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Hello, future me
By Kim Ventrella. 2020
Eleven-year-old June is a problem-solver. Some people might call her a busybody, but that's okay. Just look at all the…
couples she helped find love! (Grateful newlyweds Marlene and Big Vic have even promised June free hot chocolate for life at their café.)However, when June learns that her parents are getting divorced, she has to face the fact that there are some problems too big even for her. At least, that's what the adults in her life keep saying.But June's convinced there's a way to make her parents fall back in love. While brainstorming ideas on her new secondhand laptop-purchased from a mysterious store in town called The Shop of Last Resort-June gets a strange IM from someone named JuniePie28…someone who claims to be an older version of June messaging her from the future.At first, she assumes it's a prank. But JuniePie28 knows too much about June's life to be a fraud, and future June warns her against interfering with her parents' marriage. But June can't just sit around and watch her parents' marriage dissolve, not when there's a magical shop in town that could be the answer to all her problems! Will June prove her older self wrong and stop the divorce? Or will she have to accept that there are some things she can't control?Fortunately, the milk
By Neil Gaiman. 2013
While picking up milk for his children's cereal at the local corner store, a father is abducted by aliens and…
finds himself on a wild adventure through time and space. For grades 3-6. 2013Son (Giver Quartet #4)
By Lois Lowry. 2012
After a difficult labor, fourteen-year-old birthmother Claire has a baby boy who is immediately rescued by Jonas, from The Giver…
(DB 37689). Claire knows she shouldn't search for her "product" but, overwhelmed by a sense of loss, she does anyway. For senior high and older readers. 2012The song of the whales
By Uri Orlev. 2010
When his family moves to Israel, nine-year-old Michael bonds with his grandfather Raphael, who has strong convictions about being a…
vegetarian, helping others, and knowing the soul's dark secrets. Raphael bestows an unusual gift on Michael, dream sharing. For grades 4-7 and older readers. 2010The Anybodies
By N. E Bode. 2005
After learning that she is not the daughter of the boring Mr. and Mrs. Drudger, eleven-year-old Fern happily embarks on…
magical adventures with her real father. She finally finds a place that feels like home. For grades 4-7. 2004The fledgling: A Newbery Honor Award Winner (Hall Family Chronicles)
By Jane Langton. 1980
Young Georgie's fondest wish is to be able to fly. When she meets a Canadian goose, the Goose Prince, her…
dreams come true for a while. For grades 3-6. Newbery Honor. 1980The borrowers (Borrowers Ser. #1)
By Mary Norton. 1953
Pod, Homily, and Arrietty are a family of tiny people who live beneath the floors of an old country house,…
borrowing what they need from humans. When Arrietty encounters a human boy, the endangered Borrowers must relocate. Prequel to The Borrowers Afield (RC 42266, BR 7026). For grades 3-6. 1952The two princesses of Bamarre
By Gail Levine. 2001
Until Princess Meryl was struck with the Gray Death, Princess Addie had always been afraid of everything. Now Addie battles…
specters, gryphons, ogres, and dragons while seeking a cure for her sister. Along the way, she fulfills an ancient prophecy. For grades 5-8. Bestseller. 2001The horse and his boy (Chronicles Of Narnia Ser. #3)
By C. S Lewis. 1994
A boy and his talking horse share an adventurous and dangerous journey to Narnia to warn of invading barbarians. Sequel…
to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (BR 11912). For grades 4-7. 1954Freaky Friday
By Mary Rodgers. 1972
After thirteen-year-old Annabel Andrews and her mother have a hot argument over freedom and responsibility, Annabel wakes on Friday morning…
and finds that she has turned into her mother. For grades 5-8A Bend in the Breeze
By Valerie Sherrard. 2022
When eleven-year-old Pascale Chardon finds herself on a lifeboat drifting toward an uncharted island with no memory of how she…
got there, all she wants is to get back to her family. The islanders, however, have a different objective. For many decades, the islanders have been anticipating the arrival of someone foretold only as the Long Awaited. The Long Awaited is said to have knowledge of the island’s future and will tell the islanders of their fate seventeen days after their arrival. At first Pascale is sure she’s not the Long Awaited, but when strange things begin to happen, she finds it impossible to be certain of anything. Could she be the Long Awaited after all? A Bend in the Breeze, award-winning author Valerie Sherrard’s 30th novel, is a delightful tale about the importance of love and compassion.The lonely ghost
By Mike Ford. 2022
"A haunting like no other. At first, twin sisters Ava and Cassie are excited to move into a ramshackle old…
mansion in a new town. But any romantic ideas they had are quickly dashed. The house is dirty, dusty, and falling apart. Worse, it's infamous around town as that creepy old haunted house. When the sisters remove some wallpaper in the bedroom, they find child-like drawings of a screaming girl. Then Cassie starts acting oddly. Ava can't put her finger on it, but she's just not quite herself. And if Cassie's not herself, then who is she becoming? Ava's never been one to believe in ghosts, but something creepy is happening, she's sure of it. There's a definite ghostly presence in their house--and it's set its sights on Cassie." -- Provided by publisherWeird Fiction in Britain 1880–1939 (Palgrave Gothic)
By James Machin. 2018
This book is the first study of how weird fiction emerged from Victorian supernatural…
literature abandoning the more conventional Gothic horrors of the past for the contemporary weird tale It investigates the careers and fiction of a range of the British writers who inspired H P Lovecraft such as Arthur Machen M P Shiel and John Buchan to shed light on the tensions between literary and genre fiction that continue to this day Weird Fiction in Britain 1880 1939 focuses on the key literary and cultural contexts of weird fiction of the period including Decadence paganism and the occult and discusses how these later impacted on the seminal American pulp magazine Weird Tales This ground-breaking book will appeal to scholars of weird horror and Gothic fiction genre studies Decadence popular fiction the occult and Fin-de-Si cle cultural historyThe Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture
By Glen Weldon. 2016
A witty, intelligent cultural history from NPR book critic Glen Weldon explains Batman's rises and falls throughout the ages--and what…
his story tells us about ourselves.Since his creation, Batman has been many things: a two-fisted detective; a planet-hopping gadabout; a campy Pop-art sensation; a pointy-eared master spy; and a grim and gritty ninja of the urban night. For more than three quarters of a century, he has cycled from a figure of darkness to one of lightness and back again; he's a bat-shaped Rorschach inkblot who takes on the various meanings our changing culture projects onto him. How we perceive Batman's character, whether he's delivering dire threats in a raspy Christian Bale growl or trading blithely homoerotic double-entendres with partner Robin on the comics page, speaks to who we are and how we wish to be seen by the world. It's this endlessly mutable quality that has made him so enduring. And it's Batman's fundamental nerdiness--his gadgets, his obsession, his oath, even his lack of superpowers--that uniquely resonates with his fans who feel a fiercely protective love for the character. Today, fueled by the internet, that breed of passion for elements of popular culture is everywhere. Which is what makes Batman the perfect lens through which to understand geek culture, its current popularity, and social significance. In The Caped Crusade, with humor and insight, Glen Weldon, book critic for NPR and author of Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, lays out Batman's seventy-eight-year cultural history and shows how he has helped make us who we are today and why his legacy remains so strong.Considering Watchmen: Poetics, Property, Politics
By Andrew Hoberek. 2014
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen has been widely hailed as a landmark in the development of the graphic novel.…
It was not only aesthetically groundbreaking but also anticipated future developments in politics, literature, and intellectual property. Demonstrating a keen eye for historical detail, Considering Watchmen gives readers a new appreciation of just how radical Moore and Gibbons's blend of gritty realism and formal experimentation was back in 1986. The book also considers Watchmen's place in the history of the comics industry, reading the graphic novel's playful critique of superhero marketing alongside Alan Moore's public statements about the rights to the franchise. Andrew Hoberek examines how Moore and Gibbons engaged with the emerging discourses of neoconservatism and neoliberal capitalism, ideologies that have only become more prominent in subsequent years. Watchmen's influences on the superhero comic and graphic novel are undeniable, but Hoberek reveals how it has also had profound effects on literature as a whole. He suggests that Watchmen not only proved that superhero comics could rise to the status of literature--it also helped to inspire a generation of writers who are redefining the boundaries of the literary, from Jonathan Lethem to Junot Díaz. Hoberek delivers insight and analysis worthy of satisfying serious readers of the genre while shedding new light on Watchmen as both an artistic accomplishment and a book of ideas.Supergods: Our World in the Age of the Superhero
By Grant Morrison. 2011
From one of the most acclaimed and profound writers in the world of comics comes a thrilling and provocative exploration…
of humankind's great modern myth: the superhero. The first superhero comic ever published, Action Comics no. 1 in 1938, introduced the world to something both unprecedented and timeless: Superman, a caped god for the modern age. In a matter of years, the skies of the imaginary world were filled with strange mutants, aliens, and vigilantes: Batman, Wonder Woman, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and the X-Men--the list of names as familiar as our own. In less than a century, they've gone from not existing at all to being everywhere we look: on our movie and television screens, in our videogames and dreams. But what are they trying to tell us? For Grant Morrison, arguably the greatest of contemporary chroniclers of the "superworld," these heroes are powerful archetypes whose ongoing, decades-spanning story arcs reflect and predict the course of human existence: Through them we tell the story of ourselves, our troubled history, and our starry aspirations. In this exhilarating work of a lifetime, Morrison draws on art, science, mythology, and his own astonishing journeys through this shadow universe to provide the first true history of the superhero--why they matter, why they will always be with us, and what they tell us about who we are . . . and what we may yet become.Our Hero
By Tom De Haven. 2010
Since his first appearance in Action Comics Number One, published in late spring of 1938, Superman has represented the essence…
of American heroism. "Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound," the Man of Steel has thrilled audiences across the globe, yet as life-long "Superman Guy" Tom De Haven argues in this highly entertaining book, his story is uniquely American. Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in the midst of the Great Depression, Superman is both a transcendent figure and, when posing as his alter-ego, reporter Clark Kent, a humble working-class citizen. An orphan and an immigrant, he shares a personal history with the many Americans who came to this country in search of a better life, and his amazing feats represent the wildest realization of the American dream. As De Haven reveals through behind-the-scenes vignettes, personal anecdotes, and lively interpretations of more than 70 years of comic books, radio programs, TV shows, and Hollywood films, Superman's legacy seems, like the Man of Steel himself, to be utterly invincible.Critical Approaches to Welcome to Night Vale: Podcasting between Weather and the Void
By Jeffrey Weinstock. 2018
With well over one-hundred episodes, the podcast Welcome to Night Vale has spawned several international live tours, two novels set…
in the Night Vale universe, and an extensive volume of fan fiction and commentary. However, despite its immense popularity, Welcome to Night Vale has received almost no academic scrutiny. This edited collection of scholarly essays—the very first of its kind on a podcast—attempts to redress this lack of attention to Night Vale by bringing together an international group of scholars from different disciplines to consider the program’s form, themes, politics, and fanbase. After a thorough introduction by the volume’s editor, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, the eight contributors not only offer close analysis of Night Vale, but use the program as the impetus for broader explorations of new media, gender, the constitution of identity, the construction of place, and the human relationship to meaning and the non-human.Walking Through Fire: A Misbegotten Novel
By Sherri Cook Woosley. 2018
For fans of American Gods, a dark, humorous, and richly written, dystopian fantasy about the unbreakable bonds of family and…
the undying strength of a mother's love.The end of the world begins as fire rains down from the heavens. Ancient gods are released from their prison, eager to reestablish their long-lost power. But Rachel Deneuve has bigger, more contemporary concerns than a divine war.Her son Adam is in the middle of a fight against leukemia, and Rachel is determined to keep focused on that battle. But when humans begin picking sides and the fighting escalates, their home in Baltimore becomes a war zone, one she can’t ignore.Desperate to stay away from the carnage—as well as the germ-ridden refugee center—Rachel and Adam flee to their remote mountain cottage, only to find their refuge marred by mutated, grotesque plants and animals. Eventually, the cancerous cells in Adam's body begin evolving as well, threatening his life and forcing Rachel to venture back into the eye of the storm. Left with no other choice but to sacrifice her own freedom for her son's safety, she must become an unwilling warrior in a battle unlike anything seen in millennia, or lose everything she holds dear.The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic
By Clive Bloom. 2020
“Simply put, there is absolutely nothing on the market with the range of ambition of this strikingly eclectic collection of…
essays. Not only is it impossible to imagine a more comprehensive view of the subject, most readers – even specialists in the subject – will find that there are elements of the Gothic genre here of which they were previously unaware.” - Barry Forshaw, Author of British Gothic Cinema and Sex and Film The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic is the most comprehensive compendium of analytic essays on the modern Gothic now available, covering the vast and highly significant period from 1918 to 2019. The Gothic sensibility, over 200 years old, embraces its dark past whilst anticipating the future. From demons and monsters to post- apocalyptic fears and ecological fantasies, Gothic is thriving as never before in the arts and in popular culture. This volume is made up of 62 comprehensive chapters with notes and extended bibliographies contributed by scholars from around the world. The chapters are written not only for those engaged in academic research but also to be accessible to students and dedicated followers of the genre. Each chapter is packed with analysis of the Gothic in both theory and practice, as the genre has mutated and spread over the last hundred years. Starting in 1918 with the impact of film on the genre's development, and moving through its many and varied international incarnations, each chapter chronicles the history of the gothic milieu from the movies to gaming platforms and internet memes, television and theatre. The volume also looks at how Gothic intersects with fashion, music and popular culture: a multi-layered, multi-ethnic, even a trans-gendered experience as we move into the twenty first century.