Nesbit, Diana Wynne Jones, Gahan Wilson, and other literary luminaries. Sales of Unnatural Creatures benefit 826DC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students in their creative and expository writing, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.

    Hamilton Island seems like the perfect home.The Puget Sound bedroom community has it all — beautiful homes with white picket fences, a thriving tech sector, and one of the best school systems in the state.But not everything is as it seems.And on the morning of September 1, the veil is lifted in a school shooting that will shake the island to its core, and expose an evil dynasty and a dark conspiracy that threatens the future of our species.

    As the ringmaster bends over her, he notices an amulet of amber around her neck, the same trinket he had given his own lost child, who was swept away in a torrent some sixteen years earlier.This tale is narrated by Petter, a precocious child and fantasist, and perhaps Jostein Gaarder's most intriguing character since Sophie. As an adult, Petter makes his living selling stories and ideas to professionals suffering from writer's block. But as Petter sits spinning his tales, he finds himself in a trap of his own making.