A group of teenagers make it their mission to try and save the World. Lexie and her magical sisters form the Rainbow girls. They battle against an evil villain who is trying to destroy humanity. With their superpowers, which are linked to the seven magical colours of the rainbow, they fight to restore peace and save the human race. A dystopian drama written for teenagers (with adults and younger children in mind). This is a book full of stories and adventures set in a multicultural society. It’s a magical and fantasy driven world. This is the second book in an epic trilogy. A fun but gripping story full of humour. A must read!

Earth is over four billion years old. It has gone through many changes, starting with the introduction of Dinosaurs hundreds of millions of years ago. While the Earth was very hot Dinosaurs enjoyed life to the fullest, but they became extinct as the climate slowly changed. As the earth cooled down and many Islands emerged, humans were then formed. Humans have been around for millions of years enjoying the fruit of the land to the fullest! They have multiplied and exhausted the planet’s food and mineral resources. Now the climate has changed once more. Is it humans turn to become extinct, or can they develop a way to remain alive? Can a group of teenagers really save the World? A dystopian drama made for teenagers and other children with an advanced developing reading knowledge. This is a multicultural book full of stories and adventures for people interested in a magical and fantasy driven world. A fun but gripping story full of humour. A must read!

This book introduces students to African-American innovators and their contributions to art, entertainment, sports, politics, religion, business, and popular culture. While the achievements of such individuals as Barack Obama, Toni Morrison, and Thurgood Marshall are well known, many accomplished African Americans have been largely forgotten or deliberately erased from the historical record in America. This volume introduces students to those African Americans whose successes in entertainment, business, sports, politics, and other fields remain poorly understood. Dr. Charles Drew, whose pioneering research on blood transfusions saved thousands of lives during World War II; Mae Jemison, an engineer who in 1992 became the first African American woman to travel in outer space; and Ethel Waters, the first African American to star in her own television show, are among those chronicled in Forgotten African American Firsts. With nearly 150 entries across 17 categories, this book has been carefully curated to showcase the inspiring stories of African Americans whose hard work, courage, and talent have led the course of history in the United States and around the world.

A merchant seaman is the sole survivor when his ship is sunk in a battle in the South Pacific. Badly burned, he is stripped of every shred of identity and cast into the sea, naked, faceless, nameless. Rescued and lying in a Pearl Harbor hospital, he is mistakenly identified as the missing Lt. Ben Davenant by Davenant's wife. In the moment, the man decides to go along, to take on Davenant's identity, to return with her to California and take on his life. Mortal Leap may remind some readers of the story of Don Draper in the TV series Mad Men. What does it mean to abandon one life completely and step into another in midstream? To step into a marriage, a house, a way of life, all of which are utterly new and unfamiliar? And what do you do when someone from your old life shows up? Decades before Mad Men, MacDonald Harris created a story that we all know but have never heard before. Out of print for decades, Mortal Leap has become a rare and coveted cult classic, the few remaining copies passed along from reader to reader. Now, Boiler House Press's Recovered Books series makes this remarkable book available again.

When I was six years old I started wearing glasses to correct my short sight. My perception of my low vision changed when I was twenty years old and found out that my brother had suddenly gone blind. He was told that he was suffering from Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), a disorder that slowly destroys the pigment cells in the eyes. There are three different strains of RP and the one my brother has runs in the male line of a family. So far, there are no known cures. My brother's eyes deteriorated quickly which confused us all. I soon became curious and convinced myself to attend an eye appointment to determine whether there was more wrong with my eyes than just being short-sighted. At the age of twenty-one I was also diagnosed with RP. Since then I have been slowly going blind, not knowing when my world would finally fade away forever. Finally at the age of twenty-eight I was also registered blind. Then to everyone's surprise, my sister was registered blind two years later. Despite the problems it has caused me, I have managed to keep a positive attitude towards life. I hold a 4th degree black belt in Taekwondo and I was the first registered blind person in England to achieve this level of excellence. After studying Taekwondo for over twenty years, I now teach many classes of my own. At present I have twenty Black Belts. The inspiration to write a book came from persistently helping my friends with their problems. Now I would like to help other people by passing on my strengths. The story of my life could be used as a motivational tool for other people as it shows how to cope with a wide range of emotions. There are many visually impaired people who could benefit. The positive thinking market could also find my book useful as it shows a positive way of coping with the challenges of life.

Rescuing a squirrel after an accident involving a vacuum cleaner, comic-reading cynic Flora Belle Buckman is astonished when the squirrel, Ulysses, demonstrates astonishing powers of strength and flight after being revived. By the Newbery Medal-winning author of The Tale of Despereaux.

This volume delves into Ireland’s forgotten history bringing to light some of the most colorful characters and intriguing episodes of the country’s long history. Ireland is approximately the size of the state of Indiana, yet this small country boasts an extensive, rich, and fascinating history. Ireland’s Forgotten Past is an alternative history that covers 13,000 years in 36 stories that are often left out of history books. Among the characters in these absorbing accounts are a pair of ill- fated prehistoric chieftains, a psychopathic Viking, a gallant Norman knight, a dazzling English traitor, an ingenious tailor, an outstanding war-horse, a brothel queen, an insanely prolific sculptor, and a randy prince. This volume offers a succinct account of the Stone Age and Bronze Age, as well as insights into the Bell-Beakers, the Romans, and the Knights Templar. Historian Turtle Bunbury writes a gently off-beat take on monumental events like the Wars of the Roses, the Tudor Conquest and the Battle of the Boyne, as well as the Home Rule campaign and the Great War. Ireland’s Forgotten Past adds color to the existing histories of the country by focusing on the unique characters and intriguing events. This volume will delight anyone interested in the rich untold history of Ireland.

What could be a more tempting Christmas gift than a compendium of David Sedaris's best stories, selected by the author himself? From a spectacular career spanning almost three decades, these stories have become modern classics and are now for the first time collected in one volume. For more than twenty-five years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to read without laughing. Now, for the first time collected in one volume, the author brings us his funniest and most memorable work. In these stories, Sedaris shops for rare taxidermy, hitchhikes with a lady quadriplegic, and spits a lozenge into a fellow traveler's lap. He drowns a mouse in a bucket, struggles to say 'give it to me' in five languages and hand-feeds a carnivorous bird. But if all you expect to find in Sedaris's work is the deft and sharply observed comedy for which he became renowned, you may be surprised to discover that his words bring more warmth than mockery, more fellow-feeling than derision. Nowhere is this clearer than in his writing about his loved ones. In these pages, Sedaris explores falling in love and staying together, recognizing his own aging not in the mirror but in the faces of his siblings, losing one parent and coming to terms - at long last - with the other. Taken together, the stories in The Best of Me reveal the wonder and delight Sedaris takes in the surprises life brings him. No experience, he sees, is quite as he expected - it's often harder, more fraught and certainly weirder - but sometimes it is also much richer and more wonderful. Full of joy, generosity, and the incisive humor that has led David Sedaris to be called 'the funniest man alive' (Time Out New York), The Best of Me spans a career spent watching and learning and laughing - quite often at himself - and invites readers deep into the world of one of the most brilliant and original writers of our time.

The bestselling, award-winning author of The Midnight Library offers his funniest, most devastating dark comedy yet, a “silly, sad, suspenseful, and soulful” (Philadelphia Inquirer) novel that’s “full of heart” (Entertainment Weekly). When an extra-terrestrial visitor arrives on Earth, his first impressions of the human species are less than positive. Taking the form of Professor Andrew Martin, a prominent mathematician at Cambridge University, the visitor is eager to complete the gruesome task assigned him and hurry home to his own utopian planet, where everyone is omniscient and immortal. He is disgusted by the way humans look, what they eat, their capacity for murder and war, and is equally baffled by the concepts of love and family. But as time goes on, he starts to realize there may be more to this strange species than he had thought. Disguised as Martin, he drinks wine, reads poetry, develops an ear for rock music, and a taste for peanut butter. Slowly, unexpectedly, he forges bonds with Martin’s family. He begins to see hope and beauty in the humans’ imperfection, and begins to question the very mission that brought him there. Praised by The New York Times as a “novelist of great seriousness and talent,” author Matt Haig delivers an unlikely story about human nature and the joy found in the messiness of life on Earth. The Humans is a funny, compulsively readable tale that playfully and movingly explores the ultimate subject—ourselves.

Open The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities and you’ll find both a word and a day to remember, every day of the year. Each day has its own dedicated entry, on which a curious or notable event—and an equally curious or notable word—are explored. On the day on which flirting was banned in New York City, for instance, you’ll discover why to “sheep’s-eye” someone once meant to look at them amorously. On the day on which a disillusioned San Franciscan declared himself Emperor of the United States, you’ll find the word “mamamouchi,” a term for people who consider themselves more important than they truly are. And on the day on which George Frideric Handel completed his 259-page Messiah after twenty-four days of frenzied work, you’ll see why a French loanword, literally meaning “a small wooden barrow,” is used to refer to an intense period of work undertaken to meet a deadline. The English language is vast enough to supply us with a word for every occasion—and this linguistic “wunderkammer” is here to prove precisely that. So whatever date this book has found its way into your hands, there’s an entire year’s worth of linguistic curiosities waiting to be found.