Computer Technology and Computer Programming

An irresistible comedy of manners about three generations of a Chicago restaurant family and the deep-fried, beer-battered, cream cheese-frosted love that feeds them all.Here are the three things the Sullivan family knows to be true: the Chicago Cubs will always be the underdogs; historical progress is inevitable; and their grandfather, Bud, founder of JP Sullivan’s, will always make the best burgers in Oak Park. But when, over the course of three strange months, the Cubs win the World Series, Trump is elected president, and Bud drops dead, suddenly everyone in the family finds themselves doubting all they hold dear. Take Gretchen for example, lead singer for a ’90s cover band who has been flirting with fame for a decade but is beginning to wonder if she’s too old to be chasing a childish dream. Or Jane, Gretchen’s older sister, who is starting to suspect that her fitness-obsessed husband who hides the screen of his phone isn’t always “working late.” And then there’s Teddy, their stead

Publishers Weekly Best Children's Books of 2022From a critically acclaimed creator comes this summery picture book featuring an overheated―and overwhelmed―pup who finds his calm with some sea, sand, and fresh air.“An utter joy from beginning to end!” ―Sophie Blackall, two-time Caldecott Medal winnerIt’s summer in the city, and this hot dog has had enough! Enough of sizzling sidewalks, enough of wailing sirens, enough of people’s feet right in his face. When he plops down in the middle of a crosswalk, his owner endeavors to get him the breath of fresh air he needs. She hails a taxi, hops a train, and ferries out to the beach.Here, a pup can run!With fluid art and lyrical text that have the soothing effect of waves on sand, Doug Salati shows us how to find calm and carry it back with us so we can appreciate the small joys in a day.

A summer parade, a drummer parade, a magical bucket-and-bowl serenade! What begins with one boy’s beat on a kettle soon spreads to pots and pans and cartons and cans all across the neighborhood. When everyone joins in, together they create the catchy, driving tempo of a bright, hot DRUM CITY! Get ready to make some noise with this upbeat, lyrical, and diverse picture book!

An exuberant dark comedy about love, grief, sex, guilt, and one woman’s harebrained scheme to tranquilize her voraciously amorous girlfriend for a few days so that she might pay off her drug dealer, make soup, and finally get some peace and quiet.Frances was not looking for a relationship when she met Elaine in a bar. She was, in fact, looking to drown her sorrows in a pint or twelve and nurse a broken heart, shattered by the gorgeous, electric Adrienne. But somehow (it involved a steady stream of beer and weed, as things often did with Frances) Elaine ended up in Frances’s bed and never left. Now, faced with mounting pressure from her drug dealer, Dom (and his goon, Betty), Frances comes up with a terrible idea: She asks Elaine to move in with her for real. Unfortunately, this seemingly romantic overture makes Elaine even more sex-crazed and maniacal with love. Frances fears she may never escape the relationship, so, given no choice, she makes the obvious decision: She will sedate Ela

The riveting story of Dick Conant, an American folk hero who, over the course of more than twenty years, canoed solo thousands of miles of American rivers―and then in 2014 disappeared near the Outer Banks of North Carolina.For decades, Dick Conant paddled the rivers of America, covering thousands of miles along the Mississippi, Yellowstone, Ohio, Hudson, and innumerable smaller tributaries. These solo excursions were epic feats of planning, perseverance, and physical courage. At the same time, Conant collected people wherever he went, creating a vast network of friends and acquaintances who would forever remember this brilliant and charming man even after a single meeting. Ben McGrath, a staff writer at The New Yorker, was one of those people. In 2014 he met Conant by chance just north of New York City as Conant paddled down the Hudson, headed for Florida. McGrath wrote a widely read article about their encounter, and when Conant's canoe washed up a few months later, without any sign o

"Some novelists hold a mirror up to the world and some, like Haruki Murakami, use the mirror as a portal to a universe hidden beyond it." --The Wall Street JournalA mind-bending new collection of short stories from the internationally acclaimed Haruki Murakami. The eight stories in this new book are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator. From memories of youth, meditations on music, and an ardent love of baseball, to dreamlike scenarios and invented jazz albums, together these stories challenge the boundaries between our minds and the exterior world. Occasionally, a narrator may or may not be Murakami himself. Is it memoir or fiction? The reader decides. Philosophical and mysterious, the stories in First Person Singular all touch beautifully on love and solitude, childhood and memory. . . all with a signature Murakami twist.

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A captivating novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Lowland and Interpreter of Maladies―her first in nearly a decade―about a woman questioning her place in the world, wavering between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties. A Most Anticipated Novel of 2021 from Buzzfeed; O, The Oprah Magazine; Time; Vulture; Vogue; Literary Hub; and Harper's BazaarExuberance and dread, attachment and estrangement: in this novel, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches her themes to the limit. Lahiri’s narrator, a woman questioning her place in the world, wavers between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties. The city she calls home acts as a companion and interlocutor―traversing the streets around her house and in parks, piazzas, museums, stores, and coffee bars, she feels less alone. We follow her to the pool she frequents and to the train station that leads to her mother, who is mire

From the beloved best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author―a funny, joyful, brilliantly perceptive journey deep into one Baltimore family’s foibles, from a boyfriend with a red Chevy in the 1950s up to a longed-for reunion with a grandchild in our pandemic present.The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever leave home, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common. Their youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family’s orbit, for reasons none of them understand. Yet, as these lives advance across decades, the Garretts’ influences on one another ripple ineffably but unmistakably through each generation. Full of heartbreak and hilarity, French Braid is classic Anne Tyler: a stirring, uncannily i

An indelible love story about two very different people navigating the entanglements of class and identity and coming of age in an America coming apart at the seams―this is “an extraordinary debut about the ties that bind families together and tear them apart across generations” (Ann Patchett, best-selling author of The Dutch House).In the run-up to the 2016 election, Owen Callahan, an aspiring writer, moves back to Kentucky to live with his Trump-supporting uncle and grandfather. Eager to clean up his act after wasting time and potential in his early twenties, he takes a job as a groundskeeper at a small local college, in exchange for which he is permitted to take a writing course. Here he meets Alma Hazdic, a writer in residence who seems to have everything that Owen lacks―a prestigious position, an Ivy League education, success as a writer. They begin a secret relationship, and as they grow closer, Alma―who comes from a liberal family of Bosnian immigrants―struggles to understand Ow

A revealing, poignant, and hilarious memoir from the cultural icon, gay rights activist, and four-time Tony Award winner.Harvey Fierstein's stellar career has taken him from Broadway to Hollywood and back. He's received accolades and awards for acting--Hairspray, Fiddler, Mrs. Doubtfire, Independence Day--and writing: La Cage Aux Folle, Torch Song Trilogy (for which he also won a Tony for acting) and Kinky Boots. But while he is widely known as one of today's most peerless performers, Harvey has never shared his own story until now. He takes us from his childhood in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn--born in 1954, he was an eccentric, musical-loving boy--to performing in Andy Warhol's Pork at LaMama in 1971, to becoming an outspoken advocate for gay rights to his soaring career on Broadway and in Hollywood. And Harvey's candid recollections give us, as well, a rich picture of downtown New York City life and gay culture, the evolution of theater over the course of his career, and a moving account o

An inviting and inventive classic-in-the-making about learning to have compassion for every living thing, gorgeously illustrated by a rising star in the picture book world.Wild creatures come in all shapes and sizes. They can be playful or loud or smelly or curious or cute—just like kids! People Are Wild turns the tables and asks what animals think of us. We may not always see eye to eye, but the more we understand each other, the better we’re able to live in harmony. Readers who loved They All Saw a Cat or Don’t Let Them Disappear will appreciate this unique perspective on the animal kingdom.

From the prize-winning, bestselling author of Say Nothing comes a grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin. The Sackler name adorns the walls of many storied institutions―Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, but the source of the family fortune was vague―until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing a blockbuster painkiller that was the catalyst for the opioid crisis. Empire of Pain is the saga of three generations of a single family and the mark they would leave on the world, a tale that moves from the bustling streets of early twentieth-century Brooklyn to the seaside palaces of Greenwich, Connecticut, and Cap d’Antibes to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. It follows the family’s early success with Valium to the much more potent

From the best-selling, award-winning author of The Buddha in the Attic and When the Emperor Was Divine, comes a novel about what happens to a group of obsessed recreational swimmers when a crack appears at the bottom of their local pool―a tour de force of economy, precision, and emotional power.The swimmers are unknown to one another except through their private routines (slow lane, medium lane, fast lane) and the solace each takes in their morning or afternoon laps. But when a crack appears at the bottom of the pool, they are cast out into an unforgiving world without comfort or relief. One of these swimmers is Alice, who is slowly losing her memory. For Alice, the pool was a final stand against the darkness of her encroaching dementia. Without the fellowship of other swimmers and the routine of her daily laps she is plunged into dislocation and chaos, swept into memories of her childhood and the Japanese American incarceration camp in which she spent the war. Alice's estranged daug

A bold and emotionally gripping novel about a teenage Latinx girl finding freedom through dance and breaking expectations in 1980s Minnesota.When sixteen-year-old Rosa Dominguez pirouettes, she is poe

Perfect for fans of Dogman and The Bad Guys, the popular Lunch Lady graphic novels are now in full color for the first time, with two adventures in one book...from the author of National Book Award finalist Hey, Kiddo Lunch Lady has villains to fight at school and camp in this action-packed book. First, Dee, Terrence, and Hector come face to face with a very special guest on Author Visit Day--but there's something a little off about the world-famous writer. What evil designs does he have on his agenda? Then, the kids take a sigh of relief and are relaxing at summer camp. What evils could befall them there? Of course, there is the legendary swamp monster. Stories say he haunts the camp at night. But that's just a legend. Or is it? This new edition includes brand-new, full-color versions of Lunch Lady and the Author Visit Vendetta and Lunch Lady and the Summer Camp Shakedown, as well as all-new exciting materials in the back

A timely, provocative expose of our political and business leadership's deep ties to China: a network of people who believe they are doing the right thing--at a great often hidden cost to our society. The past few years have seen a shift in the relations between China and the United States, from enthusiastic economic partners to wary frenemies to open rivals. And China's successful handling of its pandemic will undoubtedly exacerbate this dynamic in the years to come. In America Second, Isaac Stone Fish traces the evolution of this all-important relationship. He makes clear how America's leaders initially welcomed China's entry into the global economy, believing that trade and engagement would lead to a more democratic China. And he explains how, though this belief has proved misguided, our businesspeople and politicians have become too dependent on China to challenge them. America Second exposes a deep web of Chinese influence in America, built quietly over the years through prominent

Now in paperback and soon to be a major motion picture! An unforgettable graphic novel about the power of kindness and unrelenting courage in a time of war inspired by the blockbuster phenomenon Wonder.In R. J. Palacio's bestselling collection of stories Auggie & Me, which expands on characters in Wonder, readers were introduced to Julian's grandmother, Grandmère. Here, Palacio makes her graphic novel debut with Grandmère's heartrending story: how she, a young Jewish girl, was hidden by a family in a Nazi-occupied French village during World War II; how the boy she and her classmates once shunned became her savior and best friend. Sara's harrowing experience movingly demonstrates the power of kindness to change hearts, build bridges, and even save lives. As Grandmère tells Julian, "It always takes courage to be kind, but in those days, such kindness could cost you everything." With poignant symbolism and gorgeous artwork that brings Sara's story out of the past and cements it firmly i

A beautiful, arresting story about race and the relationships that shape us through life by the legendary Toni Morrison, in a stand-alone Knopf hardcover for the first time, with an introduction by Zadie Smith.In this 1983 short story--the only short story Morrison ever wrote--we meet Twyla and Roberta, who have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only later to find each other again at a diner, a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and at each other's throats each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them. Another work of genius by this masterly writer, Recitatif keeps Twyla's and Roberta's races ambiguous throughout the story. Morrison herself described Recitatif, a story which will keep readers thinking and discussing for years to

A poignant multicultural ode to family and what it means to create a home as one girl helps her Tía move away from her beloved Miami apartment.When Estrella’s Tía Fortuna has to say goodbye to her lon

A poignant, coming of age story about a Cuban-American girl trying to figure out where she belongs―both in her ballet-loving family and the wider world. Perfect for fans of Front Desk and Merci Suárez Changes Gears.It’s a good thing Sofía Acosta loves dreaming up costumes, because otherwise she’s a ballet disaster―unlike her parents, who danced under prima ballerina Alicia Alonso before immigrating to the suburbs of New York. Luckily, when the Acostas host their dancer friends from Cuba for a special performance with the American Ballet Theatre, Sofía learns there’s more than dance holding her family together. Between swapping stories about Cuba and sharing holiday celebrations, the Acostas have never been more of a team. Then Sofía finds out about the dancers’ secret plans to defect to the United States, and makes a serious mistake―she confides in her best friend, only to discover that Tricia doesn’t want “outsiders” moving to their community. Now Sofía wonders what the other

Men in Black meets The Westing Game when Ben's school project uncovers a secret society whose aim is to keep sneaks--mischievous interdimensional sprites--from slipping into our universe!What starts as a boring class project takes an intergalactic turn when Ben, Akemi, and Charlotte discover that the elderly woman they've been assigned to interview is a member of the super secret Gateway Society--and she's in trouble. Agatha gives them a box to keep safe and then disappears! Of course they open the box--and learn about Sneaks: interdimensional malsprites that can slip through the seals between worlds and wreak havoc. The Gateway Society usually handles Sneak attacks, but Sneaks are converging on the town in alarming numbers, and they are after the notebook and strange statue the kids found in Agatha's box. And they want something else too: to pull a more dangerous creature through the seal. Can three misfit kids work together to decode the notebook and stop an intergalactic takeover? C

We’ve all been told that thinking rationally is the key to success. But at the cutting edge of science, researchers are discovering that feeling is every bit as important as thinking.You make hundreds of decisions every day, from what to eat for breakfast to how you should invest, and not one of those decisions would be possible without emotion. It has long been said that thinking and feeling are separate and opposing forces in our behavior. But as Leonard Mlodinow, the best-selling author of Subliminal, tells us, extraordinary advances in psychology and neuroscience have proven that emotions are as critical to our well-being as thinking. How can you connect better with others? How can you make sense of your frustration, fear, and anxiety? What can you do to live a happier life? The answers lie in understanding your emotions. Journeying from the labs of pioneering scientists to real-world scenarios that have flirted with disaster, Mlodinow shows us how our emotions can help, why t

Alice thinks it’s her lucky day when she wins a wagon full of lollipops, but sharing them with her classmates is more complicated than it seems. Can she find a fair way to divvy up the sweets?When Alice wins an enormous basket of lollipops in the raffle she’s happy to share her good fortune with friends and classmates, but everyone seems to have a different opinion about how she should divide the bounty. Suddenly, Alice’s big prize becomes a big conundrum. Should she give extras to her friends? Should she withhold lollipops from the kids who always hog the tire swing? As she weighs her options, the panic grows. What if there aren’t enough to go around!?This hilarious and thought-provoking story uses lollipops in the school yard to illustrate how cooperation and generosity can make even the most daunting problems solvable.

One of Agatha Christie's most famous novels, featuring her beloved detective Hercule Poirot--and her most surprising twist.The story that made Agatha Christie famous ends with one of her most dramatic twists. The villagers of King's Abbot are shocked when a wealthy local widow commits suicide and the very next day her fianc? Roger Ackroyd, is stabbed to death. Dr. James Sheppard, the local physician, discovers the body of his friend and narrates the ensuing hunt for the killer. All the guests and staff at Ackroyd's country house seem to have solid alibis--except for his missing stepson. But as the authorities home in on their most obvious suspect, the recently retired detective Hercule Poirot unexpectedly turns up and joins the fray. Dr. Sheppard gamely assists the legendary Poirot as he untangles one of the most fiendish mysteries in Christie's extensive oeuvre.

From the New York Times bestselling creators of How to Babysit a Grandma and How to Babysit a Grandpa comes a fun and adorable picture book about how to welcome a new baby into your family!A new baby is coming! Do you know what to do? This heartwarming new addition to the bestselling How to… series is all about welcoming a new sibling into your family. Learn how to get ready for the baby, how to make the baby laugh, and how to help Mom and Dad when things get a little topsy-turvy. Follow along through the first year of baby’s life, and learn How To… from the experts―kids! Filled with charming role-reversal humor, creative ideas, and sweet moments, How To Welcome a New Baby is sure to delight new siblings and growing families everywhere!

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • John Grisham takes you to a different kind of court in his first basketball novel. Samuel “Sooley” Sooleymon is a raw, young talent with big hoop dreams—and even bigger challenges off the court.“Hard to put down ... the pages turn quickly ... building to a climax that won’t leave readers doubting whether this is a John Grisham novel.” —Associated PressIn the summer of his seventeenth year, Sam­uel Sooleymon gets the chance of a lifetime: a trip to the United States with his South Sudanese teammates to play in a showcase basket­ball tournament. He has never been away from home, nor has he ever been on an airplane. The opportunity to be scouted by dozens of college coaches is a dream come true.Samuel is an amazing athlete, with speed, quick­ness, and an astonishing vertical leap. The rest of his game, though, needs work, and the American coaches are less than impressed.During the tournament, Samuel receives dev­astating news from home: A ci

A future-looking, game-changing book about the radical transformational potential of working from home. If you think you're working from home during the pandemic, Charlie Warzel and Anne Helen Petersen are here to tell you otherwise. What we're doing right now is something else, a jury-rigged compromise made under the duress of a national crisis that's satisfactory for neither the worker nor the employer. But they also see that the past few months have revealed that there may be another way to go to work on a more permanent basis, one that doesn't involve hellish daily commutes and the demands of jampacked work schedules that no longer make sense for our time. As a society we have talked for decades about flexible work arrangements, and, as the authors make clear, we may finally be at an inflection point where this becomes possible for almost everyone. Out of Office combines groundbreaking reporting and the couple's first-person experiences after they made the decision to leave their d

The Hardy Boys meets Paper Girls in the second volume of this mystery series featuring teen detectives, witches, and now a mystery rock ’n’ roll song capable of a sinister, Pied Piper-like hypnosis.Alastair, Pete, Charlie, and Rachel aren’t just magical teen detectives in their coastal town of Port Howl―they are also members of a local teen rock band. Before a show one night, Charlie and Rachel meet a famous rockstar, Gideon, and invite him to their show. He’ll never come, but why not try, right?Little do they know, Gideon does show up, and he brings the threads of his dark past with him. In fact, he might even be the source of the rumored Devil’s Music, a limited-release song that entrances all of its listeners in a deadly hypnosis.When Pete quickly gets drawn into Gideon’s web, it’s up to his brother and friends to save him. But Pete might not be the only Montague Twin at risk for Gideon’s spell…

A future-looking, game-changing book about the radical transformational potential of working from home.If you think you're working from home during the pandemic, Charlie Warzel and Anne Helen Petersen

Practice makes perfect, and Ben Yokoyama will settle for nothing less than perfection! A hilarious new Cookie Chronicles adventure that fans of Wimpy Kid or Dog Man will gobble up with gusto.When Ben’

The first new original Leo Lionni picture book in nearly 30 years, featuring the beloved mouse Frederick as he guides his fellow mice—and young listeners—through a joyous celebration of the seasons.Th

Booksmart meets The Perks of Being a Wallflower in this novel of overachieving, existential crises, growing up, and coming out, from the author of Girl Crushed and Never Have I Ever. Mary is having an existential crisis. She's a good student, she never gets in trouble, and she is searching for the meaning of life. She always thought she'd find it in a perfect score on the SATs. But by junior year, Mary isn't so sure anymore. The first time, it's an accident. She forgets to do a history assignment. She even crosses history essay off in her pristine planner. And then: Nothing happens. She doesn't burst into flames, the world doesn't end, the teacher doesn't even pull her aside after class. So she asks herself: Why am I trying so hard? What if I stop? With her signature wit and heaps of dark humor, Katie Heaney delivers a stunning YA novel the sprints full-force into the big questions our teen years beg--and adeptly unravels their web.

The international literary icon opens his eclectic closet: Here are photographs of Murakami’s extensive and personal T-shirt collection, accompanied by essays that reveal a side of the writer rarely s

《午夜圖書館》作者Matt Haig奇幻兒童讀物。小老鼠Miika聽說外面的世界危機四伏，但有個讓生活變得更好的美味食物－起司。他抱著對起司的憧憬來到外面的世界，遇見擁有各種不同風貌的新朋友，逐漸接受最真實的自己。Ratatouille meets Roald Dahl in the funny and fantastical story of a determined mouse on a mission to procure the world's tastiest cheese. From the author of A Boy Called Christmas--coming soon to Netflix! When Nikolas left the only home he had ever known, it was a mouse named Miika who kept him company, and it was Miika who accompanied him on his journey to the Far North, in search of his father. But before the events of A Boy Called Christmas, this little mouse was the hero of his own story. A Mouse Called Miika is an epic adventure story on a miniature scale. It's a tale of mice and men (and more mice). It is about one independent mouse who gets fed up with the other mice, and sets out on a quest of his own to prove that cheese exists, and learns to appreciate other creatures. It is also a tale of great love (of cheese) and great danger. And learning the lesson that, with chees

An insightful memoir from a figure skating champion about her life as a bisexual professional athlete, perfect for readers of Fierce by Aly Reisman and Forward by Abby Wambach. Karina Manta has had a busy few years: Not only did she capture the hearts of many with her fan-favorite performance at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, she also became the first female figure skater on Team USA to come out as queer. Her Modern Love essay I Can't Hate My Body if I Love Hers was published in the New York Times, and then she joined the circus--Cirque du Soleil's on-ice show, AXEL. Karina's memoir covers these experiences and much more. Attending a high school with 4,000 students, you'd expect to know more than two openly gay students, but Karina didn't meet an out-lesbian until she was nearly seventeen--let alone any other kind of queer woman. But this isn't just a story about her queerness. It's also a story about her struggle with body image in a sport that prizes delicate femininity. It's

The first LGBTQA+ anthology for middle-graders featuring stories for every letter of the acronym, including realistic, fantasy, and sci-fi stories by authors like Justina Ireland, Marieke Nijkamp, Ale

From one of today’s hottest young comedians, a transgressive and hilarious deep dive into his favorite subject: relationshipsDaniel Sloss’s comedy engages, enrages, offends, unsettles, educates, comfo

A piercing portrait of the struggles and triumphs of a singular community in the wake of unspeakable tragedy that highlights the hopes, fears, and tensions all Americans must confront on the road to healing. Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, is one of the oldest Jewish neighborhoods in the country, known for its tight-knit community and the profusion of multigenerational families. On October 27, 2018, a gunman killed eleven Jews who were worshipping at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill--the most deadly anti-Semitic attack in American history. Many neighborhoods would be understandably subsumed by despair and recrimination after such an event, but not this one. Mark Oppenheimer poignantly shifts the focus away from the criminal and his crime, and instead presents the historic, spirited community at the center of this heartbreak. He speaks with residents and nonresidents, Jews and gentiles, survivors and witnesses, teenagers and seniors, activists and historians. Together, these stori

NYT Best Children's Books of 2021In the tradition of award-winning, illustrated novels Pax and The One and Only Ivan, Long Road to the Circus is a girl-empowering, funny, and fast-paced historical adventure by award-winning writer and librarian Betsy Bird, and illustrated by Caldecott Medalist David Small. Twelve-year-old Suzy Bowles is tired of summers filled with chores on her family farm in Burr Oak, Michigan, and desperate to see the world. When her wayward uncle moves back home to the farm, only to skip his chores every morning for mysterious reasons, Suzy decides to find out what he's up to once and for all. And that's when she meets legendary former circus queen Madame Marantette and her ostriches. Before long, Suzy finds herself caught-up in the fast-paced, hilarious world of ostrich riding, a rollicking adventure that just might be her ticket out of Burr Oak.

Action Humor Fantasy This new series opener is a tour de force from international bestseller Jonathan Stroud. Scarlett McCain is an outlaw, a bank robber and a sharp shooter--a girl of formidable skills. Fueled by a tragic injustice in her past, she travels the broken kingdoms of England alone, carrying out daring heists in the surviving towns and fending off monstrous beasts in the wilds outside their fortified walls. Her life is dangerous, free, and simple--until she finds a wrecked bus on a lonely road. Albert Browne, the sole survivor of the accident, is a seemingly innocent and harmless youth. Against her better judgement, Scarlett agrees to escort him to safety. This is a mistake. They are soon pursued by men with dogs and guns and explosives. Scarlett is used to running from the law, but these trackers are the most skilled she's ever encountered--and they don't seem to be after her. Just who is this Albert Browne Scarlett must uncover his shocking secrets if either of them are g