Magic

Escape Velocity

Pupils and staff at HIVE are horrified to discover that Dr Nero has been captured by the forces of HOPE, the Hostile Operative Prosecution Executive, the world’s newest and most ruthlessly efficient security force. Three months pass without any news of his fate, and Number One has decided to appoint a sinister new headmistress for the school, somebody that the pupils and staff had thought that they’d seen the last of. Meanwhile Otto is also struggling to cope with new abilities that are starting to manifest themselves; can he really be unconsciously interfacing with computers without physical contact? And if he is, what exactly do these new powers really mean? The only way to find Nero and the truth behind the lies is to escape HIVE. Otto must get out, and take the risks which come with being a rogue agent. Then he just has to break into MI6…..

The Kneebone Boy

Life in a small town can be pretty boring when everyone avoids you like the plague. But after their father unwittingly sends them to stay with an aunt who’s away on holiday, the Hardscrabble children take off on an adventure that begins in the seedy streets of London and ends in a peculiar sea village where legend has it a monstrous creature lives who is half boy and half animal. In this wickedly dark, unusual, and compelling novel, Ellen Potter masterfully tells the tale of one deliciously strange family and a secret that changes everything.

Warped

Tessa doesn’t believe in magic. Or Fate. But there’s something weird about the dusty unicorn tapestry she discovers in a box of old books. She finds the creature woven within it compelling and frightening. After the tapestry comes into her possession, Tessa experiences dreams of the past and scenes from a brutal hunt that she herself participated in. When she accidentally pulls a thread from the tapestry, Tessa releases a terrible centuries old secret. She also meets William de Chaucy, an irresistible 16th-century nobleman. His fate is as inextricably tied to the tapestry as Tessa’s own. Together, they must correct the wrongs of the past. But then the Fates step in, making a tangled mess of Tessa’s life. Now everyone she loves will be destroyed unless Tessa does their bidding and defeats a cruel and crafty ancient enemy.

The Devils Who Learned to Be Good

After feeding two starving beggars, an old Russian soldier receives a magical flour sack and deck of playing cards which help him to remove some pesky devils from the Tsar’s palace.

Marushka and the Month Brother

A retelling of the Slavic folktale in which the Month Brothers’ magic helps Marushka fulfill seemingly impossible tasks which prove the undoing of her greedy stepmother and stepsister.

James and the Giant Peach

James Trotter loses his parents in a horrible accident and is forced to liveNmiserablyNwith his two wicked aunts. Then James is given some magic crystals that give him hope. But when he accidentally spills these crystals on an old peach tree, strange things begin to happen. A peach starts to grow and grow until James is able to climb inside and escape his awful aunts! And through this adventure, he makes some interesting friends, including Grasshopper, Earthworm, Miss Spider, and Centipede, and finally finds a place where he belongs.

The Yellow House

A favorite back in print! A child discovers, in the old house and overgrown garden she passes every day, that wonders wait in secret. One day, on the way to the park, a little girl climbs the gate of an old yellow house. Although no one has lived there for a very long time, a little boy suddenly appears before her. “Come and play with me,” he beckons. He leads her through an enchanted garden, showing her all its marvelous inhabitants: a tiger playing with its cubs in the long grass, a dolphin leaping in the goldfish pond, a pelican roosting high in the apple tree. Then the mysterious boy is gone, the girl’s mother is calling, and all is as it was before. In this well-loved picture book, Blake Morrison and Helen Craig bring us to a place where, for a moment, magic is real.