"I loved every page. This is middle grade fiction at its best."-- Ann Patchett From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Magicians comes a must-read, wholly original middle-grade debut perfect for fans of The Chronicles of Narnia and Roald Dahl. Dear Uncle Herbert, You've never met me, but I'm your niece Kate, and since it is my birthday tomorrow and you are super-rich could you please send me a present? Kate and her younger brother Tom lead dull, uninteresting lives. And if their dull, uninteresting parents are anything to go by, they don't have much to look forward to. Why can't Kate have thrilling adventures and save the world the way people do in books? Even her 11th birthday is shaping up to be mundane -- that is, until her mysterious and highly irresponsible Uncle Herbert, whom she's never even met before, surprises her with the most unexpected, exhilarating, inappropriate birthday present of all time: a colossal steam locomotive called the Silver Arrow. Kate and Tom's parents want to send it right back where it came from. But Kate and Tom have other ideas -- and so does the Silver Arrow -- and soon they're off to distant lands along magical rail lines in the company of an assortment of exotic animals who, it turns out, can talk. With only curiosity, excitement, their own resourcefulness and the thrill of the unknown to guide them, Kate and Tom are on the adventure of a lifetime . . . and who knows? They just might end up saving the world after all. This thrilling fantasy adventure will not only entertain young readers but inspire them to see the beautiful, exciting, and precious world around them with new eyes.

Companion toThe Schwa Was Here! In honor of Old Man Crawley's eightieth birthday, the Bonano family has been invited to celebrate with a weeklong cruise to the Caribbean aboard the world's largest, grandest ship. But whether on land or at sea, Antsy can't manage to stay out of trouble- He quickly finds himself the accomplice of stowaway and thief Tilde, whose self-made mission it is to smuggle onto the ship and across the U.S. border illegal immigrants from her native Mexico. When Antsy steps in to take the fall for Tilde, he becomes the focus of a major international incident and the poster child for questionable decisions. Equal parts clever and riotous, Ship Out of Luck brings back the beloved cast of characters from Neal Shusterman's acclaimed The Schwa Was Here and Antsy Does Time. Awards for the Antsy Bonano novels- The Schwa Was Here Winner of the 2005 Boston Globe/Horn Book Award for Fiction An ALA Best Book for Young Adults An ALA Notable Book o Winner of the 2007-08 California Young Reader Medal Award An IRA Young Adult Choice Award selection 21 state lists; 2 starred reviews- BCCB, SLJ Antsy Does Time 2009 ALA Best Young Adult List 2008 Junior Library Guild Selection 2009 Pennsylvania School Library Association Young Adult Top 40 selection 5 state lists; 4 starred reviews- Booklist, Kirkus, SLJ, VOYA

This is the rollicking tale of the adventures of Charlie, the youngest cable car. Only sixty years old, he is tired of the same old rut. One night as he's puffing himself up Nob Hill, he hears a lot of excitement down below: Chinese New year! Suddenly, Charlie takes a right turn at Jackson Street, rather than the left he has taken for sixty years, and he finds himself in the middle of the parade. There he meets a friendly dragon named Chu Chin Chow, who is bored with his job. Charlie treats Chu to a cable car ride that looks as if it will end in a disastrous plunge into the San Francisco Bay--unless a miracle occurs.

In a collision with a steamship, City of Rome, on the night of September 25, 1925, the U.S. Navy Submarine S-51 sank in 132 feet of water, taking 33 sailors to the ocean floor. This is the story of the men charged with doing the impossible—raising the thousand ton sub from the bottom of the sea. Added to this modern classic of true adventure are a foreword and afterword giving specifics of the accident and the aftermath, additional photographs, a publisher’s preface, and appendices.

It’s the latest Brilliant Blockbuster from bestselling Baddiel! A non-stop thrill-ride adventure that will have readers young and old racing to the finishing line. The Taylor TurboChaser is a road-trip rollercoaster… with a twist. At its heart is the unforgettable Amy Taylor. Amy loves cars, and dreams of being a driver. But there’s a major her slow old wheelchair with its broken wheel. When Amy finally gets a new electric one, it’s exciting… at first. But standard engines only have so much power. And that’s where Rahul comes in – Amy’s best friend and genius inventor. Soon Rahul turns a wheelchair into… a supercar! And so the Taylor TurboChaser is born. But when it all goes suddenly wrong Amy is going to have to hit the road – and drive…

'Taking taxis in New York is usually an adventure and occasionally a risk,' says Christina Oxenberg. The hundred or so taxi stories she's collected from both sides of the partition window make that an understatement. 'All the drivers are crazy' seems nearer the mark, like the intellectual who drives in order to subsidize his search for the 'Negative' Scienza Nuova of Giamattista Vico or the immigrant who takes to the wheel because 'it requires no prior experience, no knowledge of English and no familiarity with the geography of New York'. Ms Oxenberg describes another driver as 'the living embodiment of urban paranoia', but judging by some of the celebrities' reactions to her request for stories the tag applies equally well to many passengers. Some of these will be interested to find the exact wording of their refusals here. Fairbanks Junior, Diana Vreeland, Quentin Crisp, Any Warhol and Catherine Oxenberg, whose driver, in a bid to pick her up, promised to get her a spot on Dynasty. This fully illustrated book is as redolent of New York City as the yellow taxi describes. The back of the cab serves as an arena for metaphysical discussion, copulation, homicide, drug abuse and literary quotation. Celebrities apart, the passengers include an incontinent lion cub and Franco Rossilini's puppy Gramophone, who gets slung into a shop window by a demented driver. More often it's your tip that gets slung in your face. As Ms Oxenberg dryly remarks, 'Taxi Driving is not a passive sport.' Sharp observation and a diligent disregard for contributors' requests for anonymity ensure that the place for this book is your bookshelf.

Could an Irish monk in the sixth century really have sailed all the way across the Atlantic in a small open boat, thus beating Columbus to the New World by almost a thousand years? Relying on the medieval text of St. Brendan, award-winning adventure writer Tim Severin painstakingly researched and built a boat identical to the leather curragh that carried Brendan on his epic voyage. He found a centuries-old, family-run tannery to prepare the ox hides in the medieval way; he undertook an exhaustive search for skilled harness makers (the only people who would know how to stitch the three-quarter-inch-thick hides together); he located one of the last pieces of Irish-grown timber tall enough to make the mainmast. But his courage and resourcefulness were truly tested on the open seas, including one heart-pounding episode when he and his crew repaired a dangerous tear in the leather hull by hanging over the side--their heads sometimes submerged under the freezing waves--to restitch the leather. A modern classic in the tradition of Kon-Tiki, The Brendan Voyage seamlessly blends high adventure and historical relevance. It has been translated into twenty-seven languages since its original publication in 1978. With a new Introduction by Malachy McCourt, author of A Monk Swimming