Search results for ""astra publishing house""

Did you know a pigeon can fly faster than a car and farther than a small airplane? Or that they have something unusual in common with penguins, flamingos, and even the dodo? With his trademark mix of humor, well-researched facts, and artistry, Kevin McCloskey delivers the straight poop on these humble creatures, which turn out to be...coo, coo, COOL!Kevin McCloskey, who teaches illustration at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, learned about pigeons from Vinnie Torre, one of Hoboken’s last pigeon racers. He dedicated this book to his children, even if his daughter is a little skittish on the subject since a flock of pigeons descended on the family during a visit to London’s Trafalgar Square. He says he considered painting the pictures here on roofing material (because pigeons flock to roofs) but settled instead for painting on a pigeon-blue Fabriano paper, the kind used by Picasso.

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Who was Melvil Dewey? Learn how Dewey's love of organization and words drove him to develop and implement his Dewey Decimal system, leaving a significant and lasting impact in libraries across the country.When Melvil Dewey realized every library organized their books differently, he wondered if he could invent a system all libraries could use to organize them efficiently. A rat-a-tat speaker, Melvil was a persistent (and noisy) advocate for free public libraries. And while he made enemies along the way as he pushed for changes–like his battle to establish the first library school with women as students, through it all he was EFFICIENT, INVENTIVE, and often ANNOYING as he made big changes in the world of public libraries–changes still found in the libraries of today!

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How did a pizza become a pizza? Is a pickle really a cucumber in disguise? Explore fascinating food history, nutrition, and American culture through this middle-grade graphic-format nonfiction book for kids that answers oft-asked questions about the foods we love, explaining how they came to be. Whether it's pizza and pickles or sushi and salad, there's a story behind all of our favorite foods. From breakfast to dinner, this book explores popular foods from our history, and explains their origins. Young readers will travel back in time sometimes thousands of years to cultures all over the globe to learn how and why foods were discovered. They'll also meet key people from food history along the way, including the inventor of breakfast cereal and the creator of salad dressing. The science behind unhealthy foods is also explored in this fascinating book, which includes projects and activities for both the classroom and home.

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Snails Are Just My Speed!: TOON Level 1 (TOON into Reading) What's the scoop behind all the mucus? Did you know snails build roads like engineers and go undercover in camouflage like spies? Did you know they can be smaller than a seed or bigger than a grown-up's hand? Kevin McCloskey mixes snail science, art, and hilarity for the newest book in his Giggle and Learn series, praised by the New York Times as "a winning combination of facts and gross-out fun."

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"Hansel and Gretel astonishes from start to finish . . ." -The New York Times Bestselling author Neil Gaiman and fine artist Lorenzo Mattotti join forces to create Hansel and Gretel, a stunning book that's at once as familiar as a dream and as evocative as a nightmare. Mattotti's sweeping ink illustrations capture the terror and longing found in the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Gaiman crafts an original text filled with his signature wit and pathos that is sure to become a favourite of readers everywhere, young and old.

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BFFs Grace and Lola try to unravel the mystery of romance with a plan to observe, study, and analyze the ways of love at their junior high in the first book in this addictive graphic novel series. BFFs Grace and Lola talk about everything related to romance-and have lots of questions: What about the mysterious allure of the popular girl at school? And the rebellious goth with the reputation? And boys. They don't quite understand what makes some school romances soar to legendary heights, while other flirtations fizzle. Lola has an idea-they'll observe, study, and analyze all the couples at their Junior High-and compile their findings as The Love Report. Surprises await them, and force them to learn to see beyond appearances in this fast-paced series opener. They'll also discover secrets between themselves.

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Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Sean Michaels's moving, innovative novel about an aging poet laureate who "sells out" by agreeing to collaborate with a Big Tech company's poetry AI. Do You Remember Being Born? is sensitively narrated by the aging, world-renowned poet Marian Ffarmer. Marian's pristine life of the mind � for which she's sacrificed nearly all personal relationships, from romance to friendship to showing up for her son � is interrupted one day by a cryptic invitation from a tech giant. Come to California, the invitation beckons, and write with a machine. The Company's lucrative offer � for Marian to compose a 'historic partnership' of a poem with their highly intelligent poetry bot, called Charlotte �, much as it chafes at everything she believes about art-making as an individual pursuit, is a second chance she cannot resist. And so to California she goes, a skeptic. But as unexpectedly welcome to Marian as suddenly being a financially reliable parent is her generative, growing fascination with Charlotte.

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The Line Becomes a River meets Tell Me How It Ends in this book about translation, storytelling, and borders as understood through the United States' "immigration crisis." Alejandra Oliva is Mexican American, her family lineage defined by a long and fluid relationship with the border between Texas and Mexico, each generation born on opposite sides of the Rio Grande. A translator advocating for Latin American migrants seeking asylum and American citizenship, Oliva knows all too well the gravity of taking someone's trauma and delivering it in the warped form the immigration system demands. In Rivermouth, Oliva focuses on the physical spaces that make up different phases of immigration and looks at how language and opportunity move through each of them. From the river as the waterway that separates the United States and Mexico, to the table as the place over which Oliva prepares asylum seekers for their Credible Fear Interviews, and finally, to the wall as the behemoth imposition that runs along America's southernmost border. With lush prose and perceptive insight, Oliva encourages readers to approach the painful questions that this crisis poses with equal parts critique and compassion. By which metrics are we measuring who "deserves" American citizenship? What is the point of humanitarian systems that dole out aid distributed conditionally? What do we owe to our most disenfranchised? Rivermouth is an argument for porosity. Not just for porous borders and a decriminalization of immigration, but for a more open sense of what we owe one another and a willingness to extend radical empathy. As concrete as she is meditative, sharp as she is lyrical, and incisive as she is literary, Oliva argues for a better world while telling us why it's worth fighting to get there.

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A collection of contemplative, lyrical stories examining the visible and invisible consequences of atomic power on Japanese society Sunrise is a collection of interconnected stories continuing Erika Kobayashi's examination of the effects of nuclear power on generations of women. Connecting changes to everyday life to the development of the atomic bomb, Sunrise shows us how the discovery of radioactive power has shaped our history and continues to shape our future. In the opening, eponymous story "Sunrise," Yoko, born exactly two years and one day after Nagasaki was decimated, mirrors her life to the development of nuclear power in Japan. In "Precious Stones," four daughters take their elderly mother to the restorative waters of a radium spring, exchanging tales of immortality. In "Hello My Baby, Hello My Honey," a woman goes into labor during the final days of WWII. And finally, "The Forest of Wild Birds" shows Erika visiting the site of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster, touring grounds that were once covered in green. Translator Brian Bergstrom returns in this collection, bringing to life Kobayashi's unsettling, lasting, and striking prose. The stories in Sunrise force a reckoning with the lasting effects of known and unknown histories and asks how much of modern life is influenced by forces outside of our control.

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Fire Chief Fran A Kirkus Reviews Best Book Four starred reviews! ★ Booklist ★ Kirkus ★ Publishers Weekly ★ School Library Journal Perfect for fans of firefighters and fire trucks, this energetic rhyming picture book shows how a fire chief and her crew keep their community safe. . . . lights begin flashing, and—clang!—the bells blast. They leap into action— they need to move fast! If a puppy is in danger or a café is on fire, Fire Chief Fran is ready to help! Featuring a strong female role model, a huge fire truck, and an action-packed story, this read-aloud is a dynamic introduction to a day in the life of a firefighter. Follow along as Fire Chief Fran and her team respond not only to fires, but also to injuries, blocked roads, and more. With an irresistible rhyming text, acclaimed author Linda Ashman celebrates the many ways that firefighters help their communities. The book concludes with an author’s note that is packed with further fascinating information about firefighters, their equipment, their fire trucks, their training, and more.

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Now in paperback, the eighth book of the bestselling Rivers of London series returns to the adventures of Peter Grant, detective and apprentice wizard, as he solves magical crimes in the city of London.Peter Grant is facing fatherhood, and an uncertain future, with equal amounts of panic and enthusiasm. Rather than sit around, he takes a job with émigré Silicon Valley tech genius Terrence Skinner's brand new London start up—the Serious Cybernetics Company. Drawn into the orbit of Old Street's famous 'silicon roundabout', Peter must learn how to blend in with people who are both civilians and geekier than he is. Compared to his last job, Peter thinks it should be a doddle. But magic is not finished with Mama Grant's favourite son. Because Terrence Skinner has a secret hidden in the bowels of the SCC. A technology that stretches back to Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, and forward to the future of artificial intelligence. A secret that is just as magical as it technological—and just as dangerous.

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Discover #1 New York Times-bestselling Patrick Rothfuss’ epic fantasy universe of The Kingkiller Chronicle, in this illustrated companion novella, The Slow Regard of Silent Things. “I just love the world of Patrick Rothfuss.” —Lin-Manuel Miranda Deep below the University, there is a dark place. Few people know of it: a broken web of ancient passageways and abandoned rooms. A young woman lives there, tucked among the sprawling tunnels of the Underthing, snug in the heart of this forgotten place. Her name is Auri, and she is full of mysteries. The Slow Regard of Silent Things is a brief, bittersweet glimpse of Auri’s life, a small adventure all her own. At once joyous and haunting, this story offers a chance to see the world through Auri’s eyes. And it gives the reader a chance to learn things that only Auri knows.... In this book, Patrick Rothfuss brings us into the world of one of The Kingkiller Chronicle’s most enigmatic characters. Full of secrets and mysteries, The Slow Regard of Silent Things is the story of a broken girl trying to live in a broken world.

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Teaching little ones about kindness can be as easy as 1, 2, 3! This bright and engaging board book invites young readers to count down from 10 while discovering the many ways to make the world a kinder place. Through vibrant illustrations and age-appropriate language, this 26-page kindness book will help kids 2-5 learn the important concepts of empathy and compassion.Whether it be delivering cookies to a new neighbor, sharing toys, or saying "I love you" to Grandma and Grandpa, this book is filled with tangible ways kids can show kindness toward others. It’s a perfect book to read aloud at home or in the classroom to spark conversations about kindness and empathy. Showcasing a diverse cast of children, this book’s joyful illustrations and simple words encourage children to be their best selves wherever they go.Featuring durable cardstock pages and approachable, kid-friendly language, this book offers a thoughtful and fun read-aloud experience that young children will enjoy again and again. This book is crafted by childhood experts to promote strong social and emotional skills, strengthen early math skills and build positive associations with reading.

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From A to Z, this hardcover storybook shows young children how they can make the world a kinder place. Through vibrant illustrations and age-appropriate language, this 26-page book will encourage kids 2-5 to be their best selves wherever they go.Showcasing a diverse cast of children, the ABCs of Kindness book demonstrates everyday acts of kindness, inclusion and generosity—whether it be donating blankets to the animal shelter, helping with chores or standing up for what's right. It’s the perfect book to spark conversations at home or in the classroom about the concepts of empathy and compassion.Featuring durable cardstock pages and approachable, kid-friendly language, this book offers a thoughtful and fun read-aloud experience that young children will love. This book is crafted by childhood experts to promote strong social and emotional skills and build positive associations with reading.For over 75 years, Highlights has inspired children to become Curious, Creative, Caring and Confident individuals. With products that encourage thinking, creativity and self-expression, Highlights helps kids build essential skills, all while having fun.

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In this unique, fast-paced twist on the time-travel genre and the first book in a trilogy, sixteen-year-old Alex is a spinner – one of a rare few who can rewind time to review past events. Alex's society uses spinners to help solve crimes, but their powers come with a price: no spinner ever lives past the age of twenty. Hated and feared because of their ability to find the truth, the small population of spinners is restricted to Centers – compounds created to house and protect them. Alex's society uses the spinners' skills to solve major crimes, but messing with time comes with consequences. At sixteen, Alex is in her prime – until time sickness strikes early. When she is offered an experimental treatment, Alex sees a future for herself for the first time. But the promising medication offers more than just a cure – it also brings with it alarming consequences.

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The perfect addition to any Easter basket! This Easter-themed collection of Hidden Pictures puzzles is inverted for a unique puzzling experience. Kids can use the included yellow highlighter to create fluorescent scenes and find hundreds of hidden objects.This Easter activity book combines the fun of coloring with highlighters and the enduring popularity of intricate Hidden Pictures puzzles. With images like bunnies, eggs, and flowers, these puzzles create a fun and engaging family Easter activity. Hidden Pictures fans will love creating eye-popping artwork with a neon highlighter on purple paper as they find and color the hidden objects!

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Ultimate Puzzle Challenge is filled with brain-twisting fun and ultra-challenging puzzles, expertly crafted for the most experienced puzzlers. With more than 125 games and activities inside, this collection features Hidden Pictures puzzles, mazes, Sudoku, word searches, crisscrosses, logic puzzles and more.From the puzzle experts at Highlights, this 256-page book includes our most challenging—and most rewarding—puzzles yet. A perfect activity book for kids ages 8-12, this collection is designed for super-solvers who are ready to up their game. This book is bursting with a wide variety of mind-bending visual puzzles and clever word puzzles, all infused with playful humor that will make kids want to keep on puzzling. With full-color illustrations and brilliant photos, this book is sure to please the most discerning of puzzle fans and offer hours of screen-free fun at home or on the go.Solving tricky puzzles is not only entertaining. It’s a great way for kids to hone their concentration and reasoning skills, challenging them to work with determination and focus to achieve their goals. Plus, kids will love tackling these ingenious puzzles alongside friends and family as a fun and memorable shared activity.

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Baby’s first seek-and-find puzzles! This adorable puzzle board book, inspired by a popular feature in Hello magazine, encourages interactivity and invites babies, toddlers and their caregivers to read and explore together. Every page helps spark early learning by combining vibrant, baby-friendly illustrations and developmentally appropriate challenges.Touch and feel the embossed pages while searching for both familiar and new vehicles on the road, at the construction site and in the sky. The last page is a bonus learning activity about the sounds that vehicles make.Ready for hands-on fun, this book’s wipe-off surface protects against spills, and rounded edges provide a safe reading experience. Find It board books are easy to take on the go to entertain the littlest readers anywhere—a perfect gift for new parents! This interactive and tactile board book is designed by childhood experts to enhance learning and encourage bonding through play.

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Guess how I'm feeling? A peekaboo book and a primer on empathy, PEEK-A-MOOD invites children to open the flaps and explore our many emotions.Sometimes you may feel happy. Sometimes you may feel sad -- or angry, or scared, or silly. Whatever your mood, your face will show it. This clever board book uses shaped flaps to help children guess what each animal is feeling before revealing the answers. A final mirror spread allows them to show off how they feel, too.

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Fiona In the Sandbox Fiona digs, builds, and pretends in her favourite spot--the sandbox--in these second of four irresistible full-length miniature picture books, where the littlest readers are introduced to new friends and the charming world of the Hippo Park playground. This second book in the Hippo Park Friends series—introduces Fiona the Hippo in her beloved sandbox. Fiona is a builder and a digger and has a big imagination. She's digging for dinosaurs when she hits an imaginary bone and poof--she and her brother Herbert and face to face with a Dino. So naturally, they bake cakes and pies and enjoy! The Hippo Park Pals mini picture books are all set in the playground, where the animals play, imagine, and have lots of fun and feelings--just like pre-schoolers do.

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Boisterous and buzzing, A Bear, a Bee, and a Honey Tree is destined to be an instant classic...with delightfully funny illustrations and clever, fun-to-read text, from the acclaimed author of One Day in the Eucalyptus, Eucalyptus Tree. When a hungry, fuzzy brown bear and a hive of angry bees come face to face, everybody's abuzz! Award-winning author Daniel Bernstrom and critically acclaimed illustrator Brandon James Scott have created a rowdy, rhythmic read-aloud that's also perfect for beginning readers. This epic chase story features Bernstrom's signature alliterative wordplay and verbal pizzazz, along with Scott's expressive characters that jump off the pages. A Bear, a Bee, and a Honey Tree has the kind of high-energy, uninhibited playfulness that makes kids want to run, chase, find out something about bear and bee behaviour—and learn to read!

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Each read-aloud book in the Mouse Math series focuses on a single, basic math concept and features adorable mice, Albert and Wanda, who live in a People House. Entertaining fiction stories capture kids’ imaginations as the mice learn about numbers, shapes, sizes and more. Over 3 million copies sold worldwide! Melty's has games! Pizza! Prizes! Albert and Leo promise to split everything evenly, from the food to the tickets to the prizes. But some things just can't be split. When it comes to one special prize--winner takes all! Every Mouse Math title includes back matter activities that support and extend reading comprehension and math skills, plus free online activities. (Math concept: Equal to, less than, greater than). Beautifully illustrated with stunning pictures and cute characters

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Bear wishes he could fly. He wants to swoop and glide and feel the wind in his fur. Yet no matter how hard he flaps his arms, he can't get off the ground. Goose and Fox offer support, but Bear remains earthbound--until he hears music. Suddenly, Bear is gliding and swooping and light on his feet. In Suzanne Bloom's lovable story, the seventh in the popular Goose and Bear series, Bear discovers that not getting what you want isn't always a bad thing. In fact, it may lead to something surprising.

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In celebration of renowned illustrator Kveta Pacovska's 90th birthday, minedition presents a special tribute edition. This retelling of one of her favorite childhood stories, reminiscent of the Goldilocks tale, is a lavishly produced collector's edition, featuring gold and silver foil stamping, 3 pop-up pages, and UV spot lacquer. It is a feast for the eyes and the imagination, and a fitting tribute to the vitality and talent of this much celebrated visual artist.

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It’s nearly time for lights out but Benny and Penny just can’t settle down. The moon has gone missing, there’s a flashlight to play with, Benny can’t sleep without his favorite pirate hat—and he left it inside the spooky backyard playhouse!

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A poetic and lyrical picture book, bursting with colors, about our interdependent world, from cell to self and seed to sky. "With bright artwork and a spare, poetic text, this inviting comic for little ones takes on a truly gigantic topic: the interconnectedness of the universe... It’s eye-catching stuff, and the tone of the text is general enough that, if the concept soars over the heads of little ones, they’ll still be able to grasp the overall message, which is warm, encouraging, and hopeful."--Booklist

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Oedipus is born to a terrible fate. Can he escape it to save himself and his family? An oracle makes a ghastly prediction: the young prince will kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, King Laius decides to kill his infant son before he can ever grow up to fulfill that prophecy. But destiny can't be avoided so easily. That child is Oedipus, who lives to lead a country. Discover his true family, and see how his own rash actions have only furthered the gods' plans. With unique flair and a wealth of details, cartoonist Yvan Pommaux brings to a new generation the tragic tale, which has thrilled and terrified us for thousands of years. A must to nourish young readers' imaginations.Yvan Pommaux is a beloved children's book author in France who is known for his detailed research and illustration style. In 1995, he was awarded the prestigious Grand Prix de la Ville de Paris. Three schools have been named after him as a testament to the joy and educational appeal of his work for children.

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Power up kids’ second-grade skills! With pages of fun puzzle-based activities including Highlights Hidden Pictures, this workbook offers age-appropriate fundamentals in language arts, math and science, plus reading, phonics, vocabulary, grammar, cursive, addition and subtraction, fractions, time, social studies, map skills, science and more! Every exercise will boost their confidence and supplement what they’re learning in school. This 256-page workbook also features simple tips for parents to extend learning, a Certificate of Achievement to celebrate their hard work, plus links to online activities. Developed with educational experts, teacher-approved, and aligned with state standards, the Second Grade Big Fun Workbook will engage students and get them excited about learning. It’s a Family Choice Award Winner, PAL (Play Advances Language) Award Winner, a Parents' Choice Recommended Book and a PAL Top Ten Pick.

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More than 300 silly jokes perfect for back-and-forth play! Curated by the editors at Highlights, this collection is filled with 365 age-appropriate animal knock-knock jokes kids ages 6-9 will love. A great gift for budding comedians, Best Kids’ Knock-Knock Jokes Ever will knock kids’ socks off with laugh-out-loud fun.Knock-knock jokes are wildly popular with kids, and this collection features hundreds of them for sharing with anyone who needs a laugh. Comical black-and-white cartoons and kid-friendly topics like lunch, music, sports and fairy tales add to the appeal. Kids will love amusing themselves—and friends and family—with this hilarious knock-knock collection.Joke books encourage kids to read for fun and provide screen-free entertainment for road trips, rainy days and more—a great option for reluctant readers! Plus, sharing jokes with friends and family isn’t just fun; wordplay found in jokes boosts young readers’ language skills. Telling jokes also helps kids build confidence and social-emotional skills to help them succeed in school.

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Thrilling tales, lighthearted twists!Eisner Award winner LINIERS brings his exuberant cartooning style and irrepressible sense of fun to the spooky folktales of his childhood, telling three from across Latin America: the Iara, a mermaid who lures her love to her underwater domain; La Lechuza, an enormous owl who terrorizes a town after dark; and La Luz Mala, a spooky light that menaces gauchos on the pampas. Combined with back matter on the region’s fascinating ecology, culture, and history, these stories will send a delicious shiver down young spines, while encouraging children to appreciate a rich and dynamic heritage.

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Publishers Weekly BEST Books for Summer 2016. "Sea Change is like a dip in cold Canadian waters: just step inside, and soon you're completely swept away, finding yourself overwhelmed and breathless, entranced by this whirlwind of a book. Bravo, Frank Viva. And glub, glub, glub." - Lemony Snicket, author of A Series of Unfortunate Events. "Truly heartbreaking! Viva ingeniously weaves words and pictures to evoke that strange, wonderful moment - when the very worst experience of your life somehow becomes the very best." - Chip Kidd, author of Only What's Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts. One summer can change your whole life. As soon as school lets out, Eliot's parents send him to the very edge of the world: a fishing village in a remote part of Nova Scotia. And what does the small town of Point Aconi have to offer? Maggots, bullies and grumpy old men. But along the way, Eliot discovers much more�a hidden library, starry nights and a mysterious girl named Mary Beth. See Point Aconi through Eliot's eyes, as he finds that this place he never wanted to visit is becoming a home he doesn't want to leave.

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Go "outside," "elsewhere," and down the "rabbit hole" with this hilarious introduction to compound words. Young readers will fall in love with the English language as they watch star cartoonist Ivan Brunetti put his sly spin on vocabulary. The lesson here? Even "homework" is fun when you let yourself play with the words.

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This companion to Where Do You Poop? makes sleep training fun and fascinating, as each baby animal goes to sleep in the very best place.

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Jojo needs to pee. Urgently! But to get to the toilet, he'll have to meet the ogre in the hallway. Pascal Lema�tre's brave Jojo and adorable ogre will help kids giggle away nighttime fears. It's late at night, and Jojo knows two things: First, he has to pee, urgently. Second, an ogre lives in the hallway, and he'll have to see him on the way to pee. Not an easy situation to solve. Sword in hand, Jojo creeps along the walls of the dark hallway. Finally he reaches the door, where he discovers that the ogre is inside and on the potty! Jojo tells the ogre to scram, but the sad and sweet-faced ogre is too upset! He has a stomach ache and yes, he's also afraid of the dark! The mayhem escalates from there as more creatures appear, piling into the bathroom to hide from their many nighttime fears. Clever and funny with stellar art by Pascal Lema�tre, this is a story that will delight children who love monsters and spooky stories as it defangs their fears of the dark.

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Bear wishes he could fly. He wants to swoop and glide and feel the wind in his fur. Yet no matter how hard he flaps his arms, he can't get off the ground. Goose and Fox offer support, but Bear remains earthbound�until he hears music. Suddenly, Bear is gliding and swooping and light on his feet. In Suzanne Bloom's lovable story, the seventh in the popular Goose and Bear series, Bear discovers that not getting what you want isn't always a bad thing. In fact, it may lead to something surprising.

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Goose has an important message for Bear, and he asks Fox to deliver it. But Fox has her mind on other things�which only leaves Bear to wonder and worry. Fortunately, in the end, these friends are as good at forgiving as they are at forgetting. Fox gets a starring role in this warmhearted and beautifully simple story about the meaning of being responsible. Featuring gentle humor and charm, this latest entry in Suzanne Bloom's acclaimed Goose and Bear series will help children build foundations for friendship, empathy, and cooperation.

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Astra Magazine is the new literary magazine of the moment, a must-read for anyone interested in the most vital contemporary literature from around the world. Astra Magazine connects readers and writers from New York to Mexico City, Lagos to Berlin, Copenhagen to Singapore and beyond. Each issue contains prose, poetry, art and comics, artfully produced on silky smooth paper with luxurious French flaps. It's the most covetable accessory of the fall — dark and playful, pretty and smart. The Filth issue features work by Elif Batuman, Sheila Heti, Raven Leilani, Aracelis Girmay, Samuel R. Delany, Brontez Purnell, Wayne Koestenbaum, Clarice Lispector, McKenzie Wark, Mariana Enríquez, Safiya Sinclair, Maggie Millner, and many more. There is a moral element to filth. It is both what we have been taught to hide, and the subversive pleasure in revealing it. Many of the writers in this issue are queer or trans or otherwise outsiders. When you are taught that an intrinsic part of you is shameful, you find power in that shame. All that filth, compressed by the pressure, sparkles like diamonds when it is let it into the light. Have you ever felt the relief of telling your own secrets? There’s a reason why people revel in their own filth. It’s a place for revelling

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In this debut collection, Puloma Ghosh spins tales of creatures and gore to explore grief, sexuality and bodily autonomy. Embracing the bizarre and absurd, Mouth stretches reality to reach for truth.Desiccation follows a teen figure skater with necrophiliac fantasies who is convinced the other Indian girl at the rink is a vampire. When a woman returns to Kolkata in The Fig Tree, she can't tell if she is haunted by her dead mother or a shakchunni or both. Nip bottles up the consuming and addictive nature of infatuation, while Natalya is a hair-raising autopsy of an ex-lover. In Persimmons, a girl comes to terms with her own community sacrifice.Full of fangs and talons, Mouth lays bare the otherwise awkward and unmentionable with a singular sharpness. Through surreal and captivating prose, Puloma Ghosh delves into otherworldly spaces to reimagine ordinary struggles of isolation, longing and the aching desires of our flesh.

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"[A] firecracker of a debut."—The New York Times"Andrea Abreu’s debut novel about two girls in the summer heat of Tenerife is perfect for these dog days."—Shreya Chattopadhyay, The New York Times Book ReviewMy Brilliant Friend meets Blue is the Warmest Color in this lyrical debut novel set in a working-class neighborhood of the Canary Islands—a story about two girls coming of age in the early aughts and a friendship that simmers into erotic desire over the course of one hot summer. High near the volcano of northern Tenerife, an endless ceiling of cloud cover traps the working class in an abject, oppressive heat. Far away from the island’s posh resorts, two girls dream of hitching a ride down to the beach and escaping their horizonless town. It’s summer, 2005, and our ten-year-old narrator is consumed by thoughts of her best friend Isora. Isora is rude and bossy, but she’s also vivacious and brave; grownups prefer her, and boys do, too. That's why sometimes she gets jealous of Isora, who already has hair on her vagina and soft, round breasts. But she's definitely not jealous that Isora’s mother is dead, nor that Isora's fat, foul-mouthed grandmother has her on a diet, so that she is constantly sticking her fingers down her throat. Besides, she would do anything for Isora: gorge herself on cakes when her friend wants to watch, follow her to the bathroom when she takes a shit, log into chat rooms to swap dirty instant messages with strangers. But increasingly, our narrator finds it hard to keep up with Isora, who seems to be growing up at full tilt without her—and as her submissiveness veers into a painful sexual awakening, desire grows indistinguishable from intimate violence.Braiding prose poetry with bachata lyrics and the gritty humor of Canary dialect, Dogs of Summer is a story of exquisite yearning, a brutal picture of girlhood and a love song written for the vital community it portrays.

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"Delicately weaves generations of women to the lasting wounds of nuclear destruction and the hubris of war. A unique and unforgettable novel." �Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Woman of Light. A literary thriller about the effects of nuclear power on the mind, body, and recorded history of three generations of Japanese women. Nine years after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, Japan is preparing for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. An unnamed narrator wakes up in a cold, sterile room, unable to recall her past. Across the country, the elderly begin to hear voices emanating from black stones, compelling them to behave in strange and unpredictable ways. The voices are a symptom of a disease called Trinity. As details about the disease come to light, we encounter a thread of linked histories�Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, the discovery of radiation, the nuclear arms race, the subsequent birth of nuclear energy, and the disaster in Fukushima. The thread linking these events begins to unravel in the lead-up to a terrorist attack at the Japan National Olympic Stadium.� � A work of speculative fiction reckoning with the consequences of the past and continued effects of nuclear power, Trinity, Trinity, Trinity follows the lives of three generations of women as they grapple with the legacy of mankind's quest for light and power.

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"I have been waiting for this sumptuous, prismatic collection for literal years. Theodore McCombs is a poet of queer pasts, presents, and futures, and Uranians is a formidable debut." -Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties For readers of Ted Chiang and Karen Russell, a genre-defying debut story collection that explores the essential role of queerness in this and every other possible world. At the end of the Victorian era, a handful of forward-thinking public intellectuals advocated for societal tolerance of the "Uranian"-a man who loved other men-wondering if these "intermediate sexes" might in fact constitute totally different beings, even hopeful guides toward the future. The six stories in Theodore McComb's kaleidoscopic debut span several possible worlds, teasing the boundaries between coexisting realities and taking up the question of queer difference from one surprising vantage after another. In "Towards a Theory of Alternative Lifestyles," a heartbroken young man stands in line at an exclusive underground gay nightclub promising visions of parallel lives across the multiverse. In "Ora et Labora," an adolescent novice at a Gothic monastery is forced to labor slavishly over math problems for the good of society entire. In Boston, at the turn of a very different 20th century, a domineering matron-cum-hangman feels that if you want things done right, you'll just have to do them yourself. Finally, in the titular novella "Uranians," an expedition of queer artists, scientists, and one transgender priest are on a lifelong interplanetary voyage that requires them to renegotiate their connections to a remote and hostile Earth, while keeping their ship's biome alive in the harsh void of space.

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This wipe-clean phonics book combines curriculum-based language-arts-skills practice with puzzles, humor, and playful art. The convenient, reusable format is designed to make learning phonics exciting and fun. Phonics skills are important building blocks for reading success. Highlights brings "Fun with a Purpose" to this essential learning activity with this 56-page, full-color, write-on wipe-off book that includs a dry erase marker. This book, created with education experts, covers consonant blends, rhyming words, vowel sounds, spelling patterns, and more--all designed to help kids improve reading and writing skills and build confidence in the classroom. Hidden Pictures puzzles, mazes, and other activities help reinforce learning and add to the fun.

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