'A warm and charming journey of self-discovery; I particularly liked the irresistible voice of heroine Prune' - Fiona Noble, Bookseller _______________________ Magic comes from within ... Uprooted by her single mum along with her troublesome older brother, eleven-year-old Prune Robinson is trying to settle in a new town. She figures she can't burden her hard-working mother with the fact she's being bullied. Or the fact that her drawings have started coming to life. But with her brother soon in danger, Prune comes to realise that she can't hide her power forever; in fact, it might just be the one thing that brings her family back together and saves them all. Planned as the start of a series about remarkable children from the same neighbourhood, The Wondrous Prune is poignant and surprising with wonderful wish fulfilment and accessible storytelling.
'A warm and charming journey of self-discovery; I particularly liked the irresistible voice of heroine Prune' - Fiona Noble, Bookseller _______________________ Magic comes from within ... Uprooted by her single mum along with her troublesome older brother, eleven-year-old Prune Robinson is trying to settle in a new town. She figures she can't burden her hard-working mother with the fact she's being bullied. Or the fact that her drawings have started coming to life. But with her brother soon in danger, Prune comes to realise that she can't hide her power forever; in fact, it might just be the one thing that brings her family back together and saves them all. Planned as the start of a series about remarkable children from the same neighbourhood, The Wondrous Prune is poignant and surprising with wonderful wish fulfilment and accessible storytelling.
Spanning eight decades and chronicling the wild ride of a Greek-American family through the vicissitudes of the twentieth century, Jeffrey Eugenides’ witty, exuberant novel on one level tells a traditional story about three generations of a fantastic, absurd, lovable immigrant family -- blessed and cursed with generous doses of tragedy and high comedy. But there’s a provocative twist. Cal, the narrator -- also Callie -- is a hermaphrodite. And the explanation for this takes us spooling back in time, through a breathtaking review of the twentieth century, to 1922, when the Turks sacked Smyrna and Callie’s grandparents fled for their lives. Back to a tiny village in Asia Minor where two lovers, and one rare genetic mutation, set our narrator’s life in motion. Middlesex is a grand, utterly original fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender, and the deep, untidy promptings of desire. It’s a brilliant exploration of divided people, divided families, divided cities and nations -- the connected halves that make up ourselves and our world.
When her husband dies, Lu Si-yan's mother is encouraged to sell her young daughter into domestic service. Lu Si-yan is just eleven when sold by her uncle. Nearly two years will pass before she can get back home to her mother and brother. In this powerful and compelling novel Sally Grindley portrays the life of a young girl in China, a young girl whose life is said to be like 'spilled water'. With a brilliant first-person narrative and a powerful description of time and place, this novel is gripping, heart-wrenching and utterly mesmerising.
"Each of these spare and elegant tales rings like a bell in your head. memorable, original, and not much like anything you've read."—Karen Joy Fowler “A strange and enchanting book, written in crisp, winning sentences; each story begs to be read aloud and savored.”—Aimee Bender "Horse, Flower, Bird rests uneasily between the intersection of fantasy and reality, dreaming and wakefulness, and the sacred and profane. Like a series of beautiful but troubling dreams, this book will linger long in the memory. Kate Bernheimer is reinventing the fairy tale."—Peter Buck, R.E.M. In Kate Bernheimer's familiar and spare—yet wondrous—world, an exotic dancer builds her own cage, a wife tends a secret basement menagerie, a fishmonger's daughter befriends a tulip bulb, and sisters explore cycles of love and violence by reenacting scenes from Star Wars. Enthralling, subtle, and poetic, this collection takes readers back to the age-old pleasures of classic fairy tales and makes them new. Their haunting lessons are an evocative reminder that cracking open the door to the imagination is no mere child's play, that delight and tragedy lurk in every corner, and that we all "have the key to the library . . . only be careful what you read."
From the award-winning author of The Boy at the Back of the Class comes a middle grade novel about the power of hope to sustain even when tragedy strikes. Ten-year-old Aniyah and her little brother Noah find themselves living in foster care after the sudden disappearance of their mum. With her life in disarray, Aniyah knows just one thing for sure: her mum isn't gone forever. Aniyah believes that the people with the brightest hearts never truly disappear. They become stars. When scientists discover a new star acting strangely, Aniyah knows it's really her mum. To make sure everyone else knows, too, she embarks on the adventure of a lifetime--one that involves breaking into the Royal Observatory of London, and meeting the biggest star in Hollywood. This is an honest yet empathetic exploration of how people respond to difficult circumstances, told through the innocent voice of a ten-year-old girl.
In this New York Times bestselling “imperative how-to for creativity” (Nick Offerman), Adam Savage—star of Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters—shares his golden rules of creativity, from finding inspiration to following through and successfully making your idea a reality. Every Tool’s a Hammer is a chronicle of my life as a maker. It’s an exploration of making, but it’s also a permission slip of sorts from me to you. Permission to grab hold of the things you’re interested in, that fascinate you, and to dive deeper into them to see where they lead you. Through stories from forty-plus years of making and molding, building and breaking, along with the lessons I learned along the way, this book is meant to be a toolbox of problem solving, complete with a shop’s worth of notes on the tools, techniques, and materials that I use most often. Things like: In Every Tool There Is a Hammer—don’t wait until everything is perfect to begin a project, and if you don’t have the exact right tool for a task, just use whatever’s handy; Increase Your Loose Tolerance—making is messy and filled with screwups, but that’s okay, as creativity is a path with twists and turns and not a straight line to be found; Use More Cooling Fluid—it prolongs the life of blades and bits, and it prevents tool failure, but beyond that it’s a reminder to slow down and reduce the friction in your work and relationships; Screw Before You Glue—mechanical fasteners allow you to change and modify a project while glue is forever but sometimes you just need the right glue, so I dig into which ones will do the job with the least harm and best effects. This toolbox also includes lessons from many other incredible makers and creators, including: Jamie Hyneman, Nick Offerman, Pixar director Andrew Stanton, Oscar-winner Guillermo del Toro, artist Tom Sachs, and chef Traci Des Jardins. And if everything goes well, we will hopefully save you a few mistakes (and maybe fingers) as well as help you turn your curiosities into creations. I hope this book serves as “creative rocket fuel” (Ed Helms) to build, make, invent, explore, and—most of all—enjoy the thrills of being a creator.
Lizzie refuses to speak. She doesn't want to talk to Rory or Jake, her new stepbrothers. Or to Sam, their dad. Or even to her mum. She's completely fed up with having to join a new family, and nothing can convince her to speak to them. Not football, not pizza, not a new bedroom. That is, until she meets Great-Gran - a member of the new family who is even more stubborn than she is . . .
"Everyone at school is excited for a trip to the Shallows. Pearl and her friends Echo and Splash can't wait to see what the ocean is like across the Salty Sea. But Flip wants to do something more daring than learning about algae! So when some older dolphins slip away to go exploring, Flip sneaks after them. He's determined to prove he's just as brave as they are. But he soon finds himself in unfamiliar waters. Can Pearl and her friends rescue Flip before he's lost at sea?"--Back cover.
I was born and raised in a small Northern California town. At one time, the population was very near that of the fictitious town of Payton Place with equal amounts of gossip and everyone knowing everyone else’s business. I graduated from the local high school in the late ’60s and couldn’t wait to get out of town. I moved to the city and began a series of counterculture adventures, which ultimately landed me in jail. Over the course of time, I came to think fondly of the time I spent in my then small hometown. The town has grown since then but is still small, relatively speaking. I have always enjoyed writing and sharing my experiences with other people and now, at this point in my life, would like to relay what it was like growing up with “country ways." Plain ole everyday events are what make up all our lives. What follows here are some of those events that have made up my life and those around me. Some of these stories are pieces I wrote for a writing group I was involved in at our local library. The group was “Down Memory Lane” and was anything about our past in our small town. Our pieces were usually printed in the local newspaper, and I came to appreciate the comments I would get on the articles. Of course, this is life in a small town, so usually everyone knows everyone else and their dogs. But as Wallace Stegner once said, “How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?” This is that attempt. This is just plain old everyday events. Fellini once insinuated that what he creates is more real to him than what actually is or was. He created his own reality. Most of these stories are just as they happened. I did these stories in an effort to explain the time and the events that made up those experiences (my life and times).
