From A to Z, Ireland is presented in poetry, prose, and illustrations. Topics include Blarney Stone, Finn McCool, fairy rings, and shamrocks.
Europe
Materials from Europe
Marco Polo: History’s Great Adventurer
Travel along the Silk Road to medieval China with Marco Polo as your guide. Meet the warlord Kublai Khan and sail through pirate-infested seas in search of riches beyond measure. Including booklets, foldouts and maps, as well as excerpts from The Travels of Marco Polo, this beautifully illustrated volume illuminates the adventures of history’s greatest storyteller.
Ant And Grasshopper
When Ant spies a carefree Grasshopper playing a fiddle outside on the lawn, Ant immediately harrumphs at the insect’s foolishness and continues to go about his very serious business of gathering and counting his food for the winter. But Ant finds Grasshopper’s music and whimsy more catchy than he’d like, and soon he’s distracted by his own rhyming and doodling! When the harsh winter hits and Ant finds Grasshopper cold and hungry in the snow, he can’t help but bring him inside. Only after opening his home to Grasshopper does Ant realize that music, dancing, and laughter have their place in his life, too. Luli Gray’s funny twist on this fable will have readers giggling and singing. With Giuliano Ferri’s lush and whimsical illustrations, this book is both heartwarming and lovely to behold.
Nothing
“Nothing matters.” “From the moment you are born, you start to die.” “The Earth is 4.6 billion years old. You’ll live to be a maximum of one hundred. Life isn’t worth the bother!” So says Pierre Anthon when he decides that there is no meaning to life, leaves the classroom, climbs a plum tree, and stays there.His friends and classmates cannot get him to come down, not even by pelting him with rocks. So to prove to him that there is a meaning to life, they set out to build a heap of meaning in an abandoned sawmill. But it soon becomes obvious that each person cannot give up what is most meaningful, so they begin to decide for one another what the others must give up. The pile is started with a lifetime’s collection of Dungeons & Dragons books, a fishing rod, a pair of green sandals, a pet hamster — but then, as each demand becomes more extreme, things start taking a very morbid twist, and the kids become ever more desperate to get Pierre Anthon down. And what if, after all these sacrifices, the pile is not meaningful enough? A Lord of the Flies for the twenty-first century, Nothing is a visionary existential novel — about everything, and nothing — that will haunt you.
Energy Island
Hold onto your hats! It’s windy on the Danish island of Samso. Meet the environmentally friendly people who now proudly call their home Energy Island. At a time when most countries are producing ever-increasing amounts of CO2, the rather ordinary citizens of Samsø have accomplished something extraordinary–in just ten years they have reduced their carbon emissions by 140% and become almost completely energy independent. A narrative tale and a science book in one, this inspiring true story proves that with a little hard work and a big idea, anyone can make a huge step towards energy conservation.
Charlie & Lola
Lola is going to Lotta’s house for her first sleepover–but everything is just a bit too different. Lola misses home. How will she ever get to sleep?
Dinkin Dings and the Frightening Things
Dinkin Dings is afraid of everything. Only the Frightening Things-the three monsters who live under his bed-don’t scare him. So when Dinkin suspects the people next door are evil zombies in disguise, he enlists his three friends to help take them down. But can a ghost, a skeleton, and a monster help a panic-stricken boy rid the world of a family of zombies?
Dinkin Dings and the Double From Dimension 9
Imagine how frightened poor Dinkin is when he unwittingly brings Danger Dings, his bespectacled double, to life. And when The Actually Frightened Things go after both boys, only one of them is able to take those terrifying creatures down.
Death Cloud
It is the summer of 1868, and Sherlock Holmes is fourteen. On break from boarding school, he is staying with eccentric strangers—his uncle and aunt—in their vast house in Hampshire. When two local people die from symptoms that resemble the plague, Holmes begins to investigate what really killed them, helped by his new tutor, an American named Amyus Crowe. So begins Sherlock’s true education in detection, as he discovers the dastardly crimes of a brilliantly sinister villain of exquisitely malign intent.
Rage of the Fallen
Apprentice Tom and the Spook for whom he works flee to Ireland, where a powerful witch has joined forces with the dark mages trying to call forth ancient powers to destroy Tom.