It's night and the dark is filled with strange sounds as Shane makes his way home. On a fence he finds a stray cat that at first growls and spits at him. But Shane talks and strokes the kitten to calmness, and decides to take the 'Spitfire, Kitten Number One,' home with him. No gang of boys, or avenue of dense traffic, or fierce dog can stop Shane carrying his new found friend to the place he calls home. Greg Rogers' sensitive use of charcoal and pastel create Shane and his cat in splendid city-at-night time scenes.
From two-time Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo comes a story of discovering who you are — and deciding who you want to be. When Louisiana Elefante’s granny wakes her up in the middle of the night to tell her that the day of reckoning has arrived and they have to leave home immediately, Louisiana isn’t overly worried. After all, Granny has many middle-of-the-night ideas. But this time, things are different. This time, Granny intends for them never to return. Separated from her best friends, Raymie and Beverly, Louisiana struggles to oppose the winds of fate (and Granny) and find a way home. But as Louisiana’s life becomes entwined with the lives of the people of a small Georgia town — including a surly motel owner, a walrus-like minister, and a mysterious boy with a crow on his shoulder — she starts to worry that she is destined only for good-byes. (Which could be due to the curse on Louisiana's and Granny’s heads. But that is a story for another time.) Called “one of DiCamillo’s most singular and arresting creations” by The New York Times Book Review, the heartbreakingly irresistible Louisiana Elefante was introduced to readers in Raymie Nightingale — and now, with humor and tenderness, Kate DiCamillo returns to tell her story.
'So good I read it twice' - Hilary McKay, author of The Skylarks' War 'This thrilling time-slip adventure oozes magic and heart' - Bookseller EDITOR'S CHOICE When Charlie's longed-for brother is born with a serious heart condition, Charlie's world is turned upside down. Upset and afraid, Charlie flees the hospital and makes for the ancient forest on the edge of town. There Charlie finds a boy floating face-down in the stream, injured, but alive. But when Charlie sets off back to the hospital to fetch help, it seems the forest has changed. It's become a place as strange and wild as the boy dressed in deerskins. For Charlie has unwittingly fled into the Stone Age, with no way to help the boy or return to the present day. Or is there? What follows is a wild, big-hearted adventure as Charlie and the Stone Age boy set out together to find what they have lost – their courage, their hope, their family and their way home. Fans of Piers Torday and Stig of the Dump will love this wild, wise and heartfelt debut adventure.
Nearly sixty teens awaken halfway through their training, stranded on a harsh alien world with few supplies, no adults, and led by a treacherous artificial intelligence, but their greatest enemy is each other.
It was 11pm when I checked my email for the last time and turned off my phone for what I hoped would be forever. No running water, no car, no electricity or any of the things it powers: the internet, phone, washing machine, radio or light bulb. Just a wooden cabin, on a smallholding, by the edge of a stand of spruce. THE WAY HOME is a modern-day Walden -- an honest and lyrical account of a remarkable life lived in nature without modern technology. Mark Boyle, author of THE MONEYLESS MAN, explores the hard won joys of building a home with his bare hands, learning to make fire, collecting water from the stream, foraging and fishing. What he finds is an elemental life, one governed by the rhythms of the sun and seasons, where life and death dance in a primal landscape of blood, wood, muck, water, and fire - much the same life we have lived for most of our time on earth. Revisiting it brings a deep insight into what it means to be human at a time when the boundaries between man and machine are blurring.
'The best American political biography since Obama's Dreams from My Father' Guardian NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A mayor's inspirational story of a Midwest city that has become nothing less than a blueprint for the future of American renewal. Once described by the Washington Post as "the most interesting mayor you've never heard of," Pete Buttigieg, the thirty-seven-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has now emerged as one of America's most visionary politicians. With soaring prose that celebrates a resurgent American Midwest, Shortest Way Home narrates the heroic transformation of a "dying city" (Newsweek) into nothing less than a shining model of urban reinvention. Elected at twenty-nine as the nation's youngest mayor, Pete Buttigieg immediately recognized that "great cities, and even great nations, are built through attention to the everyday." As Shortest Way Home recalls, the challenges were daunting: whether confronting gun violence, renaming a street in honour of Martin Luther King Jr., or attracting tech companies to a city that had appealed more to junk bond scavengers than serious investors. None of this is underscored more than Buttigieg's audacious campaign to reclaim 1,000 houses, many of them abandoned, in 1,000 days and then, even as a sitting mayor, deploying to serve in Afghanistan as a Navy officer. Yet the most personal challenge still awaited Buttigieg, who came out in a South Bend Tribune editorial, just before being re-elected with 78 percent of the vote, and then finding Chasten Glezman, a middle-school teacher, who would become his partner for life. While Washington reels with scandal, Shortest Way Home, with its graceful, often humorous, language, challenges our perception of the typical American politician. In chronicling two once-unthinkable stories, that of an Afghanistan veteran who came out and found love and acceptance, all while in office, and that of a revitalized Rust Belt city no longer regarded as "flyover country" Buttigieg provides a new vision for America's shortest way home.
Animal migration is a magnificent sight: a mile-long blanket of cranes rising from a Nebraska river and filling the sky; hundreds of thousands of wildebeests marching across the Serengeti; a blaze of orange as millions of monarch butterflies spread their wings to take flight. Nature’s great migrations have captivated countless spectators, none more so than premier ecologist David S. Wilcove. In No Way Home, his awe is palpable—as are the growing threats to migratory animals. We may be witnessing a dying phenomenon among many species. Migration has always been arduous, but today’s travelers face unprecedented dangers. Skyscrapers and cell towers lure birds and bats to untimely deaths, fences and farms block herds of antelope, salmon are caught en route between ocean and river, breeding and wintering grounds are paved over or plowed, and global warming disrupts the synchronized schedules of predators and prey. The result is a dramatic decline in the number of migrants. Wilcove guides us on their treacherous journeys, describing the barriers to migration and exploring what compels animals to keep on trekking. He also brings to life the adventures of scientists who study migrants. Often as bold as their subjects, researchers speed wildly along deserted roads to track birds soaring overhead, explore glaciers in search of frozen locusts, and outfit dragonflies with transmitters weighing less than one one-hundredth of an ounce. Scientific discoveries and advanced technologies are helping us to understand migrations better, but alone, they won’t stop sea turtles and songbirds from going the way of the bison or passenger pigeon. What’s required is the commitment and cooperation of the far-flung countries migrants cross—long before extinction is a threat. As Wilcove writes, “protecting the abundance of migration is key to protecting the glory of migration.” No Way Home offers powerful inspiration to preserve those glorious journeys.
Jeffrey Bilhuber offers a look into intimate rooms fitting for today. Jeffrey Bilhuber, the decorator of choice for the creative elite-including fashion editors, designers, and musicians-presents his most recent projects, all of which exemplify the hallmarks of his inimitable style: flashpoints of inspiration from the past that embrace tradition while being rooted in the way we live today. Perhaps like no other contemporary decorator, Bilhuber has been a barometer of change, and this book marks a new, more relaxed evolution of his style. In this beautifully photographed book, Bilhuber shows that high style can (and should) encompass effortless comfort-interiors where families big or small can take pleasure in easy spaces that are brilliant amalgams of new and old. Every house tells a charming story of the family that inhabits it, and each room expertly showcases Bilhuber’s signature touches-a novel use of color (from vibrant palettes to more muted ones) and consummate attention to detail, with every element of a room attended to. Featuring projects from around the country-from urban townhouses and lofts to oceanfront cottages and country estates-Bilhuber’s work appeals to a wide range of tastes as he encourages every reader to embrace their unique vision to create cozy spaces as deeply personal as they are practical.
What if right now your life could change forever? This possibility is not as far fetched as you might think. I want to tell you a story--my story--and how in one moment everything in my life changed. I want to give you a front row seat to my journey of veering away from God's plan, going on my own path, and how I recalibrate and found my way back home. Some of you may be faced with the same decision right now: His way or mine. His plan or mine. I want to share with you my experience of what lies ahead and how you can have the life you've imagined. Some others might be in the greatest fight you've ever faced. You are praying and believing for a prodigal to come home but many tell you to accept things the way they are, that there is nothing you can do to change it. I'm here to tell you otherwise. Will things change? Only God has that answer. Can things change? Absolutely. --
