Follow Toby's journey from a lone caterpillar to a brilliant butterfly. Learn that it's never too late and, sometimes, being late means you're really just first. This "Read to Me, Sing to Me" book features an audio CD of the story and song, along with beautiful soft-color illustrations and fun facts about Monarch Butterflies. Easy-to-read language for children that can read on their own.
A heartwarming story about the growing bond between a child and a new pet—inspired by the author’s experience with a rescue dog of the same name. When a young boy and his father move from one house to another, they decide to adopt a dog from the local rescue shelter. But their chosen dog, Toby, is having a tough time adjusting to his new life outside the shelter—howling all night, hiding fearfully from his new humans, forgetting where to go to the bathroom, and chasing a ball through the flower bed. The boy has promised to train his new companion, and he’s trying his best, but Dad is starting to get exasperated. Will Toby ever feel comfortable with his new family and settle into his forever home, or will Dad decide he’s not the right dog for them after all?
One woman’s journey of discovery as she travels the world on a budget with her young son.A free spirit by nature, Marnie has always been too adventurous for a suburban life or middle-class marriage. Her attempt at a conventional lifestyle gnawed at her spirit and left her frustrated with not fitting in. After her divorce, a brief, unsuitable relationship produces her miracle child, Toby. Marnie begins to see her world through the eyes of an impressionable child and realizes trying to conform to normal society is disheartening and downright painful.When Toby is two, Marnie decides to take charge of his upbringing rather than letting society, strangers, and daycares raise him. She believes travel is the best teacher—so the single mom swaps her car for an RV, and she and Toby set off to explore what is possible within their limited means.After six months on the road mixing with kindred spirits, Marnie and Toby struggle to reassimilate into the lifestyle that society expects. It’s clear that normality and conformity just aren’t for them!Hungry for unique experience and intrigued by “world schooling,” they take the plunge into a nomadic existence. They’re all in! This time there’s no going back. Soon they’re wandering the globe on a tight budget with adventure and life lessons around every corner.Through spiritual development and self-employment, a traumatic brain injury and a pandemic, Marnie breaks away from others’ expectations and learns to live life on her own terms. She would never have guessed when she set out to educate her son that she would also find her own truth.If there's one thing Marnie has learned, and one lesson that can be gleaned from her experiences, it’s that as you navigate the road of life, you will always encounter speed bumps. These speed bumps are little tests of your resolve to remain on your current path. If you are constantly running into roadblocks, rather than speed bumps, it's entirely likely that you are on the wrong road and it's time to take a different one. You, and only you, have the power to turn left when society is saying turn right. There is only one person that can change your trajectory—and that's YOU!
The fourth instalment of the highly praised Toby Daye series. October ‘Toby’ Daye, changeling knight in the service of Duke Sylvester Torquill, finds the delicate balance of her life shattered when she learns that an old friend is in dire trouble. Lily, Lady of the Tea Gardens, has been struck down by a mysterious, seemingly impossible illness, leaving her fiefdom undefended. Struggling to find a way to save Lily and her subjects, Toby must confront her own past as an enemy she thought was gone forever raises her head once more: Oleander de Merelands, one of the two people responsible for her fourteen-year exile. Time is growing short and the stakes are getting higher. With everything on the line, Toby will have to sort truth from lies to the people she loves most. If she can’t, Toby will be forced to make the one choice she never dreamed she'd have to face again...
First published in New Zealand in 1957, Owls Do Cry, was Janet Frame's second book and the first of her thirteen novels. Now approaching its 60th anniversary, it is securely a landmark in Frame's catalog and indeed a landmark of modernist literature. The novel spans twenty years in the Withers family, tracing Daphne's coming of age into a post–war New Zealand too narrow to know what to make of her. She is deemed mad, institutionalized, and made to undergo a risky lobotomy. Margaret Drabble calls Owls Do Cry "a song of survival"—it is Daphne's song of survival but also the author's: Frame was herself misdiagnosed with schizophrenia and scheduled for brain surgery. She was famously saved only when she won New Zealand's premier fiction prize. Frame was among the first major writers of the twentieth century to confront life in mental institutions and Owls Do Cry is important for this perspective. But it is equally valuable for its poetry, its incisive satire, and its acute social observations. A sensitively rendered portrait of childhood and adolescence and a testament to the power of imagination, this early novel is a first–rate example of Frame's powerful, lyric, and original prose.
Discovering a tattered letter that says she is to open it only in the event of her husband's death, Cecelia, a successful family woman, is unable to resist reading the letter and discovers a secret that shatters her life and the lives of two other women. By the author of What Alice Forgot.
When a group of immortal vigilantes threatens millions, only one man is brave enough to stand in their way. Their story didn’t start this year…or even this millennium. It began when Moses was on Mt. Sinai. Tired of waiting on the One True God, the twelve tribes of Israel began worshipping a golden calf through pagan revelry. Many received immediate death for their idolatry, but 40 were handed a far worse punishment—endless life on earth with no chance to see the face of God. This group of immortals became the 13th Tribe, and they’ve been trying to earn their way into heaven ever since—by killing sinners. Though their logic is twisted, their brilliance is undeniable. Their wrath is unstoppable. And the technology they possess is beyond anything mere humans have ever seen. Jagger Baird knows nothing about the Tribe when he’s hired as head of security for an archaeological dig on Mt. Sinai. The former Army Ranger is still reeling from an accident that claimed the life of his best friend, his arm, and his faith in God. The Tribe is poised to execute their most ambitious attack ever and the lives of millions hang in the balance. When Jagger’s wife and son are caught in the crossfire, he’ll stop at nothing to save them. But how can one man stand against an entire tribe of immortals? “Liparulo plunges deep into the pages of Scripture to find intriguing what-if’s and stunning revelations—all woven into a tale that is both skin-tinglingly supernatural and thought-provokingly real. Packed with high-tech gadgetry, action, and heart . . . Read this novel! Seriously!” —TED DEKKER, New York Times best-selling author of Forbidden and the Circle Series “The author of Comes a Horseman ushers in an exciting new series with this action-packed and intricately plotted spiritual thriller that should appeal to fans of Frank Peretti and Oliver North.” —Library Journal “A fantasy-thriller with overt (but not overly intrusive) Christian themes . . . The book can be read as a story of a man’s spiritual transition, or it can be read as a fast-paced thriller with fantasy elements. Either way, it’s a success.” —Booklist “Liparulo opens the Immortal Files series with a bang . . . Liparulo has concocted a fast-moving, imaginative narrative that examines moral questions . . . every reader is in for roller-coaster action, competently done, with a late-breaking major plot curve that leaves the door open for more.” —Publishers Weekly “If you’re a fan of suspense or biblical fiction, this is one book you won’t want to miss. Its mind-blowing action will keep readers totally immersed.” —RT Book Review, 4 1/2 stars
With the death of one of the Gang (as they call themselves), the war games escalate, directed now against the adults they hold responsible for the loss of one of their soldiers.
