"Should appeal to all rugged individualists who dream of escape to the forest."—The New York Times Book Review Sam Gribley is terribly unhappy living in New York City with his family, so he runs away to the Catskill Mountains to live in the woods—all by himself. With only a penknife, a ball of cord, forty dollars, and some flint and steel, he intends to survive on his own. Sam learns about courage, danger, and independence during his year in the wilderness, a year that changes his life forever. “An extraordinary book . . . It will be read year after year.” —The Horn Book

In 1959, Jean Craighead George published My Side of the Mountain. This coming-of-age story about a boy and his falcon went on to win a Newbery Honor, and for the past forty years has enthralled and entertained generations of would-be Sam Gribleys. The two books that followed--On the Far Side of the Mountain and Frightful's Mountain--were equally extraordinary. Now all three books are available in one deluxe yet affordable volume for veteran devotees and brand-new fans alike.

Two years ago, Sam ran away from New York City to live in the Catskill Mountains. Now his younger sister Alice has joined him and is quietly living in a tree house of her own nearby. Their peaceful life is shattered when a conservation officer confiscates Sam’s falcon, Frightful, and Alice suddenly vanishes. Sam leaves his home to search for Alice, hoping to find Frightful, too. But the trail to the far side of the mountain may lead Sam into great danger. “Surpasses the original in style and substance . . . This story [is] a jewel.” —Booklist “George has outdone herself here.” —Kirkus Reviews

Frightful, the pelegrine falcon, could not see. A falconer's hood covered her head and eyes. She remained quiet and clam, like all daytime birds in the dark. She would hear, however. She listened t the wind whistling through the pine needles. The wind-music conjured up images of a strange woods and unknown flowers. The sound was foreign. It was not the soft song of wind humming through the hemlock needles of home. Frightful was a long way from her familiar forest. Suddenly an all-invading passion filled her. She must go. She must find one mountain among thousands, one hemlock tree among millions,. And the one boy who called himself Sam Gribley. The one mountain was her territory, the one tree was Sam's house, the perch beside it, her place. And Sam Gribley was life.So begins the third book in the wilderness series that has lifted imaginations around the worlds. Readers last head from Sam Gribley a decade ago , when he kept the hardest resolution of his life and let his falcon partner go free. Now at last we pick up the sotry?but this time, the narrative continues through Frightful's keen-sighted eyes.Raised by Sam, Frightful is an imprinted bird. She has no idea how to migrate, mate, or be a mother. She can barely even feed herself, for although she is a skilled hunter, it was always Sam who signaled permission to partake of the kill. Sam, so patient and kind, will support her from afar, and so will bird activists Jon and Susan wood and conservationist Leon Longbridge. But despite a letter-writing campaign by local schoolchildren, other would despoil her Catskill home?designing fatal electrical wires and disturbing good nesting areas with jackhammers and paint trucks.With evolution and a proud natural intelligence on her side, Frightful may yet beat the odds of famine, winter, and human encroachment. But her terrible longing for that one mountain among thousands, her first home?a longing so noble and generous yet so dangerous?will govern her to either heartbreaking failure or hart-aching triumph, a triumph so right and so natural that readers will want to take to the skies in celebration.Jean Craighead George published My Side of the mountain in 1959, a Newbery Honor Book and coming-of-age story that has enthralled and entertained generations of would-be Sams. This third book in the series shares?in exquisite, elegantly flowing prose?Frightful's own passage into adulthood, taking readers on a journey into the mind and spirit of one of the wild's most magnificent creations and proving once again why the author is considered the most gifted nature writer of her time.

"Billie Wind lives with her Seminole tribe. She follows their customs, but the dangers of pollution and nuclear war she's learned about in school seem much more real to her. How can she believe the Seminole legends about talking animals and earth spirits? She wants answers, not legends. "You are a doubter,"say the men of the Seminole Council and so Billie goes out into the Everglades alone, to stay until she can believe. In the wilderness, she discovers that she must listen to the land and animals in order to survive. With an otter, a panther cub, and a turtle as companions and guides, she begins to understand that the world of her people can give her the answers she seeks.

‘An intrepid explorer, young Rebecca ventures into the forest in search of an ovenbird, a warbler reputed to be the wizard of the woods. Readers follow Rebecca’s progress through the day discovering the secrets of the spring foliage and learning much about the temperate forest and its inhabitants.’ —BL.

With the election of a new Abbot at the Abbey of Gethsemani, Merton enters a period of unprecedented freedom, culminating in the opportunity to travel to California, Alaska, and finally the Far East – journeys that offer him new possibilities and causes for contemplation. In his last days at the Abbey of Gethsemani, Merton continues to follow the tumultuous events of the sixties, including the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. In Southeast Asia, he meets the Dalai Lama and other Buddhist and Catholic monks and discovers a rare and rewarding kinship with each. The final year is full of excitement and great potential for Merton, making his accidental death in Bangkok, at the age of fifth-three, all the more tragic.

Henry Rush is spending the day at the Prairie Wildlife Refuge, determined to photograph a prairie dog doing a back flip. But while he whatches and waites at the edge of prairie dog town, he fails to notice the electricity humming through the air. Or the buffalo aniously pawing the ground. Or the purple-blue cloud building over the prairie grass. A tornado is forming to the west . And when the dark funnel touches down, it will wipe out everything in it's path...

Oksi, daughter of Frightful, the peregrine falcon, and her journey from hatchling to adulthood.