The constant rain gets Plip so down that he decides to become an umbrella. But even as an umbrella man, life isn't always easy. Plip came into the world as an ordinary man. But when it started to rain, he became more and more unhappy. At first, he thought the rain would stop. When it didn't, Plip decided to live the rest of his life as an umbrella man. Plip now walks through the world protected from raindrops, but he's lonely. When he meets an umbrella woman, they try to hug, but their umbrellas get in the way. This makes Plip even sadder and he finally closes himself up and leaves the umbrella woman behind. Feelings rage inside of him. Cyclones, tornadoes, and typhoons break over him and his umbrella can't hold up. It turns inside out and collects a whole sea of rainwater that gets heavier and heavier until Plip has no choice to pour himself out. With his story of Plip, author David Sire explores important facets of life including doubt, love, and confidence. To emphasize the inner workings of Plip's psyche, Illustrated by Thomas Baas works only with cool blue tones and one warm red. The metaphor of rain and its various meanings inspire young readers to think about how they deal with their own emotions.

"A brother is as easily forgotten as an umbrella."--James Joyce, "Ulysses" 1918 Audrey Death--feminist, socialist and munitions worker at Woolwich Arsenal--falls ill with encephalitis lethargica as the epidemic rages across Europe, killing a third of its victims and condemning a further third to living death. 1971 Under the curious eyes of psychiatrist Dr. Zack Busner, assumed mental patient Audrey Death lies supine in bed above a spring grotto that she has made every one of the forty-nine years she has resided in Friern Mental Hospital. 2010 Now retired, Dr. Busner travels waywardly across North London in search of the truth about that tumultuous summer when he awoke the post-encephalitic patients under his care using a new and powerful drug. Weaving together a dense tapestry of consciousness and lived life across an entire century, in his latest and most ambitious novel, Will Self takes up the challenge of Modernism and reveals how it--and it alone--can unravel new and unsettling truths about our world and how it came to be.

Hungry for his cooking...and his love. It's simply irresistable★

Story 1: Looking at you eating my cooking with that cute smile...makes me want to eat you next.
Story 2: Like the taste? Here, lick it.
Story 3: My secret bento exchange partner is actually the successor to a famous business?!
Story 4: Eat more and cheer up! And then...I'll eat you right up!
Story 5: Doing it in the morning is exciting... How about we do this every morning?
Story 6: Clumsy me meets a handsome older man at a cooking school...and he's a better cook than the instructor?!
Story 7: I love seeing my girlfriend smile when she eats!

In this “moody thriller,” a family business is targeted for takeover as control of Hong Kong shifts from the British to the Chinese (The New York Times). Ninety-nine years of colonial rule are ending as the British prepare to hand over Hong Kong to China. Betty Mullard and her son, Bunt, have lived here for years, mostly keeping apart from their foreign surroundings, except for some indulgence in the local food, or in Bunt’s case, the local girls. The handover is not a concern for them—until the mysterious Mr. Hung from the mainland offers them a large sum for their family business. They refuse. But they fail to realize that Mr. Hung is unlike the other Chinese people they’ve known: he will accept no refusals. When a young female employee whom Bunt has been dating vanishes, he is forced to make important decisions for the first time in his life—but his good intentions are pitted against the will of Mr. Hung, and the threat of the ultimate betrayal. “A compact, provocative gem of a novel” (The Boston Globe), from an award-winning author acclaimed for both his fiction and his travel memoirs—including Deep South, The Great Railway Bazaar, and The Mosquito Coast—Kowloon Tong was praised by Bette Bao Lord in The Washington Post Book World as “a taut, illuminating story that transcends its timely subject.”

"Sentimental, heartfelt….the exploration of Henry’s changing relationship with his family and with Keiko will keep most readers turning pages...A timely debut that not only reminds readers of a shameful episode in American history, but cautions us to examine the present and take heed we don’t repeat those injustices."-- Kirkus Reviews “A tender and satisfying novel set in a time and a place lost forever, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet gives us a glimpse of the damage that is caused by war--not the sweeping damage of the battlefield, but the cold, cruel damage to the hearts and humanity of individual people. Especially relevant in today's world, this is a beautifully written book that will make you think. And, more importantly, it will make you feel." -- Garth Stein, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain “Jamie Ford's first novel explores the age-old conflicts between father and son, the beauty and sadness of what happened to Japanese Americans in the Seattle area during World War II, and the depths and longing of deep-heart love. An impressive, bitter, and sweet debut.” -- Lisa See, bestselling author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan In the opening pages of Jamie Ford’s stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle’s Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol. This simple act takes old Henry Lee back to the 1940s, at the height of the war, when young Henry’s world is a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who is obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While “scholarshipping” at the exclusive Rainier Elementary, where the white kids ignore him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship–and innocent love–that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. And after Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept. Forty years later, Henry Lee is certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko. In the hotel’s dark dusty basement he begins looking for signs of the Okabe family’s belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot begin to measure. Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice–words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago. Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope. In Henry and Keiko, Jamie Ford has created an unforgettable duo whose story teaches us of the power of forgiveness and the human heart. BONUS: This edition contains a Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet discussion guide and an excerpt from Jamie Ford's Love and Other Consolation Prizes.

From a major new picture book talent comes a deceptively simple and exquisitely illustrated story about a little boy and his bear and finding a place called home. Told with humour and warmth, 'Where Bear?' will capture the heart of its reader.

Explore SPRING in the forest with this lively, interactive Lift-a-Flap Surprise board book Little ones will love learning all about springtime fun in the forest while following a mama deer and her sweet little fawn as they trek around the woods soaking in all the sights and sounds and meeting new woodland friends. The birds are singing, wildflowers are blooming, raindrops plip-plop in puddles, and the rainbow is bright in the sky. What a wonderful day to be a little fawn in the forest A perfect way to celebrate the season with your toddler Look for the Lift-a-Flap Surprise It's a Lift-a-Flap and pop-up all in one book Interactive, beautifully illustrated board book with lots to explore ideal for keeping toddlers entertained and engaged. Perfectly sized for little hands and fingers to open and close the flaps. Sturdy flaps are extra strong so your little one can open and close again and again without any signs of wear. Lifting flaps encourage the use of fine motor skills and the content-rich text builds vocabulary. Collect all four books in the SEASONS Lift-a-Flap Surprise series

The invention of collage by Picasso and Braque in 1912 proved to be a dramatic turning point in the development of Cubism and Futurism and ultimately one of the most significant innovations in twentieth-century art. Collage has traditionally been viewed as a new expression of modernism, one allied with modernism's search for purity of means, anti-illusionism, unity, and autonomy of form. This book - the first comprehensive study of collage and its relation to modernism - challenges this view. Christine Poggi argues that collage did not become a new language of modernism but a new language with which to critique modernism. She focuses on the ways Cubist collage - and the Futurist multimedia work that was inspired by it - undermined prevailing notions of material and stylistic unity, subverted the role of the frame and pictorial ground, and brought the languages of high and low culture into a new relationship of exchange.

A fifty-year-old cold case involving California royalty comes back to life—with potentially fatal consequences—in this gripping standalone novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series. ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: PopSugar A magnificent house, vast formal gardens, a golden family that shaped California, and a colorful past filled with now-famous artists: the Gardener Estate was a twentieth-century Eden. And now, just as the Estate is preparing to move into a new future, restoration work on some of its art digs up a grim relic of the home’s past: a human skull, hidden away for decades. Inspector Raquel Laing has her work cut out for her. Fifty years ago, the Estate’s young heir, Rob Gardener, turned his palatial home into a counterculture commune of peace, love, and equality. But that was also a time when serial killers preyed on innocents—monsters like The Highwayman, whose case has just surged back into the public eye. Could the skull belong to one of his victims? To Raquel—a woman who knows all about colorful pasts—the bones clearly seem linked to The Highwayman. But as she dives into the Estate’s archives to look for signs of his presence, what she unearths begins to take on a dark reality all of its own. Everything she finds keeps bringing her back to Rob Gardener himself. While he might be a gray-haired recluse now, back then he was a troubled young Vietnam vet whose girlfriend vanished after a midsummer festival at the Estate. But a lot of people seem to have disappeared from the Gardener Estate that summer when the commune mysteriously fell apart: a young woman, her child, and Rob’s brother, Fort. The pressure is on, and Raquel needs to solve this case—before The Highwayman slips away, or another Gardener vanishes.