Something interesting is always happening at Blackberry Farm. Come join the fun and meet George the Kitten, Walter Duck, Henry the Pig, Lucy Mouse, Mrs Nibble, Mother Hen, Mrs Squirrel, and all the other's who share each other's adventures, secrets and happy surprises.
Poetry. "Emily Pettit has included a number of 'how to' poems in her nimble and dazzling first collection, such as: 'How to Make No Noise, ' and the especially useful 'How to Avoid Confronting Most Large Animals.' Her kindness is always ahead of us, anticipating the problems we will or won't run into, and we always end up in a different, precise place than the one we started out from, as she reassuringly tells us: 'You know / you know you know. It's all uncertainty / and your neck. You walk slowly / in a calm voice.' GOAT IN THE SNOW is multicolored, ever-changing, a delight to try to clasp." John Ashbery "GOAT IN THE SNOW is like a taste test between an etch-a-sketch and a spotlight, a race between a wind-up beetle and an idea. The certainty of Pettit's 'I know, ' and 'I think' quickly turns into a quicksand of questions. Perceptive, jumpy and perfectly odd, this book encourages you to 'try to maneuver like a spacecraft / passing sufficiently close to a planet / in order to make some relatively detailed observations / Without landing.'" Matthea Harvey "The poems in GOAT IN THE SNOW often ask odd, penetrating questions. 'What do you call a field of black telephones ringing?' 'Where did you find such a stunning embankment?' 'Is this what loving someone is like?' 'Do you remember the basement?' 'In what direction do you look when someone says something true?' These poems are full of mortal awareness, and are sophisticated without being ornate or 'poetic.' When the poet says, 'Once in modest and murky water, I had a very disturbing conversation with a boat,"' I don't feel as if she is writing in metaphor. I feel like something real has happened." Matthew Zapruder"
In 1932, the city of Natchez, Mississippi, reckoned with an unexpected influx of journalists and tourists as the lurid story of a local murder was splashed across headlines nationwide. Two eccentrics, Richard Dana and Octavia Dockery—known in the press as the "Wild Man" and the "Goat Woman"—enlisted an African American man named George Pearls to rob their reclusive neighbor, Jennie Merrill, at her estate. During the attempted robbery, Merrill was shot and killed. The crime drew national coverage when it came to light that Dana and Dockery, the alleged murderers, shared their huge, decaying antebellum mansion with their goats and other livestock, which prompted journalists to call the estate "Goat Castle." Pearls was killed by an Arkansas policeman in an unrelated incident before he could face trial. However, as was all too typical in the Jim Crow South, the white community demanded "justice," and an innocent black woman named Emily Burns was ultimately sent to prison for the murder of Merrill. Dana and Dockery not only avoided punishment but also lived to profit from the notoriety of the murder by opening their derelict home to tourists. Strange, fascinating, and sobering, Goat Castle tells the story of this local feud, killing, investigation, and trial, showing how a true crime tale of fallen southern grandeur and murder obscured an all too familiar story of racial injustice.
Emily lives alone with a little mouse, and complains about the noise, so the mouse suggests that she get more and more animals, each one noisier than the last. On board pages.
Many people dream of leaving the workaday world for a life of simplicity and freedom, and Margaret Hathaway and her then-boyfriend Karl did just that. In The Year of the Goat, the reader can jump in the “goat mobile” with them as they ditch their big-city lifestyle to trek across forty-three states in search of greener pastures and the perfect goat cheese. Along the way, the reader is introduced to a vivid cast of characters—including farmers, breeders, cheese makers, and world-class chefs—and discovers everything there is to know about goats and getting back to the land. But readers beware: When it comes to goat cheese, it can be love at first bite.
The dazzling success of The Toaster Project, including TV appearances and an international book tour, leaves Thomas Thwaites in a slump. His friends increasingly behave like adults, while Thwaites still lives at home, "stuck in a big, dark hole." Luckily, a research grant offers the perfect out: a chance to take a holiday from the complications of being human—by transforming himself into a goat. What ensues is a hilarious and surreal journey through engineering, design, and psychology, as Thwaites interviews neuroscientists, animal behaviorists, prosthetists, goat sanctuary workers, and goatherds. From this, he builds a goat exoskeleton—artificial legs, helmet, chest protector, raincoat from his mum, and a prosthetic goat stomach to digest grass (with help from a pressure cooker and campfire)—before setting off across the Alps on four legs with a herd of his fellow creatures. Will he make it? Do Thwaites and his readers discover what it truly means to be human? GoatMan tells all in Thwaites's inimitable style, which NPR extols as "a laugh-out- loud-funny but thoughtful guide through his own adventures."
A kid named Kid, a dog named Cat, and a goat on a roof A blind skateboarding writer, an old man who can't speak (and his wife), a smartly dressed non-hamster-owner, plus Kid and her parents, are all apparently sharing their Manhattan apartment building with a mountain goat. But in all the wonders and marvels of New York City, who has time to see this impossible goat? How did the goat even get there? And is the goat really capable of something a little like magic? In this tender and hilarious tale of a misplaced animal, a road trip, and a Broadway show, neighbours who were previously strangers may find the goat is just what they needed... ANNE FLEMING is the author of Pool-Hopping and Other Stories (shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, the Danuta Gleed Award and the Governor General's Award), Anomaly and Gay Dwarves of America. She is a long-time and highly regarded teacher of creative writing who has taught at the University of British Columbia, Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Douglas College, Kwantlen University College and the Banff Centre for the Arts. The Goat is her first full-length work for young readers. Anne lives in Vancouver.
The world is coming down in Emily, Maryland. That which has been buried is now surfacing and that which has been lost is being found. Billy and Delia Trexler have agreed to return to Leona Street to house-sit as a favor for Ricky Pettibone a war hero had died too many times to count. The favor quickly becomes an errand, the pursuit of which leads to the secret contents of The Pinch, as well as an even greater and more troubling suspicion: that things really are just as they seem especially in the spaces between the spaces.