Emery's neighbor, Richard, is the kind of kid who gets under your skin. When Richard suggests a game of Nicky Nicky Nine Doors, Emery can't come up with a good excuse not to play. Using chocolate bars as "stunt poo," the boys start playing the classic prank of the burning bag on the doorstep, but this game has a modern twist. They videotape their neighbors' reactions. The naked guy and the man in the apron are highly entertaining, but Emery starts to get cold feet when another neighbor is reduced to tears. Emery wants out, but he's not sure how to stop the game without losing face. Soon the game gets serious, and Emery has a lot more to worry about than his reputation. Vicki Grant is a best-selling and award-winning author of many books for juveniles and young adults, including I.D. and Dead-End Job in the Orca Soundings series and Pigboy, all of which were ALA Quick Picks. Vicki lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Views: 15
'I have spent most of my life in New Jersey, but the blood of a geisha courses through me yet.' If Kiki Takehashi's life is dramatically different from that of her reserved Japanese-American mother, it is light-years away from that of her grandmother, whom she knows only through old family stories. Kiki has recently become engaged to Eric, a handsome, successful New York City lawyer. But at the same time she is haunted--quite literally--by the memory of her friend Phillip, killed the previous year in a mountaineering accident.Kiki has never met her grandmother Yukiko, for whom she is named. Still, thoroughly American though she is, she feels a secret kinship with her. Kiki is swept up by the story of this strong, proud, passionate woman who, against all odds, in a time and place far different from her own, was sold by her impoverished family, became a famous geisha, and found the love that has so far eluded the rest of the Takehashi women.Lyrical, haunting, and stunningly evocative, One Hundred and One Ways introduces a powerful and exciting new voice in contemporary fiction. Views: 15
In March 1941, Virginia Woolf filled her pockets with stones and drowned herself in England's River Ouse. Her body was found three weeks later. What seemed like a tragic ending at the time was, in fact, just the beginning of a mystery. Six decades after Virginia Woolf's death, landscape designer Jo Bellamy has come to Sissinghurst Castle for two reasons: to study the celebrated White Garden created by Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West and to recover from the terrible wound of her grandfather's unexplained suicide. In the shadow of one of England's most famous castles, Jo makes a shocking find: Woolf's last diary, its first entry dated the day after she allegedly killed herself. If authenticated, Jo's discovery could shatter everything historians believe about Woolf's final hours. But when the Woolf diary is suddenly stolen, Jo's quest to uncover the truth will lead her on a perilous journey into the tumultuous inner life of a literary icon whose connection to the White Garden ultimately proved devastating. Rich with historical detail, The White Garden is an enthralling novel of literary suspense that explores the many ways the past haunts the present — and the dark secrets that lurk beneath the surface of the most carefully tended garden. Views: 15
SUMMARY:
After Matt Jensen is sentenced to hang at Yuma Prison, he escapes and finds himself hunted by a determined U.S. marshal as well as tangling with a vicious band of outlaws. Original. Views: 15
The well-known and very popular Catholic couple, Scott and Kimberly Hahn, have been constantly travelling and speaking all over North America for the last few years about their conversion to the Catholic Church. Now these two outstanding Catholic apologists tell in their own words about the incredible spiritual journey that led them to embrace Catholicism. Scott Hahn was a Presbyterian minister, the top student in his seminary class, a brilliant Scripture scholar, and militantly anti-Catholic ... until he reluctantly began to discover that his "enemy" had all the right answers. Kimberly, also a top-notch theology student in the seminary, is the daughter of a well-known Protestant minister, and went through a tremendous "dark night of the soul" after Scott converted to Catholicism. Their conversion story and love for the Church has captured the hearts and minds of thousands of lukewarm Catholics and brought them back into an active participation in the Church. They have also influenced countless conversions to Catholicism among their friends and others who have heard their powerful testimony. Views: 15
Product DescriptionRevolution. Secrets. Adventure. America is on the brink of war with England, and Fin Button is about to come undone. She's had it with the dull life of the orphanage, and she's ready to marry Peter and get away from rules, chores, and a life looked after by the ever-watchful Sister Hilde. But an unexpected friendship forms between Fin and the fiddle-playing cook, Bartimaeus, which sets her on a course for revolution. With Bart's beloved fiddle and haunting blunderbuss as her only possessions, Fin discovers her first taste of freedom as a sailor aboard the Rattlesnake. She's hiding some dark secrets, but there are bigger problems for the crew: they are on the run from the Royal Navy, and whispers of mutiny are turning the captain into a tyrant. When Fin finally returns home, will she find Peter still waiting, or will she find that she's lost everything she once held dear?
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Wandering into the Lost Village wasn't part of the plan. Once Rosie sees how broken Avalon is, she knows something has to be done. When Draper comes into her life just as Bastien leaves, things that she thought she understood start to spin out of control. Rosie wasn't expecting to have to prove herself, but when she rescues her cousin from the Forgotten Forest, she's quickly put in the crosshairs. When an attempt on her life is made, Rosie quickly sees that though she's been offered protection, she truly is on her own. "Lost Girl" is book two of a 14-part fantasy romance series. Views: 15
Science Fiction. 73724 words long. Views: 15
From School Library JournalGrade 6-9-An intriguing, intricately woven fantasy set in Italy and then Sicily. Because of his magnificent voice, Alfredo is selected to be trained as a choirboy. On his name day, he receives a mysterious gift, a gold charm of a salamander on a chain, from his father's estranged brother. Thus starts this complicated tale that relies on folklore related to salamanders as the spirit of fire and the power of music. After Alfredo is orphaned when his family's bakery burns down, the Prince-Cardinal begins to arrange for the painful and dangerous surgery that will make Alfredo a castrati to ensure that his voice will not change. Claiming that he is Alfredo's only living relative, Uncle Giorgio arrives and prevents the operation from taking place. At first Alfredo believes that his uncle cares about him as he takes him away to Mt. Etna. However, he begins to realize that his uncle is a sorcerer, the Master of the Mountain who can control when it will erupt and spew fire on its environs. Giorgio has Alfredo sing for the salamander, and the beauty of the boy's voice makes the creature cry, and readers learn that its tears have restorative powers. Eventually, Alfredo understands that Uncle Giorgio has sinister intentions for him and begins a plan that leads to the man's ultimate destruction. The story takes many twists and turns, some convenient and some confusing. This latest offering from a master storyteller is not an easy read, but fantasy fans will stick with it, hoping for good's triumph.Renee Steinberg, formerly at Fieldstone Middle School, Montvale, NJCopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. From BooklistStarred Review Gr. 6-9. In this sophisticated story, Dickinson takes readers inside a volcanic mountain of fire, where a salamander sheds healing tears and excretes liquid gold. Thirteen-year-old Alfredo is happy with his Tuscan life, singing in the choir and tending to the fires of his father's bakery oven. Then comes tragedy: the family house burns. Alfredo, the only survivor, is whisked away to his ancestral home by his mysterious uncle, who has an ulterior motive. Although simply and elegantly written, Dickinson's story is, nonetheless, complex, as Alfredo moves from a wary gratefulness to discovery of the horrifying truth: his uncle, who controls the volcano, is ready to use his sorcerer's powers to claim Alfredo's strong, young body for his own. Not everything here is easy to understand: the power of the salamanders and the mystical relationship they have with the mountain's fire are sometimes too esoteric to grasp. But Alfredo's relationship with the people who live under the volcano is sharp and strongly written, and the fierce beauty of the mountain and its fire will linger in memory. Ilene CooperCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Views: 15
From Publishers WeeklyThe seventh novel set in Reynolds's Revelation Space milieu (most recently encountered in his 2007 collection Galactic North) is a fascinating hybrid of space opera, police procedural and character study. One of the 10,000 colony habitats of the utopian Glitter Band has been destroyed, and title character Tom Dreyfus, a cop who patrols the Glitter Band beat, is assigned to learn whodunit and why. Meanwhile, his protégé, Thalia Ng, shepherds a supposedly minor series of software upgrades on several other habitats, while Dreyfus's superiors oust their leader, ostensibly for her own good. Reynolds unfolds revelations layer by onionskin layer, supplying enough detail to imply a novel's worth of unwritten backstory without ever obscuring the stakes and personalities. The high-quality characterization more than compensates for the slightly too shadowy villains. This is solid British SF adventure, evoking echoes of le Carré and Sayers with a liberal dash of Doctor Who. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. FromReynolds returns to Revelation Space to follow the trials and tribulations of Tom Dreyfus, prefect of Panoply, tasked with maintaining democracy throughout the Glitter Band. Between an apparently minor security flaw in the voting software and an apparent attack that left an entire habitat destroyed and the only survivors flawed beta-level copies of three of its inhabitants, Dreyfus is caught in a web of good intentions gone bad. Tension is high as the threads leading to a conspiracy to control the Glitter Band and a plan to destroy people’s rights ostensibly to protect them come together faster than the planners intended. There are secrets in the highest ranks of Panoply; even Dreyfus has kept some from himself. The endgame is creative, though as usual with Reynolds, neither plot nor solution is simple. The questions he raises about freedom and the fascinating solutions his characters come up with are relevant to our own time, and the thriller aspects keep us engaged with the magnificently imagined world in which those questions are resolved. --Regina Schroeder Views: 15
