Bitter and angry after his parents’ divorce, Jon joins a cult, The Religion of Hebetheus, at his high school and soon becomes embroiled in a plot to kidnap a fellow student and suspected terrorist, but their plans go terribly wrong.
The Viper Within
Age
Catalog sorted by age group
The Red Necklace
Clever and head-turningly attractive, fourteen-yearold Yann is an orphan who has been raised in Paris by Têtu, a dwarf with secrets he has yet to reveal to the gypsy boy. It’s the winter of 1789, and the duo have been working for a vain magician named Topolain. On the night when Topolain’s vanity brings his own death, Yann’s life truly begins. That’s the night he meets shy Sido, an heiress with an ice-cold father, a young girl who has only known loneliness until now. Though they have the shortest of conversations, an attachment is born that will influence both their paths. And what paths those will be! Revolution is afoot in France, and Sido is being used as a pawn. Only Yann will dare to rescue her, and he’ll be up against a fearful villain who goes by the name Count Kalliovski, but who has often been called the devil. It’ll take all of Yann’s newly discovered talent to unravel the mysteries of his past and Sido’s and to fight the devilish count.
Light Foot/Pies Ligeros
Once upon a time no creatures on Earth died. But they had baby after baby, and before long the world grew crowded. Death decided to solve the problem by challenging everyone to a skip-rope contest — as an immortal, Death won every time, and one by one everyone succumbed to her dare. Soon, every living being knew Death. This intriguing fable is based on Francisco Toledo’s series of engravings of Death, a dominant figure in Mexican culture. Toledo, the heir to the great generation of Mexican artists that included Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, has imaginatively explored this integral part of life, and his entrancing images are matched by poetic text from his wife Natalia.
The Child Cruncher
Being kidnapped is not as thrilling as one plucky girl had hoped. Her big, ugly villain turns out to be an ordinary child cruncher. What a disappointment! Instead of taking her on all sorts of adventures, he only wants to eat her up. Luckily, she knows just what to do.
Marlfox
When three young residents of Redwall Abbey go on a quest to recover a tapestry stolen by the Marlfoxes, their bravery removes the curse of these evil animals on a lost island.
The Mystery of the Cupboard
When Omri puts away the cupboard in The Secret of the Indian, he vows that it will be forever. Little Bear, Boone, and the other miniature figures he had brought to life will remain plastic. But then Omri and his family move to an old country farmhouse that they inherited from a distant relative, and he unearths a faded journal hidden in the thatched roof. To Omri’s utter amazement, the notebook was written by his “wicked” great-great-aunt Jessica Charlotte on her deathbed. Even more astonishing: It reveals how the cupboard and its magic were created–and changed the destiny of his family. In trying to right a wrong done in the past, Omri finds he has no choice but to break the promise he made to himself. The magical cupboard is opened once more.
Meerkat Mail
Sunny Meerkat lives in the Kalahari desert with his family. Under the hot sun, Sunny and his brothers and sisters work together, play together, eat together, learn together, and sleep together. Sunny needs a break, so he decides to take a trip to visit some relatives. Through a series of postcards–that actually flip open for children to read–Sunny documents his journey for his family. But as he travels from the barnyard through the forest to the city, Sunny realizes there’s no place like home.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 5, Issue 1
Paddington Here and Now
With trouble apparently following him everywhere he roams, lovable Paddington Bear must use his charm and wit to straighten out dilemmas involving a grouchy neighbor and a strange mishap that lands him center stage at a concert.
Jacob’s Rescue
Once Jacob Gutgeld lived with his family in a beautiful house in Warsaw, Poland. He went to school and played hide-and-seek in the woods with his friends. But everything changed the day the Nazi soldiers invaded in 1939. Suddenly it wasn’t safe to be Jewish anymore.One afternoon, eight-year-old Jacob slipped through a hole in the ghetto wall to meet Alex Roslan, a kind Christian man who agreed to be his new “uncle.” The Roslan family, at the risk of their own lives, kept Jacob’s identity as a Jew hidden.Every day of hiding meant a new danger and a threat of discovery. Jacob worried about his real family and longed to go to school and play outside like the Roslan children. Yet the fear, the hardships, and the hunger brought Jacob closer and closer to all the Roslans–until at last the time of hate and war came to an end and a new chapter began in all their lives.