Jeremy's summer takes an unexpected turn when a mysterious wooden box arrives in the mail. According to the writing on the box, it holds the meaning of life! Jeremy is supposed to open it on his thirteenth birthday. The problem is, the keys are missing, and the box is made so that only the keys will open it without destroying what's inside. Jeremy and Lizzy set off to find the keys, but when one of their efforts goes very wrong, Jeremy starts to lose hope that he'll ever be able to open the box. But he soon discovers that when you're meeting people named Oswald Oswald and using a private limo to deliver unusual objects to strangers all over the city, there might be other ways of finding out the meaning of life.
Lively characters, surprising twists, and thought-provoking ideas make Wendy Mass's latest novel an unforgettable read.
Choose Your Own Adventure The Case of the Silk King is an interactive adventure book in which YOU decide what happens next.
In 1967, Jim Thompson, a famous businessman with connections to the CIA, went missing in Malaysia. You are a detective with an eye for a good case, so hopping a plane to Asia isn't out of the ordinary. When you land, will you find that you're not the only one on the case? Who kidnapped Jim Thompson? Will you be next?
For readers who enjoyed other titles from the Choose Your Own Adventure series including: The Lost Jewels of Nabooti by R. A. Montgomery, Cup Of Death by Shannon Gilligan, and Mystery of the Maya by R. A. Montgomery.
The Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey through life. In the myths and legends that are retold here, renowned translator Robert Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery. This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the general reader, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
When the death of her father leaves her mother bereft and incapacitated, card shark Hallie Palmer returns home from college to raise Hallie’s eight younger siblings. Hallie’s older brother has a scholarship and a sensible major–which translates to free tuition and desperately needed future income for the family. So it’s up to Hallie to deal herself in as head of the chaotic household.
But even after the invasion of those well-meaning, casserole-carrying purveyors of comfort the local church ladies, Hallie’s in a downward spiral. Thank goodness for old friends like Bernard and Gil, now proud parents, who keep Hallie afloat with good humor, brilliant organizational skills, and Judy Garland’s most quotable quotes–not that life is entirely peaceful now that Bernard’s wise, willful, and delightfully outrageous mother, Olivia, is back from Europe with a big (and shockingly young) surprise.
Through it all, Hallie discovers that life can indeed turn on a dime, and that every coin has two sides plus an edge. Just because beginner’s luck doesn’t always last forever doesn’t mean you’re out of the game.
Eleven-year-old Holly Wade and her twin siblings, Judy and Crockett, are sent to live with their grandparents in the small town of Dimsdale, Massachusetts when their father is declared missing in action in Vietnam. Dimsdale is nothing like Boston; there are only two other African-American children in the entire school. Even worse, Grandpa and Grandma Wade live in an old junkyard! While exploring one day, Holly, Judy, and Crockett wander into an overgrown hedge maze--and find themselves transported back in time to Dimsdale's past. Can they right an ancient wrong and free the town of Dimsdale from a witch's curse?
Fay Harper looks like any other teenage girl--any other Queen Bee, that is. She's blond, and beautiful, and very, very popular--the kind of popular that attracts boys like honey. Fay and her gang take a lot of risks, but so far they've managed to get away with everything. It's as if they are magically protected.
Summoned to Tulsa by an old friend whose son has fallen in with Fay's crowd, Diana Tregarde, practicing witch and successful romance novelist, quickly finds herself in hot water. The new girl at school, Monica Carlin, has come under sorcerous attack, but Diana cannot identify, or stop, the power-wielder. To make matters worse, there is an ancient being sleeping under Tulsa, a being who might be woken by the magic battles taking place in the city. What will happen then, even Diana cannot predict... in Mercedes Lackey's Jinx High.
After being lashed by a typhoon on their uncle's ship, THE EXPEDIENT, intrepid siblings Becca and Doug MacKenzie want nothing more than to escape from the volcanic island on which they're stranded and resume the search for their parents. But their uncle, Captain MacKenzie, seems more concerned with the missing gyrolabe than their missing mother and father, and he refuses to discuss the role the mysterious Guild of Specialists played in their disappearance. As the formidable Kalaxx warriors close in on their hidden cove, Becca and Doug unearth a riddle linked to a 1533 painting, which may hold the key to the Guild's dark secrets and to finding their parents. But how can they possibly solve the puzzle and escape with their lives — before their enemies attack?
Three unlikely heroes are Avalon's only hope. Tamwyn, the wilderness guide, must travel the secret pathway to the stars. Elli, the brave young priestess, must defeat a terrible sorcerer in a realm of utter darkness. And Scree, the eagleman, must lead his winged people to do what seems impossible . . .
This spectacular final volume of T. A. Barron's bestselling trilogy combines gripping adventure with profound ideas about the powerful connections between humanity and the world.
Now more than ever: Aldous Huxley's enduring masterwork must be read and understood by anyone concerned with preserving the human spirit
"A masterpiece. ... One of the most prophetic dystopian works." —Wall Street Journal
Aldous Huxley's profoundly important classic of world literature, Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine” (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New World likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.
"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune