Set seventy years before The Various, the second book in the trilogy follows the adventures of young Celandine at the onset of the First World War. Having run away from her detested boarding school, Celandine is too afraid to go home in case she is sent back. As she seeks shelter in the Wild Wood near her home, little does she think she will encounter a world where loyalty and independence is fiercely guarded, and where danger lurks in the most unlikely of places. Celandine’s troubled character finds both refuge and purpose among the secret tribes of little people that she alone believes in.The novels of the Various trilogy are full of mystery, beauty and adventure; this second novel is both page-turning and life-affirming.
Europe
Materials from Europe
Spellbinder
Belladonna Johnson can see ghosts. It’s a trait she’s inherited from her mother’s side of the family, like blue eyes or straight hair. And it’s a trait she could do without, because what twelve-year-old wants to be caught talking to someone invisible? It is convenient, though, after Belladonna’s parents are killed in a car accident. They can live with her the same as always, watching the same old TV shows in their same old house. Nothing has changed . . . until everything changes. One night, with no warning, they vanish into thin air—along with every other ghost in the world. It’s what some people think ghosts are supposed to do, but Belladonna knows it’s all wrong. They may not be living, but they’re not supposed to be gone. With the help of her classmate Steve, a master of sneaking and spying, Belladonna is left to uncover what’s become of the spirits and to navigate a whole world her parents have kept well-hidden. If she can’t find her way, she’ll lose them again—this time for good.
The Midnight Charter
In a society based on trade, where everything can be bought and sold, the future rests on the secrets of a single document-and the lives of two children whose destiny it is to discover its secrets. In this spellbinding novel, newcomer David Whitley has imagined a nation at a crossroads: misshaped by materialism and facing a choice about its future.
The Savage
Mysterious and utterly mesmerizing, this graphic-novel-within-a-novel pairs the extraordinary prose of David Almond with the visual genius of Dave McKean. Blue Baker is writing a story — not all that stuff about wizards and fairies and happily ever after — a real story, about blood and guts and adventures, because that’s what life’s really like. At least it is for Blue, since his dad died and Hopper, the town bully, started knocking him and the other kids around. But Blue’s story has a life of its own — weird and wild and magic and dark — and when the savage pays a nighttime visit to Hopper, Blue starts to wonder where he ends and his creation begins.
A Cat Royal Adventure: Cat O’nine Tails
Cat is finally living a life of luxury–and so bored she’s going out of her mind. But then she and her friends are kidnapped and forced to work on a ship bound for the New World. With a mystery to solve and survival at stake, Cat must use her wits to save herself and her friends.
Cinderella
With the help of her fairy godmother, a beautiful young woman mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters attends the palace ball where she meets the prince whom she marries.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
A princess takes refuge from her wicked stepmother in the cottage of seven dwarfs.
The Wedding of Mistress Fox
As she rejects suitor after suitor, the recently widowed Mistress Fox almost despairs of finding a new husband with the same wonderful qualities as the late Mr. Fox.
The Three Silly Girls Grubb
In this revision of the familiar tale “The Three Billy Goats Gruff,” three sisters manage to outwit Ugly-Boy Bobby who spends his time under the bridge they must cross on their way to school.
Traveling Tom and the Leprechaun
Like many before him, Tom, a traveling minstrel, has fallen in love at first sight with the beautiful princess Kathleen. But Kathleen has vowed only to marry the man who can win a leprechaun’s pot of gold. Tom sets out with a clever plan to fool a leprechaun into giving up his fortune. Upon meeting one of the fair folk, Tom charms him with songs and stories. As it turns out, however, Tom’s tales hold more truth than trick.