Sixteenth century England was not good for children. It was rare for them to obtain education, especially girls. Amelia was different, her mother was a herbalist, father unknown. Although they were poor, nothing could have prepared her for what was to come...

The "lost country" is the familiar country of innocence and security known as youth—a country we have all known and which, occasionally, in a book like this one, we are able to rediscover. J. R. Salamanca's The Lost Country is the story of a boy, Jim Blackstarr, who grows up on a farm in Virginia. As a child, he delights in the beauty that surrounds him: the rivers and hills and trees, the seasons of the year, all the shapes and textures and patterns of his world. But, as he grows older, he makes other discoveries. He experiences brutality, passion, fear, and shame. These experiences destroy the simplicity of his early relationships; they complicate and darken his later ones. Ultimately, they drive him—as they drive all men—out of, and away from, the country of his youth.

In The Stricklands, Edwin Lanham tells the story of two brothers, tenant farmers who faced losing their land in 1930s Oklahoma. One brother turns to stealing; the other struggles to unite whites and blacks against the exploitative landowners. Originally published in 1939, this novel provides insight into rural life in Depression-era Oklahoma. A new foreword by Lawrence Rodgers sets Lanham’s novel in its historical, regional, and literary context.

Dane Martin was dragged up in an orphanage put through an indifferent high-school education which fitted him for very little. He, and his best friend Tommy Garner, steal cars and sell them to oil-rich Arabs. Tommy was skilled with engines and Dane knew how to pick the best opportunities...

In this delightful dive into the bygone world of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows staunch Mole, sociable Water Rat, severe Badger, and troublesome and ebullient Toad of Toad Hall are joined by a young mole lady, Beryl, and her dear friend, Rabbit. There are adventures, kidnappings, lost letters, and family secrets—lavishly illustrated throughout by award-winning artist Kathleen Jennings. Praise for Kij Johnson: “The Fox Woman immediately sets the author in the front rank of today’s novelists.” —Lloyd Alex-ander “Johnson has a singular vision and I’m going to be borrowing (stealing) from her.” —Sherman Alexie “Johnson’s language is beautiful, her descriptions of setting visceral, and her characters compellingly drawn.” —Publishers Weekly (starred re-view) “Johnson would fit quite comfortably on a shelf with Karen Russell, Erin Morgen-stern and others who hover in the simultaneous state of being both “literary” and “fantasy” writ-ers.” —Shelf Awareness Kij Johnson’s stories have won the Sturgeon, World Fantasy, and Nebula awards. She has taught writing and has worked at Dark Horse, Microsoft, and Real Networks. She has run bookstores, worked as a radio announcer and engineer, edited cryptic crosswords, and waitressed in a strip bar. Kathleen Jennings was raised on fairytales in western Queensland. She trained as a lawyer and filled the margins of her notes with pen-and-ink illustrations. She has been nominated for the World Fantasy award and has received several Ditmar Awards. She lives in Brisbane, Australia.

Early one May morning in 1874, in the hills above Williamsburg, Massachusetts, a reservoir dam suddenly burst, sending an avalanche of water down a narrow river valley lined with factories and farms. In just thirty minutes, the Mill River flood left 139 people dead and 740 homeless -- and a nation wondering how this terrible calamity had happened. In this compelling tale of a man-made disaster peopled with everyday heroes and arrogant scoundrels, Elizabeth Sharpe opens a rare window into industry and village life in nineteenth-century New England, a time when dam failures and other industrial accidents were widespread and laws favored factory owners rather than factory workers. In the Mill Valley, the townsfolk depended upon generally benevolent patriarchs who assured them that the dam was safe, when most people could see that it was not. The story of the Mill River flood is the story of those townsfolk: of George Cheney, the dam keeper whose repeated warnings about leaks in the dam had been ignored by the mill owners; of his wife, Elizabeth, who watched in disbelief as the dam burst open from the bottom; of Isabell Hayden, the mother who saw her young son swept away in the river's torrent; and of Fred Howard, a box maker who spent the days after the flood searching for bodies, burying friends, and waiting to see if the button factory he relied upon for his livelihood would be rebuilt. It is also the story of the well-meaning but overconfident businessmen who built the dam: of Onslow Spelman, the manufacturer who dismissed the dam keeper's flood warning, irrationally insisting that the dam could not break; of Lucius Fenn and Joel Bassett, the engineer and contractor whose roles in the construction of the dam would be questioned during the public inquest into the causes of the flood; of William Skinner, the factory owner who struggled to decide whether or not to rebuild his silk factory in the village that bore his name; and of many others. The flood highlighted class divisions between worker and owner, as well as the disorganized state of professional engineering, then still in its infancy. As the flood exposed the dangers of allowing mill owners -- who were not trained engineers -- to design their own dam, legislation to regulate the building of reservoir dams in Massachusetts was enacted for the first time. Engineers, politicians, and business owners battled over control of the reform measures to prevent similar tragedies, yet saw them continually repeated. In the Shadow of the Dam is the story of an event that reshaped a society. Told through the eyes of villagers like Collins Graves, lauded as a hero for his desperate ride through the valley to warn people of the impending flood, and industrialists like Joel Hayden Jr., entrusted with the responsibility of disaster relief despite his culpability in failing to maintain the leaking dam, In the Shadow of the Dam is a history of our uneasy relationship with industrial progress and a riveting narrative of a tragic disaster in small-town Massachusetts.

Bernard was little more than a tadpole that day on the riverbank near his home. His mother had gathered her children together to warn them of the dangers of going too near the humans that came to the river to fish. He had listened closely to her every word, but unlike his siblings, he found the very thought of such strange visitors to be more exciting than fearful. His curiosity, like a tiny little frog on his shoulder, assured him that it would be a wonderful adventure to get a closer look at the intruders, and if he was careful, there would nothing to fear. By not listening to his mother, he would find himself in some dangerous places with some scary creatures. He was frightened and so alone. All was not lost; he would soon meet a wonderful hound that would take him on many adventures.