A richly imagined gothic tale of friendship, loss, rebellion and adventure Ruled by the Elders, policed by an unforgiving battalion of Enforcers and watched by hundreds of clockwork Sentries, Pitch End is a town where everybody knows their place. Soon-to-be fifteen-year-old Bruno Atlas still mourns the death of his Rebel father ten years ago, and treasures the book of stories he secretly uncovered: the Tall Tales from Pitch End. After discovering a chilling plot planned by the Elders, Bruno flees, escaping to the mountains where a bunch of disparate young Rebels are planning a final attack on Pitch End. With secrets and betrayal lying around every corner, Bruno will find himself fighting not only for his life, but the life of the town.
'THE HOUSE OF MOUNTFATHOM is the kind of book that turned me into a reader in the first place. It has the same clever interweaving of history and fantasy that I so admired in Nigel McDowell's previous books but is also filled with an utterly infectious kind of delight. The characters are so vivid and the world brims with the most gorgeous detail. And if this wasn't enough, the language itself is a pure joy. Nigel McDowell has left an extraordinary legacy behind, something of the imagination and something of the soul.' Eimear McBride, multi-award-winning author of A GIRL IS A HALF-FORMED THING 'Lyrical, ominous and utterly original, with a passionate sense of place and history, THE HOUSE OF MOUNTFATHOM is one of those books that pushes strange roots down into your mind.' Frances Hardinge, Costa Award-winning author of THE LIE TREE Luke Mountfathom knows he is special and odd. He is told so by everyone he knows. His parents are special and odd too - they are the keepers of the House of Mountfathom, a magnificent stately home where the wrong door could take you to a far away land, and strange animals appear to stalk the grounds at midnight. The house is his home - but it is also the headquarters of the Driochta, a magic-weaving group of poets, artists, politicians and activists charged with keeping the peace in Ireland. They have many powers - have mastered Mirror-Predicting and Smoke-Summoning and Storm-Breaching - and a final ability: that of Mogrifying; taking on a unique animal form. But Luke's idyllic existence at Mountfathom cannot last. Word reaches the House of protests across Ireland. There is a wish for independence, a rising discontent and scenes of violence that even the Driochta cannot control. In Dublin, death and disease is running rife in the tenements; a darkness is clogging the air, and is intent on staying. And when things quickly spin out of control for the Driochta, it is up to Luke, his cat Morrigan and his best friend Killian to worm out the heart of the evil in their land.
Based on Irish legends and mythology, this is an enchanting new fantasy from the author of TALL TALES FROM PITCH END. The Divided Isle, once a place of peace and tranquillity, has been ravaged by war. Twins Oona and Morris live with their grandmother in a stone cottage in the quiet southern county of Drumbroken, but the threat of the Invaders of the Black North - the ravaged northern part of the island - is coming ever closer. When Morris, fighting against the Invaders, is kidnapped by one of the evil Briar Witches, Oona must journey to the unknown realms of the Black North in search of her brother. She is accompanied only by Merrigutt, a jackdaw with mysterious transformative powers, and a treasured secret possession: a small stone in the shape of a plum, but a stone that reveals truths and nightmares, and which the Invaders and their ruler, the King of the North, seek more than anything. Oona must keep the stone safe at all costs, and find her brother, before the King of the North extends his evil hold over the whole island and destroys it forever.
Bruno Atlas discovers the sinister secrets of the Elders who rule Pitch End and their plans for the children of the town when he discovers a book on the village which belonged to his murdered father.
Tall Tales from the Tower: The Real Hillbilly Elegy By: Stephen G. Morris It’s true. The USAF gave a seventeen-year-old West Virginian hillbilly, a high school dropout, a battery of aptitude tests and determined he could be a Tin Man. And it wasn’t easy. Only seven graduated ATC school out of twenty-two. After a year of intensive training at a high traffic control tower, Stephen G. Morris became a Tin Man, an air-traffic controller who can move heavy air traffic safely and expeditiously. After twenty-seven years as a Tin Man, Morris became the director of a Fortune 100 company and a senior vice president at the fourth largest integrated facility management company in the US; however, his biggest lifetime achievement will always be his time as a Tin Man. When he retired from the USAF in 1984, he took over a former FAA control tower on Cape Cod, one of the hundreds of facilities the FAA PATCO union walked out of and were fired by President Reagan. Tall Tales from the Tower is a peek into the control towers and RADAR air-traffic facilities at airports around the world with true stories of recovering lost aircraft, emergencies, safely landing seventeen fighters in severe thunderstorms, and air traffic control in a war zone.
Readers theater is a powerful tool for developing reading fluency. The scripts are designed for a range of reading levels. Students have opportunities to read individually, in pairs, and as a group. The scripts do not require costumes, props, or scenery.
The Kid Looks Back is a collection of sixty-eight stories that cover a wide range of topics. I hope that his book will be a gentle hiding place where you can go to get away from something, return to something or go where you have never been. Some of these stories are true. Others are factually true, although bit embellished. Others are outright fabrications. Most look back to a kinder, mellower time. Digging for worms, swimming in a pond, using an outhouse or wading in a river may bring gross evaluations from our urbanized cousins. I hope that this book introduces them to life with a smile. Most of the stories have a message. Many are simply humorous. Entertainment is the motive. Carefree is the mood. Try to find yourself within these pages. May the beak of reality crack your comfort shell. Start anywhere. Finish anytime. Enjoy!
As Martha looked through her mother's notes and also reflected on her own life, she realized there were other unfinished books about the Adirondacks. For example, she has written An Adirondack Scotch Pine Love Story and, in conjunction with her husband, a biography of Tom Norman, a well known farmer and entrepreneur in the North Country. This book of Adirondack Tall Tales is derived mostly from Helen Tyler's previous books, but there are two stories that have not appeared in earlier works. Martha added a discussion of folk tales and tall tales. She also added a brief multi-cultural comparison of a folk tale from Africa to show the difference between tall and folk tales. MARTHA TYLER JOHN Helen Escha Tyler (1892-1986) lived in the Adirondacks nearly 95 years and wrote several books about the Adirondacks. Martha Tyler John, was born in Saranac Lake, New York, and returned to the Adirondacks frequently. After receiving her doctorate from Stanford University, she enjoyed a lengthy career as a professor and university administrator. She wrote dozens of books and articles and also edited her mother's last book, a biography of Paul Smith, that was published by North Country Books.
Patrick Mullen examines how elderly people use folk traditions to engage others and pass on their wisdom and knowledge to succeeding generations. Based on interviews with nine people in their seventies and eighties who live in rural Virginia, North Carolina, and southern Ohio, this book shows how folklore enriches people's lives. Mullen places the folklore - local legends, jokes, personal-experience narratives, family history, folk medicine, planting signs, foodways, wood carving, belief systems, customs, folk architecture - within the context of the individuals' life stories and the culture of their local communities. The analysis concentrates on recurring themes in each person's folklore and the rhetorical strategies the storytellers use to interest listeners and assure that their traditions will be passed on.
