Followed by an assassin and her poisonous snakes, ten-year-old twins Wally and Cheyenne Shluffmuffin try to get from their Ohio home to the FBI training facility in Quantico, Virginia, to get help in freeing human hostages from the onts.

While trying to convince the FBI that giant ants are kidnapping and enslaving the citizens of Cincinnatti, twins Wally and Cheyenne Shluffmuffin, with the help of their vampire father, escape the clutches of the enormous ghouls who want to adopt--and eat--them.

Sometime in the twenty-third century, humanity went extinct, leaving only androids behind to fulfill humanity’s dreams. And, having learned well from their long-dead masters, they’ve established a hierarchical society—one with humanoid aristo rulers at the top and slave-chipped workers at the bottom, performing the lowly tasks all androids were originally created to do. Designed as a concubine for a species that hasn’t existed for two hundred years, femmebot Freya Nakamichi-47—one of the last of her kind still functioning—accepts a job from a stranger to deliver a package from mercury to Mars. Unfortunately, she’s just made herself a moving target for some very powerful, very determined humanoids desperate to retrieve the package’s contents…

"A collection of twenty five short stories about the children of Holocaust survivors and the conflicts between homosexuality and traditional Judaism"--Provided by publisher.

"An adorable baby hare springs into an adventure, following his human friend up, up, and away in this flight of fancy. He follows his friend ever higher, flying through fluffy white clouds, chasing a red airplane through a flock of geese, and soaring into space on a rocket ship, before catching a ride on a shooting star back down to earth and into his friend's waiting arms. With bright, kid-friendly collage, this is a beautiful and accessible celebration of Spring and the imagination!"--Provided by publisher.

"Elsewhere confronts complex themes through the prism of a Jewish family in which old secrets are disclosed and the truth is seemingly forever concealed. At the end of this compelling novel nothing remains certain as Ethan discovers that home can often be the place that feels most unfamiliar."--Dust jacket.

When a group of hedonistic West European tourists gather to celebrate Christmas in a remote French chateau, an English woman is murdered. Tatiana, 'the unloved child', declares she knows who did it. The subsequent inquiry into the death proves to be more of an investigation into the nature of love, insatiable rage and sadistic desire, framed within an unfolding narrative of colonial violence which will change the tourists' version of history for ever. The Unloved is a pivotal novel in Levy's career, first published in 1994 and reissued now for a new generation of readers.

The death of flamboyant writer and womanizer Peter Grosvenor sets in motion a series of spiraling events surrounding his legacy and his estate. His bitter third wife, his two children, his sister, his friends, and his would-be biographers are drawn into a maelstrom of intense memories and painful encounters as each of the major players in Peter's life seeks to appropriate Peter's estate for his or her own purposes. As a complex story of passion, jealousy, and loss unfolds, the figures that had once blossomed in Peter's presence spin off into their own orbits and turn against one another without the anchor of his charismatic presence. Ultimately, the tragedy and scandal that marred his life cannot be ended even by his death. Susan Fromberg Schaeffer writes with exquisite flavor and measure; character, history, and relationships build into a large, minutely detailed canvas and remind us why she is a master of the epic novel. Reading group guide included.

In this sensational collection of supernatural short stories, Sophie Hannah takes the comforting scenes of everyday life and imbues them with a frisson of fear, then a gust of terror. Why is a young woman so unnerved by the presence of a visitors book in her boyfriend’s inner-city home? And whose spidery handwriting is it that fills the pages? Who is the strangely courteous boy still lingering at a child’s tenth birthday party when all the parents have gathered their children and left? And why does the presence of a perfectly ordinary woman in a post office line leave another customer sweating with fear? Read on to find out—but beware . . .

Continuing the adventures of the lovable "fools" of Helm begun in "The Wise Men of Helm", this book is illustrated with whimsical drawings. These humorous stories are just right for children.

When Peter sees the model ship in the shop window, he wants it more than anything else on Earth. But this is no ordinary model. The ship takes Peter and the other children on magical flights, wherever they ask to go. Time after time the magic ship takes them on different exciting adventures, to different countries, and to different times. And why should magic ever end?

A tired little boy searches for a place where he can sleep.

Marvin Kreitman, the luggage baron of South London, lives for sex. Or at least he lives for women. At present he loves four women - his mother, his wife Hazel, and his two daughters - and is in love with five more. Charlie Merriweather, on the other hand, nice Charlie, loves just the one woman, also called Charlie, the wife with whom he has been writing children's books and having nice sex for twenty years. Once a week the two friends meet for a Chinese lunch, contriving never quite to have the conversation they would like to have - about fidelity and womanising, and which makes you happier. Until today. It is Charlie who takes the dangerous step of asking for a piece of Marvin's disordered life, but what follows embroils them all, the wives no less than the husbands. And none of them will ever be the same again.

Featuring an international constellation of notable authors, this anthology explores and celebrates childhood with tales touching on abuse and rejection, loneliness and love, the joys of friendship and discovery, and the first confused inklings of adolescent love. Participants in the project include acclaimed and award-winning authors such as David Almond, Margaret Atwood, Andre Brink, Melvin Burgess, Junot Diaz, Nadine Gordimer, Eva Hoffman, Alberto Manguel, Meg Rosoff, Nicholas Shakespeare, Ali Smith and Richard Zimler. Some of the 26 stories are new, while others are difficult to find in print-yet each offers a moving, disturbing, surprising, or mysterious glimpse into the fragile and precious lives of children around the world.

In The Children Sing MacKinlay Kantor-winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel Andersonville-ventures into the field of the parading mural, taking a colorful group of people through Eastern Asia into a crucible of challenge and excitement. Don Lundin and his wife, July, are in Bangkok with other members of Graduate Tours Incorporated. Lundin, a wealthy land speculator, had served with the U.S. Air Force in the bombing of Japan and also during the Korean War. He has harbored within himself an abusive hatred for the scrambling millions of the brown and yellow nations who are, to him, a disquieting threat. Despite the gentle example of Mr. Wye Rabarti Wong, a tour conductor who tends his flock with saintly fortitude, and Lundin's rescue of a drowning child in Thailand, his prejudice persists. Meanwhile, his beautiful July meets in Singapore an officer who has long been seeking an opportunity to demonstrate his passion for her-and they meet again in a Kowloon hotel. Perhaps Chaucer was not the first writer to present a group of people on a pilgrimage, but resourceful authors have been gathering their throngs together in such pageantry ever since Chaucer's time. The results, as far as MacKinlay Kantor is concerned, add up to a charming and memorable novel. The retired surgeon and his veteran actress wife; a quavering spinster clinging to false and profitless recollections; a quiet woman filled with death-dealing hatred for her bullying husband; the brave old Jew whose heart and soul are set on an intimate view of Mount Fuji-no-Yama; and the sign manufacturer drinking his life away even while he crouches at the Red Chinese border-we come to know these travelers and others intimately before we return to Japan with Don Lundin and see him overwhelmed by a startling revelation of his own past and a kinship with the East affirmed in the very flesh.

Danny would sit anywhere and everywhere: a comfy couch, a bean bag chair, his mom's lap, a playground swing. The one place Danny wouldn't sit? The toilet. When the pain of rejection becomes too much, the toilet does what any self-respecting toilet would do: He leaves home.

Rare book

And the Rat Laughed is a unique book. Unlike other Holocaust-related books that focus on the historical horrific events, this novel deals with the act of remembering them. It resembles a relay race in which the characters transfer memory from one another, while travelling on the axis of time. The book begins in the last day of 1999, when a survivor Grandmother in Tel Aviv shares her tragic life story as a hidden child in a pit, with only a rat for company with her granddaughter. The day after – 2000 already – the granddaughter tells the legend of "Girl and Rat" to her teacher and in 2009 those who heard it through her classmates establish an internet website with poems. From now on this memory is spread all over the world and becomes a myth. In 2099 a future anthropologist discovers it and tries to uncover its mysterious roots. In her research, she reveals the first man who created this myth in the past. Father Stanislaw, a Catholic priest, saved that little Jewish girl (who later became the Grandmother in Tel Aviv) and returned her after the war to her Jewish people. In his personal journal he documented everything, to make sure the world will never forget. The chain of remembearers, therefore, moves from the present to the future and back to the past. The novel is written in 5 genres: story, legend, poems, science fiction and diary, creating a cycle of 150 years. And the Rat Laughed got acclaim for its use of unconventional and original literary devices and became a ground breaker for exploring the act of memory itself. How do we tell our painful story? Does it change while we recall it? How will our next recipient recall it in his own individual way? Is Art the only corridor to transfer emotional memory?

At sixteen Bridget is pregnant--and her boyfriend has dumped her for another girl. She's trying to envision a future for her baby. But as she sifts through the many paths and the many people who want to parent her child, she can't help but feel that there is no right decision. Fifteen years later: Ivy knows that she is now the same age Bridget was when she placed Ivy for adoption. She knows that Bridget was the one who named her. When Ivy goes in search of Bridget--of her own history--will the risks outweigh the benefits of knowing where she comes from and why her birth mother chose to walk away?

"Ilse Aichiner was born to a Jewish mother in Vienna in 1921. Prior to 1939 her Aunt Klara waited for the family in London, but only Ilse's twin sister, Helga, escaped on the last 'Kindertransport'. Ilse remained. She survived, and published 'The Greater hope' in 1948. The novel reflects Ilse Aichinger's experience of anti-Semitism as a young woman in Nazi Austria, and through her extraordinary use of language the author not only captures the horror and the humanity of that experience, but also transcends it to offer a profound meditation on a greater hope, the metaphysical perspectives of which surpass the physical trajectories of devastation, deportation and death ... The Afterword to this new translation creates...an original and in-depth analysis of interviews given by Aichinger throughout her life. The Coda to this edition consists of a commentary upon and quotations from a previously unpublished letter from Ilse Aichinger in Vienna to her twin sister, Helga, in London for Christmas 1945"--Back cover.