Eleven-year-old Clay must find a home on the streets of New York City in this award-winning, heartbreakingly honest novel. He was eleven years old, and he had never felt so alone in his life. Clay Garrity lived a normal life until his father lost his job and abandoned the family. Now his pregnant mother has deserted him too, leaving Clay alone in a welfare hotel with a jar of peanut butter and half a loaf of bread. Fearing being placed in foster care, Clay runs away. Alone in the city, Clay wanders down streets with boarded-up buildings and through dark alleys, until he comes to a small triangular park that looks like an island in a stream. In the light of a street lamp, he sees cardboard boxes, blankets, bundles—and people. Some are lying on benches, others inside boxes. Two of the men, Calvin and Buddy, offer to share their shelter, and Clay is grateful to have a place to stay during the bitter November cold. Before long, Calvin, Buddy, and Clay form a family amid the threatening dangers and despair of the streets. Clay knows that leaving the streets and going into foster care means that he may never see his parents again. But if he stays, he may not survive at all. An ALA Best Book for Young Adults, this acclaimed novel offers an intensely moving and candid look at the all-too-real lives of homeless teens.

The Curse of Monkey Island is the rollicking third installment of the popular Monkey Island game series. With features that include punning pirates, vegetarian cannibals, and guys with names like Snugglecakes, LucasArts manages to successfully integrate humor with a compelling story line. This guide helps players solve a variety of puzzles in order to complete the game.

In 1982, George Lucas saw potential in the fledgling videogame industry and created his own interactive-entertainment company. Twenty-five years and dozens of award-winning games later, LucasArts has earned a prestigious place in the industry and in the hearts of gamers everywhere. Rogue Leaders is the first substantive survey of a videogame companya deluxe compilation that traces its history through never-before-published interviews. In addition, more than 300 pieces of concept art, character development sketches, and storyboards have been lavishly reproduced to showcase the creative talent behind such videogame classics as The Secret of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, as well as games that were never publicly released. A thrill for millions of videogame and LucasArts fans around the world.

That was the only target set for those 20 or so young, ambitious, hilarious and unkempt creators. Lucasfilm GamesTM, soon to be LucasArtsTM, would become a legendary developer, not least because it was within its walls that The Secret of Monkey IslandTM was created in 1990. The best-known of the Point & Click adventure games, Monkey Island earned its reputation from its world of colorful, delightfully anachronistic pirates, its trademark Monty Python-style humor, and, quite simply, the fact that it revolutionized a genre. This book is an homage to the adventures of Guybrush ThreepwoodTM, pirate extraordinaire. But it also aspires—quite ambitiously—to explain why Monkey Island marks a pivotal milestone in the way stories are told through video games. It’s also an opportunity to look back at the tumultuous history of LucasArts and Telltale Games, to discover some voodoo grog recipes, to learn interactive pirate reggae songs, to impress at a party of 40-year-old geeks, and to discover one-liners as sharp as a cutlass (great for duels and birthdays).

Describes suggested activities to accompany the reading of Monkey Island.

The spread of empires in the nineteenth century brought more than new territories and populations under Western sway. Animals were also swept up in the net of imperialism, as jungles and veldts became colonial ranches and plantations. A booming trade in animals turned many strange and dangerous species into prized commodities. Tigers from India, pythons from Malaya, and gorillas from the Congo found their way—sometimes by shady means—to the zoos of major U.S. cities, where they created a sensation. Zoos were among the most popular attractions in the United States for much of the twentieth century. Stoking the public’s fascination, savvy zookeepers, animal traders, and zoo directors regaled visitors with stories of the fierce behavior of these creatures in their native habitats, as well as daring tales of their capture. Yet as tropical animals became increasingly familiar to the American public, they became ever more rare in the wild. Tracing the history of U.S. zoos and the global trade and trafficking in animals that supplied them, Daniel Bender examines how Americans learned to view faraway places and peoples through the lens of the exotic creatures on display. Over time, as the zoo’s mission shifted from offering entertainment to providing a refuge for endangered species, conservation parks replaced pens and cages. The Animal Game recounts Americans’ ongoing, often conflicted relationship with zoos, decried as anachronistic prisons by animal rights activists even as they remain popular centers of education and preservation.

Clever story-driven walkthrough Details on all characters: friend and foe Comprehensive puzzle hints section Complete inventory list including loot, booty, and other paraphernalia

Blending history, oral history, autobiography, and travel narrative, Bland Simpson explores the islands that lie in the sounds, rivers, and swamps of North Carolina's inner coast. In each of the fifteen chapters in the book, Simpson covers a single island or group of islands, many of which, were it not for the buffering Outer Banks, would be lost to the ebbs and flows of the Atlantic. Instead they are home to unique plant and animal species and well-established hardwood forests, and many retain vestiges of an earlier human history.

WHEN SETH AND JULIA are approached by a secretive man and asked to solve a decades-old scavenger hunt, they accept. But they’re not the only detectives the man has recruited for this Waldameer mystery. Can Seth and Julia find the treasure before the team of cheaters? Who is the mystery man, and why does he always wear a disguise? The latest Waldameer mystery sends Seth, Julia, Bek, and Semira on a puzzling race as they compete to solve the curious clues! --- David Gorman’s family owns and operates Waldameer & Water World in Erie, Pennsylvania. For updates and behind-the-scenes fun, visit www.waldameermysteryfiles.com.