Being different can be hard. This funny, spirited story—written by bestselling author of Get a Financial Life Beth Kobliner Shaw with her son Jacob, and illustrated by award-winning picture book artist Jules Feiffer—encourages young readers to embrace the thing that makes them unique... Jacob is in a hurry—a really big hurry—to get to the store to buy a special toy. There's only one left, and if he doesn't get to it soon, he'll never forgive his mom and dad for making him late. Strangers often stop Jacob's parents on the street to ask about him. See, Jacob is unusual: He has an eye patch. Jacob knows people like to ask questions, but do they have to ask right now? Luckily, Jacob gets to the store in time, and he meets a new friend who has something different, too. In the end, Jacob's journey makes him more aware of other people’s feelings. Jacob's Eye Patch is the go-to book for talking about differences that kids can enjoy and parents can turn to for guidance. Everyone has something different! What’s your something? Share your child’s story at JacobsEyePatch.com.

Contains everything you need to put on your own play with your friends, including how to write a script, design a set, make costumes, and act a part.

"Pirates have green teeth when they have any teeth at all. I know about pirates, because one day, when I was at the beach building a sand castle and minding my own business, a pirate ship sailed into view."So proclaims Jeremy Jacob, a boy who joins Captain Braid Beard and his crew in this witty look at the finer points of pirate life by the Caldecott Honor winning illustrator David Shannon and the storyteller Melinda Long. Jeremy learns how to say scurvy dog, sing sea chanteys, and throw food . . . but he also learns that there are no books or good night kisses on board: Pirates don t tuck. A swashbuckling adventure with fantastically silly, richly textured illustrations that suit the story to a T. "

A sensational tale of obsession and murder from a wonderful writer. ‘An outstanding novel, fresh and unusual [with] all the dirt, stink, rasp and flavour of the time.’ Daily Telegraph

Jacob has to wear an eye patch. He doesn't like wearing it but he knows will improve his vision. This is an engaging book for middle primary readers. Proceeds from this sale benefit not for profit organisation Library For All, helping children around the world learn to read.

A heartwarming debut novel about the unlikely friendship between two outcasts of different generations who, in struggling to move on from the past, discover love, healing, and family in a charming New England lakeside community. Achingly tender, yet filled with laughter, The Lake House brings to life the wide range of human emotions and the difficult journey from heartbreak to healing. VICTORIA ROSE. Fifty years before, a group of teenage friends promised each other never to leave their idyllic lakeside town. But the call of Hollywood and a bigger life was too strong for Victoria . . . and she alone broke that pledge. Now she has come home, intent on making peace with her demons, even if her former friends shut her out. Haunted by tragedy, she longs to find solace with her childhood sweetheart, but even this tender man may be unable to forgive and forget. HEATHER BREGMAN. At twenty-eight, after years as a globe-trotting columnist, she’s abandoned her controlling fiancé and their glamorous city life to build one on her own terms. Lulled by a Victorian house and a gorgeous locale, she’s determined to make the little community her home. But the residents, fearful of change and outsiders, will stop at nothing to sabotage her dreams of lakeside tranquility. As Victoria and Heather become unlikely friends, their mutual struggle to find acceptance—with their neighbors and in their own hearts—explores the chance events that shape a community and offer the opportunity to start again.

“Highly recommended reading for those hungry for surprise” (A.J. Jacobs, New York Times bestselling author)—a rollicking collection of personal stories and essays on relationships, technology, and contemporary society from the news editor at Funny or Die and former artistic director at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. This hilarious collection of essays spans a wide variety of topics. There’s the open letter to Charles Manson, a brave archeologist’s journey into a suburban man cave, and a long overdue, sternly worded letter from Leif Erikson to Christopher Columbus. Walt Whitman even teaches a spin class. Nate Dern’s razor-sharp eye examines modern society and technology, man buns, dating apps, and juicing crazes. Anyone who’s ever scrunched their eyes at WiFi Terms & Conditions, listened to the reasons that led a vegetarian to give up meat, or looked on in horror at the evolving audacity of reality TV will appreciate Dern’s wicked and funny take on modern life. Not Quite a Genius is fun, and funny, “a breath of fresh air that you can eat up bit by bit or all at once” (Abbi Jacobson, cocreator and star of Broad City).

A thorough investigation of how Jane Jacobs’s ideas about the life and economy of great cities grew from her home city, Scranton Jane Jacobs’s First City vividly reveals how this influential thinker and writer’s classic works germinated in the once vibrant, mid-size city of Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Jane spent her initial eighteen years. In the 1920s and 1930s, Scranton was a place of enormous diversity and opportunity. Small businesses of all kinds abounded and flourished, quality public education was available to and supported by all, and even recent immigrants could save enough to buy a house. Opposing political parties joined forces to tackle problems, and citizens worked together for the public good. Through interviews with contemporary Scrantonians and research of historic newspapers, city directories, and vital records, author Glenna Lang has uncovered Scranton as young Jane experienced it and shows us the lasting impact of her growing up in this thriving and accessible environment. Readers can follow the development of Jane’s acute observational abilities from childhood through her passion in early adulthood to understand and write about what she saw. Reflecting Jane’s belief in trusting one’s own direct observation above all, this volume has been richly illustrated with historic and modern color images that help bring alive a lost Scranton. The book demonstrates why, at the end of Jacobs’s life, her thoughts and conversations increasingly returned to Scranton and the potential for cohesion and inclusiveness in all cities.

“One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades.”—John Gray, New York Times Book Review Hailed as “a magisterial critique of top-down social planning” by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail—sometimes catastrophically—in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters. “Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit.”—New Yorker “A tour de force.”— Charles Tilly, Columbia University

A Spectator Book of the Year It's fashionable to think of the writers of the past as irredeemably tarnished by prejudice. Aristotle despised women. John Milton, the great champion of free speech, wouldn't have granted it to Catholics. Edith Wharton's imaginative sympathies stopped short of her Jewish characters. But what if it is only through the works of such individuals that we can achieve a necessary perspective on the troubles of the present? Join literary scholar Alan Jacobs for a truly nourishing feast of learning. Discover what Homer can teach us about force, what Machiavelli has to say about reading and what Charlotte Brontë reveals about race. Not all the guests are people you might want to invite into your home, but they all bring something precious to the table. In Breaking Bread with the Dead, an omnivorous reader draws us into close and sympathetic engagement with minds across the ages, from Horace to Donna Haraway.