Stories of miracles, visions of hell, jokes, fables, and legends, these tales reflect the Japanese worldview during a classic period in Japanese civilization. Masterfully edited and translated by the acclaimed translator of The Tale of Genji, these stories ably balance the lyrical and the dramatic, the ribald and the profound, offering a window into a long-vanished though perennially fascinating culture.

    How the Butterflies Came to Be is one of twenty-four Native American tales included in Native American Animal Stories. The stories, coming from Mohawk, Hopi, Yaqui, Haida and other cultures, demonstrate the power of animals in Native American traditions.Parents, teachers and children will delight in lovingly told stories about "our relations, the animals." The stories come to life through magical illustrations by Mohawk artists John Kahionhes Fadden and David Fadden."The stories in this book present some of the basic perspectives that Native North American parents, aunts and uncles use to teach the young. They are phrased in terms that modern youngsters can understand and appreciate ... They enable us to understand that while birds and animals appear to be similar in thought processes to humans, that is simply the way we represent them in our stories. But other creatures do have thought processes, emotions, personal relationships...We must carefully ccord these other creatures the respect that they deserve and the right to live without unnecessary harm. Wanton killings of different animals by some hunters and sportsmen are completely outside the traditional way that native people have treated other species, and if these stories can help develop in young people a strong sense of the wonder of other forms of life, this sharing of Native North American knowledge will certainly have been worth the effort." —excerpt from the forward by Vine Deloria, Jr.These stories first appeared in Keepers of the Animals: Native American Stories and Wildlife Activities for Children by Michael J. Caduto and Joseph Bruchac

    In fact original fairy tales are still being written. Over the last century and a half many well-known authors have used the characters and settings and themes of traditional tales such as 'Cinderella', 'Hansel and Gretel', and 'Beauty and the Beast' to produce new and characteristic works of wonder and enchantment. The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales brings together forty of the best of these stories by British and American writers from John Ruskin and Nathaniel Hawthorne to I. B. Singer and Angela Carter. These tales are full of princes and princesses, witches and dragons and talking animals, magic objects, evil spells, and unexpected endings. Some of their authors, like John Ruskin and Oscar Wilde, use the form to point a social or spiritual moral; others such as Jeanne Desy and Richard Kennedy, turn the traditional stories inside out to extraordinary effect. James Thurber, Bernard Malamud, and Donald Barthelme, among many others, bring the characters and plots of the traditional fairy tale into the contemporary world to make satiric comments on modern life. The literary skill, wit, and sophistication of these stories appeal to an adult audience, even though some of them were originally written for children. They include light-hearted comic fairy stories like Charles Dickens's 'The Magic Fishbone' and L. F. Baum's 'The Queen of Quok', thoughtful and often moving tales like Lord Dunsany's 'The Kith of the Elf Folk' and Philip K. Dick's 'The King of the Elves', and profoundly disturbing ones like Lucy LaneClifford's 'The New Mother', and Ursula Le Guin's 'The Wife's Story'. Together they prove that the fairy tale is not only one of the most popular and enduring forms, but a significant and continually developing part of literature.Uncle David's nonsensical story about giants and fairies / Catherine Sinclair --Feathertop / Nathaniel Hawthorne --The King of the Golden River / John Ruskin --The story of Fairyfoot / Frances Browne --The light princess / George MacDonald --The magic fishbone / Charles Dickens --A toy princess / Mary De Morgan --The new mother / Lucy Lane Clifford --Good luck is better than gold / Juliana Horatia Ewing --The apple of contentment / Howard Pyle --The griffin and the minor canon / Frank Stockton --The selfish giant / Oscar Wilde --The rooted lover / Laurence Housman --The song of the morrow / Robert Louis Stevenson --The reluctant dragon / Kenneth Grahame --The book of beasts / E. Nesbit --The Queen of Quok / L.F. Baum --The magic ship / H.G. Wells --The Kith of the elf-folk / Lord Dunsany --The story of Blixie Bimber and the power of the gold buckskin whincher / Carl Sandburg --The lovely myfanwy / Walter De la Mare --The troll / T.H. White --Gertrude's child / Richard Hughes --The unicorn in the garden / James Thurber --Bluebeard's daugher / Sylvia Townsend Warner --The chaser / John Collier --The King of the elves / Philip K. Dick --In the family / Naomi Mitchison --The jewbird / Bernard Malamud --Menaseh's dream / I.B. Singer --The glass mountain / Donald Barthelme --Prince Amilec / Tanith Lee --Petronella / Jay Williams --The man who had seen the rope trick / Joan Aiken --The courtship of Mr Lyon / Angela Carter --The princess who stood on her own two feet / Jeanne Desy --The wife's story / Ursula Le Guin --The river maid / Jane Yolen --The porcelain man / Richard Kennedy --Old man Potchikoo / Louise Erdrich

     Katie, Elizabeth and Hannah Schwartz are three sisters that love their Amish lives, but one by one they are tempted by the outside world and love. When their mother died Katie, the eldest, took it upon herself to take care of her sisters and her father. At the age of twenty-six Katie yearns to love and to have a family of her own but she isn’t sure her sisters will manage without her. In a twist of events, Elizabeth and Hannah plan a trick to prove to Katie that they can. Will Katie find love this Christmas after all? Elizabeth had always enjoyed the company of her bible but when the Bishop’s wife is in a brutal buggy accident, she offers to find their son. Jacob and Elizabeth had been friends before he left the ordnung, when Elizabeth finds him and takes him to see his mother, she can’t help but wonder if they will ever be friends again. Will the bishop’s wife recover, will Jacob revisit his decision to leave the ordnung? Hannah had always been the curious one, younger than Katie by almost ten years, she is excited to go on rumspringa. When Hannah disappears without a word, Elizabeth and Katie are grief-stricken. But what they don’t realize is that Hannah had returned and was hiding out in their barn with the help of their farmhand Paul. What happened to make Hannah hide from her family? Can Hannah reunite with her family in time to enjoy an Amish Christmas?

    But he discovers that there is more than a ghost causing mayhem. The Mansion is a fast-paced supernatural story about 10,000 words long.

    A simple touch sending currents of electricity flowing through a body. The feeling of coming home. Friends become lovers. Strangers become soulmates. The chemistry ignited when two people are falling in love is undeniable. Over the course of five short stories, follow these couples on journeys of passion and discover what happens when they decide to let sparks fly…

    Ben will stop at nothing to save his son, but what awaits him is an evil, more dangerous and insidious than he could have ever anticipated. Into the Lion’s Den is a fast-paced action thriller, a compelling saga of the love of family and the indomitable will to survive in the face of an implacable malevolence.

    In these pages you will meet extraordinary beings from Hindu and Navajo religions, Scandinavian tales, Russian folklore, Lithuanian stories, Irish oral history, American tall tales, and Aztec myth. Just some of the monstrous entourage:• Baku, a benevolent Japanese monster with the body of a horse, the head of a lion, and the legs of a tiger, who helps people by devouring their nightmares.• Kurma, the giant tortoise of Hindu myth, whose upper shell forms the heavens and lower part the earth.• Missipissy, the feared fish serpent of North America's Great Lakes region.This illustrated encyclopedia not only identifies and describes individual beasts in their cultural context but also groups them together across cultures and discusses common mythological strands and conceits.

    Illustrated with woodcuts.With black-and-white drawings throughoutPart of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

    Curl up in front of a warm fire on a silent night and choose your poison.

    But surely you've heard the story about the crocodiles who held a vote on whether or not to eat a man that had saved one of their lives? NO? Wow. Have we got some stories for you.

    Avian Flu. Ebola. Every year, the infectious disease changes—but the threat remains the same. We've all read the headlines. We all know the score. Our interconnected world is at a uniquely dangerous moment. The potential for an epidemic progressing to a catastrophic level has never been higher. The question is: what are we going to do about it? What happens when medicine fails and society has to make the hard choices to take the severe steps necessary to stop the inevitable? Mandatory quarantine. A month ago, the term seemed like something out of science fiction. Today, we know better. Quarantine might be the only thing that will keep us alive. Q is the story of a regular cop, Benjamin Grady, who suddenly finds himself on the front line of an unyielding, terrifying epidemic. His job is simple—to quarantine the Probables, those most likely to be carrying a deadly disease. But Grady quickly learns that no amount of training, no amount of lectures from the experts at the CDC or the military infectious disease specialists can prepare him for a society on the verge of losing the war to a microscopic, unrelenting scourge. Ripped from the headlines, meticulously researched, Q lays bare the truth behind the quarantine laws that are already on the books, and what it would mean to implement them on a national scale. At this very moment, we are closer to the edge than ever before. Whether we realize it or not, America is one poorly contained infected airliner, one disease-ridden subway car away from full-scale martial law. Q is a true story. It just hasn't happened yet.

    But writings make him remembered'In ancient Egypt, words had magical power. Inscribed on tombs and temple walls, coffins and statues, or inked onto papyri, hieroglyphs give us a unique insight into the life of the Egyptian mind. Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson has freshly translated a rich and diverse range of ancient Egyptian writings into modern English, including tales of shipwreck and wonder, obelisk inscriptions, mortuary spells, funeral hymns, songs, satires and advice on life from a pharaoh to his son. Spanning over two millennia, this is the essential guide to a complex, sophisticated culture.Translated with an Introduction by Toby Wilkinson

    Grimm's Grimmest presents nineteen of the original, unsanitized, unholy tales as they were first collected by the Brothers Grimm -- all fiendishly illustrated in full color. Grimm's Grimmest has the irresistible look and feel of a creaky old leatherbound volume, perhaps discovered in a forgotten trunk or dusty attic. With aged paper and a leathery stamped case, this delightfully shocking collection harkens back to a time when travelers risked roasting or worse and bad manners could yield frightful consequences. From the true horror of Aschenputtel (the original Cinderella story) to Rapunzel's dark secret, here are the authentic stories born long ago in the land of the Black Forest, at a time when fairy tales were not necessarily for children.

    His neighbors have been a great help with his daughter Charlotte, but he can’t work and take care of her properly.The town matchmaker Emma Hilton has the perfect woman to help Bradley with his baby girl.Nanny Shannon Howell loves taking care of children, but she’d also like to find a husband. She’s eager to travel west in hopes of finding a family to call her own. Shannon is happy to help Bradley with baby Charlotte. Unfortunately, Shannon’s former employer is having problems letting her go.Will the man that traveled across the country drag her back to the east?Has Shannon found the place where she can be her true self with Bradley and Charlotte in Lubbock, Texas?Find out in the first book in a brand new series from Bestselling Mail Order Bride Authors Indiana Wake & Belle Fiffer