra mile by notifying Elizabeth that it was her late husband who was in the car accident with Tristan's late wife and his son, which led to their deaths. Elizabeth doesn't handle this news well but keeps it to herself because she knows it will destroy Tristan. That was when Tanner took the news and revealed it to Tristan, making Tristan harshly end things with Elizabeth. He leaves town and goes to see his parents, where he falls apart. It is then in those conversations that he learns the night of the accident, after Elizabeth loss her husband, she found Tristan's mom in the lobby of the hospital alone. Elizabeth comforted her, and then went and sat with Tristan's wife so she wouldn't be alone while Tristan's mom went to check on his son. The story concludes with Elizabeth learning that Tanner was the one who messed with her late husband's car, which in turn caused the accident. She learns how obsessed he had been with Elizabeth for years. Tanner caused the accident in order to get Elizabeth's husband out of the picture, so he could be the man in her life. Once Tristan connected those dots, he returned to town to protect Elizabeth and Emma from the craziness that was Tanner. After making sure everyone was safe, Tristan confesses his love for Elizabeth, who loves him fully back, and they begin to build a new life together, while still honoring their loved ones from the past. The Air He Breathes is a story of hope, of compassion, and the true meaning of love"--
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME • A NEW YORK TIMES READER TOP 100 PICK FOR BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY The extraordinary, beloved novel about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times. When Death has a story to tell, you listen. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time. “The kind of book that can be life-changing.” —The New York Times “Deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.” —USA Today DON’T MISS BRIDGE OF CLAY, MARKUS ZUSAK’S FIRST NOVEL SINCE THE BOOK THIEF.
