The Return of the Twelves


Pauline Clarke - 1962
    Under his careful watch, the "Twelves" come to life, each possessing a name and a distinct personality. As Max soon learns, they share a history filled with incident and adventure -- all an imaginative legacy of the famous Brontës (Branwell, Charlotte, Emily, Anne), who were the soldiers' original owners. In its mix of invention, excitement, character, and literary history, The Return of the Twelves occupies a rare place in children's literature. Its gripping narrative and engaging figures make it perfect for young readers of ten and up.

So Let It Be Written: The Biography of Metallica's James Hetfield


Mark Eglinton - 2017
    He overcame adolescent upheaval and personal demons—including his parents’ divorce, his mother’s untimely death and severe alcoholism—to become metal’s biggest star.So Let It Be Written does justice to the many hats Hetfield has worn, with his strong leadership, signature vocal style, powerful guitar-playing and masterful songwriting. Author Mark Eglinton uses exclusive, firsthand interviews—with prominent rock stars and key figures in Hetfield’s life—to construct the definitive account of Hetfield.“Hopefully this book will rekindle certain special memories about one of metal’s most charismatic and important individuals.” —Chuck Billy of TestamentMark Eglinton is the co-writer of Official Truth, 101 Proof by Pantera’s Rex Brown and Confessions of a Heretic by Behemoth’s Adam Nergal Darski. Chuck Billy is the singer of Testament.

Guardian Awakening


C. Osborne Rapley - 2014
     With the realisation that the previously failed brain implant can now interface with the alien’s computers Tristan decides to accompany the alien in her quest to return home. When he is captured and imprisoned he has to make a choice between conscience and love. Enslaved alien species look to him for leadership so he must overthrow everything the woman he loves stands for. His choice is victory or happiness. He can’t have both or can he?

The Ritual Bath / Sacred and Profane


Faye Kellerman - 2007
    

Smurf


Peyo - 1958
    The cast has a simple structure as well: almost all the characters look essentially alike — male, very short (just "three apples tall"), with blue skin, white trousers with a hole for their short tails, white hat in the style of a Phrygian cap, and some additional accessory that identifies each one's personality. (For instance, Handy Smurf wears overalls instead of the standard trousers, a brimmed hat, and a pencil above his ear). Smurfs can walk and run, but often move by skipping on both feet. They love to eat smilax leaves, whose berries the smurfs naturally call smurfberries.The male Smurfs almost never appear without their hats, which leaves a mystery amongst the fans as to whether they have hair or not. The animated series canon state that they may be bald: one episode of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon has Greedy Smurf removing his chef's hat to give Papa Smurf a pie he had concealed under it, revealing a bald head. Another episode, St. Smurf and the Dragon, shows Hefty Smurf's hat rising up off his bald head briefly as he and others slide to a stop. Both Papa Smurf and Grandpa Smurf have full beards and hair visibly coming from under their hats above the earline. In The Smurfs and the Magic Flute, a Smurf took off his hat briefly for a polite gesture.In the comics, the last page of first album Les Schtroumpfs noirs (The Black Smurfs) shows Papa Smurf's hat blown off by an explosion, revealing his completely bald head (which may simply be due to old age). In Le Schtroumpfeur de Bijoux (The Jewel Smurfer), Jokey Smurf gets very angry and defensive when a human tells him he should take off his hat.The smurfs fulfill simple archetypes of everyday people: Lazy Smurf, Grouchy Smurf, Brainy Smurf, and so on. All smurfs but Papa, Baby, Nanny and Grandpa are said to be 100 years old, and there are normally 100 smurfs (but this number increases as new smurf characters appear: smurflings, Nanny, etc).

The Genius Files 4-Book Collection: Mission Unstoppable, Never Say Genius, You Only Die Twice, From Texas with Love


Dan Gutman - 2014
    This collection includes the first four novels in this bestselling series.The Genius Files: Mission Unstoppable: The most exciting road trip in history begins! In this action-packed, New York Times bestselling adventure, twelve-year-old twins Coke and Pepsi McDonald embark on a family vacation you'll have to read to believe. As Coke and Pepsi dodge nefarious villains from the Pez museum in California all the way to the Infinity Room in Wisconsin, black-and-white photographs and maps put young readers right into the action.The Genius Files #2: Never Say Genius: Coke and Pepsi McDonald never asked to be geniuses. They never asked to get lowered into a basket of boiling French fries, either. And they certainly never asked to be frozen in soft-serve ice cream, stampeded in a wild stadium riot, or kidnapped on a high-speed roller coaster. But that's what happens when a red-haired villain named Archie Clone is chasing you across America. This just might be the most dangerous road trip in history—and the most awesome!The Genius Files #3: You Only Die Twice: As the twins continue their family road trip from Washington D.C. through the South, it will take every bit of their genius abilities to outwit their wacky enemies. It doesn't help that their parents remain totally oblivious! When they finally get to Graceland, Elvis's home in Memphis, Tennessee, Coke and Pepsi come to an explosive conclusion you'll have to read to believe!The Genius Files #4: From Texas with Love: After their explosive escape at Graceland, twins Coke and Pepsi are ready to resume their trip across America. They travel through Arkansas and Oklahoma, visiting weird-but-true tourist stops along the way, and finally end up in Texas, home of the Weird Capital of the Country, Austin. The twins' many enemies—the bowler dudes, Mrs. Higgins, and Dr. Warsaw—all swear that they're done chasing Coke and Pepsi for good. But when the twins start receiving more codes and ciphers from a mysterious robotic voice, they know someone's after them. They just have to figure out who before the mystery villain finds them first.

Basketball Blues


Thalia Kalkipsakis - 2005
    But can cheerleading make Angie happy, or is basketball her real love?   It's lucky Angie is more than just a pretty face!

Immortal Talks (- Book 2)


Shunya - 2019
    Hundreds of miles away from her home, the immortal Guru and His secret disciples meet in a forested mountain to discuss metaphysical ways of steering her soul back to a life of happiness and prosperity. This treasure is the second instalment in the Immortal Talks book series. It contains six priceless chapters: A Thousand Lives; The Linga Code; Incomplete; The Invisible Four; The Awareness Setting; Continuity.

Forgive Us Our Trespasses


Lloyd C. Douglas - 1932
     With the quizzical grimace of long-neglected astigmatism she adjusted the steel-bowed spectacles that had been her mother's, had of a notion peddler for two dozen eggs and a pound of butter. The wooden-wheeled clock—a noisy but amazingly accurate and exquisitely ornamented product of old Ferd's, while laid up one winter with a broken leg that had kept him two months sober—clacked irascibly at Martha that another blistering August morning was nearly five hours old.

Her Christmas Cowboy: The Carsen Brothers of Sweet Rivers Ranch #1 (A Sweet Clean Marriage of Convenience Western Romance)


Marie Richards - 2021
    But he’s too broken to love again. Recovering from the wounds of war is one thing, but the wounds from a previous relationship is another.Jemma Smith grants wishes for the ill through her Grant-A-Wish app, but can she grant her dying grandfather’s last wish to see her settle down before Christmas? She’d always dreamed of getting married and knows her grandfather just wants to see her happy, but she’s not getting any younger and it’s too late for her now, isn’t it?After meeting Luke through his matchmaking aunt, Sue Mae, Jemma wonders if she could make this work. Or will a marriage of convenience be all they can handle to appease their folks?

The Rest Is Noise Series: Apparition from the Woods: The Loneliness of Jean Sibelius


Alex Ross - 2013
    Further extracts are available as digital shorts, accompanying the London Southbank festival programme.Jean Sibelius hailed from the ‘small nation’ of Finland. Working in isolation, far from the great artistic capitals of Europe, Ross shows how Sibelius’s reinvention of classical forms went on to set the pace for classical composers around the world.Now a major festival running throughout 2013 at London’s Southbank, The Rest is Noise is an intricate commentary not just on the sounds that defined the century, but on art’s troublesome dance with politics, social and cultural change.Alex Ross is the New Yorker’s music critic, and the winner of the Guardian First Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Rest is Noise, which was also shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson and Pulitzer prizes for non-fiction.

Wilde Murder


Ruth Rowland - 2015
    When the chance to purchase the Cosset Cove Advertiser, a small weekly newspaper in the New England seaside town she'd spent many happy childhood vacations, it seemed too good an opportunity to turn down. Charlotte soon settles in to her new role as owner, chief reporter and general gofer of the Advertiser. Life is sweet, her new friends and colleagues Clara, Abigail and Amy, along with Barney, the huge Maine Coon cat, can both delight and frustrate in equal measure. This idyllic new life is disturbed when Charlotte has to interview a blast from her past. It is completely shattered when that interview leads to murder. Things only go from bad to worse as Charlotte is suspected of being the culprit. Can Charlotte, and her new found friends, clear her name and bring the real murderer to justice? Or will being on the trail of a cold blooded killer only put their own lives at risk? “A charming traditional cozy mystery in a modern day setting. Contains plenty of light witty humor and will keep you guessing right to the end!”

Gangland: New Zealand's Underworld of Organised Crime


Jared Savage - 2021
    Organised crime is about making money. It's a business. But over the past 20 years, the dealers have graduated from motorcycle gangs to Asian crime syndicates and now the most dangerous drug lords in the world - the Mexican cartels.In Gangland, award-winning investigative reporter Jared Savage shines a light into New Zealand's rising underworld of organised crime and violent gangs.The brutal execution of a husband-and-wife; the undercover cop who infiltrated a casino VIP lounge; the midnight fishing trip which led to the country's biggest cocaine bust; the gangster who shot his best friend in a motorcycle shop: these stories go behind the headlines and open the door to an invisible world - a world where millions of dollars are made, life is cheap, and allegiances change like the flick of a switch.

Queen of Dragons


Melody Rose - 2019
    What would you do if you made a wish in a well and woke up in a world full of dragons? What if they made you their queen? Would you use the magic they gave you to cleanse the corruption plaguing the land? Help cure your new best friend’s mother? Fall in love with two dashingly handsome guys? One who is a notorious bad boy and the other who is smart, tender, and funny? Tell the king that he can shove it sideways if he doesn’t want your help, knowing full well he needs you more than you need him? Or would you do all of the above?

The Box Car Children Literature Novel Unit Study for #1 in series


Teresa Lilly - 2011
    It does NOT include the novel.We recommend you read this on a 1 fontThis unit study offers many wonderful activities to use while having students read the book. There are between 6 and 10 lessons. Activities in this lesson include Fill in the Blank, Multiple Choice, True and False, Comprehension, Encyclopedia Skills Activity, Journal Activity, Vocabulary, Sequencing, Handwriting, Main Idea, Prediction, ComparisonLiterature Skills Activities including: Main Character, Main Setting, Main Problem, Possible Solutions, Character Traits, Character Interaction, Cause and Effect, Description, Pyramid of Importance, Villain vs. Hero.Creative Writing Activities including: Letter, Fairy Tale, Mystery, Science Fiction, Fable, Dream or Nightmare, Tall Tale, Memoir, Newberry Award, A Different Ending.Writing Skills Activities including: Description, Expository, Dialogue, Process, Point of View, Persuasion, Compare and Contrast, Sequel, Climax and Plot Analysis.Poetry Skills Activities including: Couplet, Triplet, Quinzain, Haiku, Cinquain, Tanka, Diamanté, Lantern and Shape Poem.Create a Newspaper Layout Activities including: Editorial, Travel, Advice Column, Comics, Society News, Sports, Obituary, Weddings, Book Review, Want Ads, Word Search. Poster Board Activities including: Collage, Theater Poster, Wanted Poster, Coat of Arms, Story Quilt, Chalk Art, Silhouette, Board Game Construction, Door Sign, Jeopardy.We also offer an extended version of this unit which comes in a PDF format and offers Lapbook instructions, Hands on Art and Creative Art activities. If you purchase this unit study and let us know by sending us proof of purchase, we will download the extended version of this full unit with the additional activities in PDF version to you for $1 more. Send proof of purchase to www.hshighlights.com.