Four children discover there are things that go bump in the night ...Centuries ago a group of Elves committed an unholy ritual. But the ritual was a spectacular failure. It transformed the Elves into the Noctivagi - the beings we know as vampires.Striving to maintain a fragile peace, the ancient Elves and Dwarves negotiated an Accord, which they've renewed every year on the Summer Solstice. The ceremony depends on the magical Rune Stone, but it's missing. If it is not found—and quickly—the consequences could be dire, and not just for Elves and Dwarves.Four children, Rob, Jack, Eleanor, and Flora, stumble into a world of magic and mayhem when they move into Black Ledge, the old estate on the Maine coast, and discover they aren’t the only ones who live there.

     The prophecy spoke of Thomas Kestrel: outcast, lord, sorcerer, warrior, and perhaps savior of the Kingdoms — if he survives. In The Legend of the Kestrel, the first book in The Sylvan Chronicles, Thomas escapes the Shadow Lord’s assassins as a young boy and begins to master the Talent and the ways of the blade, acquiring the skills he’ll need to survive in a world of magic and constant danger. As his skill in the Talent grows and he learns the ways of the Sylvana, men and women dedicated to protecting the Kingdoms from the Shadow Lord and the Dark Horde, he bears the burden of having to return to the Highlands to reclaim his proper place. He befriends a Highlander who would die for him, struggles with his love for a princess with a mind of her own who will betray him, and tries to piece together the puzzle of his life — while the High King’s assassins, aided by the minions of the Shadow Lord, pursue him. Thomas discovers that not only must he stand against a High King bent on conquering the Kingdoms, but also the Shadow Lord, a creature of ancient evil who threatens to unleash a time of darkness and sorrow on the land. Thomas is torn by his desire to lead his own life and his duty to a people who view him with suspicion and fear. He knows that doing the right thing will only push him farther away from the life he wants for himself — and closer to his own death. Does he have the inner strength to accept his fate and free a people that never had any use for him? Can he prevent the Dark Horde from descending on the Kingdoms and extinguishing the light forever? Does he have the courage and skill to stand against the Shadow Lord?

    But the economy had a different idea. Jill got a job was behind bars as the prison librarian at a men’s minimum-security prison.Over the course of a little less than two years, Jill came to see past the bleak surroundings and the orange jumpsuits and recognize the humanity of the men stuck behind bars. They were just like every other library patron—persons who simply wanted to read, to be educated and entertained through the written word. By helping these inmates, Jill simultaneously began to recognize the humanity in everyone and to discover inner strength that she never knew she had.

    Basbanes continues the lively, richly anecdotal exploration of book people, places, and culture he began in 1995 with A Gentle Madness (a finalist that year for the National Book Critics Circle Award) and expanded in 2001 with Patience & Fortitude, a companion work that prompted the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and biographer David McCullough to proclaim him "the leading authority of books about books." In this beautifully packaged edition, Basbanes brings to a close his wonderful trilogy on the remarkable world of books and bibliophiles.

    R. David Lankes, author of The Atlas of New Librarianship, reminds librarians of their mission: to improve society by facilitating knowledge creation in their communities. In this book, he provides tools, arguments, resources, and ideas for fulfilling this mission. Librarians will be prepared to become radical positive change agents in their communities, and other readers will learn to understand libraries in a new way.The librarians of Ferguson, Missouri, famously became positive change agents in August 2014 when they opened library doors when schools were closed because of civil unrest after the shooting of an unarmed teen by police. Working with other local organizations, they provided children and their parents a space for learning, lunch, and peace. But other libraries serve other communities--students, faculty, scholars, law firms--in other ways. All libraries are about community, writes Lankes; that is just librarianship.In concise chapters, Lankes addresses the mission of libraries and explains what constitutes a library. He offers practical advice for librarian training; provides teaching notes for each chapter; and answers "Frequently Argued Questions" about the new librarianship.

    Jenny Preston has been missing for twenty-two years after being taken at the age of two on the very night her mother Amanda, Aunt Ruth, and Uncle Don were brutally and senselessly murdered. While Jenny's grandparents learn to cope with the tragedies, the sheriff, Will Barclay, must grapple with his own guilt and secrets involving the murders. The crime, which rocked the small town of Shady Creek, Kansas, has never been solved. More than two decades later, a woman who calls herself Julie Hendricks is led by a childhood toy to Shady Creek, where she finds refuge from an abusive husband. Living on her own for the first time in her life, she starts to regain her self esteem and make new friends. Her life is then turned upside down again when she discovers she may be the child that was abducted from this very town so many years ago. With the encouragement of her new friends, and a very special someone, she returns to Chicago to learn the truth of her childhood history from her father. After a gripping turn of events, Julie returns to Shady Creek to wrestle with the emotional complexities of her new life and how her past life is starting to catch up with her. An unexpected hero comes to Julie's aid. A story of family, home, and the grave consequences of actions, The Rocking Horse explores the aftermath of the most unimaginable heartache: the disappearance of a child. Fast-paced and full of intrigue, this riveting read mines the depths of the human heart on its road to recovery.

    Gina and Fergus, Hillary and Laurence have grown up, married, and raised their children in the warmth of amiable friendship. But one day it all unravels as Fergus calmly leaves Gina to share his life with a young man in London, and Laurence nearly chucks it all to move to France with Gina in the heat of passion. Their children are devastated and beset with emerging passions of their own. Teenage Sophy, angry with her father, Fergus, for disrupting her life, is nonetheless drawn to him as a refuge from her mother's affair. But Fergus is not prepared for Sophy to share his new life. Sophy is also scared she might be pregnant after a furtive encounter with young George.

    But what awaits Satoru at the end of his training is only death. His teacher is not an ordinary noble but a demon from hell who promises to eat his soul, spiced with a lifetime of cooking expertise. Will Satoru abandon his normal life to become the puppet of this demonic earl? How will he cope with his life's expiry tag? Let’s have a taste of this Heresy Gourmet!

    When all was said and done, Gilbert Joseph Bland, Jr., had become the Al Capone of cartography. 20 illustrations throughout.

    In "Notebook No. 9," a film director's journal becomes an unintentional record of his obsessive love for his leading lady and the slow destruction of their relationship. In "Beulah Berlin, an A--Z," a performance artist, longing for stability and order, reveals the details of her chaotic life through her comments on such varied subjects as angst, hay fever, photography, baby names, sonnets, and tobacco. In "Fantasia on a Favorite Waltz," a prostitute finds an unexpected friend in a young man who plays piano in a brothel. In "Adult Video," we see a man's life in film format-rewinding to his years as a struggling student at Oxford, fast-forwarding to his dreams of success as a writer, and watching the present unfold as he proposes to his future wife for all the wrong reasons. Exploring the ways a life can be dominated by a need for love and the torments that arise when love is misplaced or denied, these stories confirm William Boyd's reputation as a master of the art.

    And as books became more common, the question of where and how to store them became more pertinent. But how did we come from continuous sheets rolled on spools to the ubiquitous portable item you are holding in your hand? And how did books come to be restored and displayed vertically and spine out on shelves? Henry Petroski answers these and virtually every other question we might have about books as he contemplates the history of the book on bookshelf with his inimitable subtle analysis and intriguing detail."After reading this book, you will not look at a book or a bookshelf in the same way." —The Seattle Times

    It was his breakthrough novel, in which he stripped away the difficulties of his earlier work and found a clear, mysteriously moving voice for his haunting stories of love, nostalgia, and grief. It has also been called “the most gripping Modiano book of all” (Der Spiegel).   Odile and Louis are leading a happy, bucolic life with their two children in the French countryside near the Swiss mountains. It is Odile’s thirty-fifth birthday, and Louis’s thirty-fifth birthday is a few weeks away. Then the story shifts back to their early years: Louis, just freed from his military service and at loose ends, taken up by a shady character who brings him to Paris to do some work for a friend who manages a garage; Odile, an aspiring singer, at the mercy of the kindness and unkindness of strangers. They move through a Paris saturated with the crimes and secrets of the past but breathing hopes for the future; they find each other and struggle together to create what, looking back, will have been their youth.

    Soon after the Battle of Britain, three young women - Prue, an apprentice hairdresser, Stella, giddily in love, and Agatha, a Cambridge graduate - are catapulted from their contrasting worlds and find themselves sharing a dormitory together in the depths of the West Country as land girls.

    Nationally recognized expert Laura Fleming provides all the answers in this breakthrough guide. From inception through implementation, you’ll find invaluable guidance for creating a vibrant Makerspace on any budget. Practical strategies and anecdotal examples help you: Create an action plan for your own personalized Makerspace Align activities to standards Showcase student creations Use this must-have guide to painlessly build a robust, unique learning environment that puts learning back in the hands of your students!

    She makes ends meet by hosting weddings in the chapel her husband had built under their two-hundred-year-old white oak tree, known locally as Solomon's Oak. Fourteen-year-old Juniper McGuire is the lone survivor of a family decimated by her sister's disappearance. She arrives on Glory's doorstep, pierced, tattooed, angry, and homeless. When Glory's husband Dan was alive, they took in foster children, but Juniper may be more than she can handle alone. Joseph Vigil is a former Albuquerque police officer and crime lab photographer who was shot during a meth lab bust that took the life of his best friend. Now disabled and in constant pain, he arrives in California to fulfill his dream of photographing the state's giant trees, including Solomon's Oak.In Jo-Ann Mapson's deeply felt, wise, and gritty novel, these three broken souls will find in each other an unexpected comfort, the bond of friendship, and a second chance to see the miracles of everyday life.