Meet fantastic Daisy Artichoke. She isn't quite like other folk She has strange pets and funny clothes and she knows lots of funny jokes.

A bouncing, read-aloud rhyme about all the things a child can be, from the nation's favourite illustrator, Quentin Blake! "Here is SIMPKIN Simpkin FAST and Simpkin SLOW Simpkin HIGH and Simpkin LOW" Simpkin is a mass of contradictions. He can be nasty and nice; weak and strong and sensible and silly - ALL at the same time! And when you really need him most - he's nowhere to be found . . . "Blake is beyond brilliant . . . I've never met a child who doesn't love Quentin Blake" - Daily Telegraph Quentin Blake is one of Britain's best-loved and most successful author-illustrators, and was made the first Children's Laureate in 1999. He has won the Whitbread Award, the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, and the Kate Greenaway Medal. among others.

For every athlete or sports fanatic who knows she's just as good as the guys. This is for fans of The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen, Grace, Gold, and Glory by Gabrielle Douglass and Breakaway: Beyond the Goal by Alex Morgan. The summer before Caleb and Tessa enter high school, friendship has blossomed into a relationship . . . and their playful sports days are coming to an end. Caleb is getting ready to try out for the football team, and Tessa is training for cross-country. But all their structured plans derail in the final flag game when they lose. Tessa doesn’t want to end her career as a loser. She really enjoys playing, and if she’s being honest, she likes it even more than running cross-country. So what if she decided to play football instead? What would happen between her and Caleb? Or between her two best friends, who are counting on her to try out for cross-country with them? And will her parents be upset that she’s decided to take her hobby to the next level? This summer Caleb and Tessa figure out just what it means to be a boyfriend, girlfriend, teammate, best friend, and someone worth cheering for. “A great next choice for readers who have enjoyed Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Dairy Queen and Miranda Kenneally’s Catching Jordan.”—SLJ “Fast-paced football action, realistic family drama, and sweet romance…[will have] readers looking for girl-powered sports stories…find[ing] plenty to like.”—Booklist “Tessa's ferocious competitiveness is appealing.”—Kirkus Reviews “[The Football Girl] serve[s] to illuminate the appropriately complicated emotions both of a young romance and of pursuing a dream. Heldring writes with insight and restraint.”—The Horn Book

When two children climb over the garden wall of the big house, they embark on a voyage of discovery. For this uncharted territory reveals a topiary ship, complete with a wheelhouse that looks rather like a garden shed. It isnt long before the shipowner comes across the stowaways, but their communal sense of adventure is destined to see them all through the eye of the storm!

In her latest cookbook, Deborah Madison, America's leading authority on vegetarian cooking and author of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, reveals the surprising relationships between vegetables, edible flowers, and herbs within the same botanical families, and how understanding these connections can help home cooks see everyday vegetables in new light. Destined to become the new standard reference for cooking vegetables, Vegetable Literacy, by revered chef Deborah Madison, shows cooks that vegetables within the same family, because of their shared characteristics, can be used interchangeably in cooking. For example, knowing that dill, chervil, cumin, parsley, coriander, anise, and caraway come from the umbellifer family makes it clear why they're such good matches for carrots, also an umbel. With stunning images from the team behind Canal House cookbooks and website, and 150 classic and exquisitely simple recipes, such as Savoy Cabbage on Rye Toast with GruyèreCheese; Carrots with Caraway Seed, Garlic, and Parsley; and Pan-fried Sunchokes with Walnut Sauce and Sunflower Sprouts; Madison brings this wealth of information together in dishes that highlight a world of complementary flavors.

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER! "A powerful debut that proves the threads that interweave our lives can withstand time and any tide, and bind our hearts forever."—Susanna Kearsley, New York Times bestselling author of Belleweather and The Vanished Days A historical novel inspired by true events, Kelli Estes's brilliant and atmospheric debut is a poignant tale of two women determined to do the right thing, highlighting the power of our own stories. The smallest items can hold centuries of secrets... While exploring her aunt's island estate, Inara Erickson is captivated by an elaborately stitched piece of fabric hidden in the house. The truth behind the silk sleeve dated back to 1886, when Mei Lien, the lone survivor of a cruel purge of the Chinese in Seattle found refuge on Orcas Island and shared her tragic experience by embroidering it. As Inara peels back layer upon layer of the centuries of secrets the sleeve holds, her life becomes interwoven with that of Mei Lein. Through the stories Mei Lein tells in silk, Inara uncovers a tragic truth that will shake her family to its core—and force her to make an impossible choice. Should she bring shame to her family and risk everything by telling the truth, or tell no one and dishonor Mei Lien's memory? A touching and tender book for fans of Marie Benedict, Susanna Kearsley, and Duncan Jepson, The Girl Who Wrote in Silk is a dual-time period novel that explores how a delicate piece of silk interweaves the past and the present, reminding us that today's actions have far reaching implications. Praise for The Girl Who Wrote in Silk: "A beautiful, elegiac novel, as finely and delicately woven as the title suggests. Kelli Estes spins a spellbinding tale that illuminates the past in all its brutality and beauty, and the humanity that binds us all together." —Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author of The Beekeeper's Ball "A touching and tender story about discovering the past to bring peace to the present." —Duncan Jepson, author of All the Flowers in Shanghai "Vibrant and tragic, The Girl Who Wrote in Silk explores a horrific, little-known era in our nation's history. Estes sensitively alternates between Mei Lien, a young Chinese-American girl who lived in the late 1800s, and Inara, a modern recent college grad who sets Mei Lien's story free." —Margaret Dilloway, author of How to Be an American Housewife and Sisters of Heart and Snow

Provides instructions for seven hundred and fifty recipes that utilize vegetables, including tabbouleh with red and hot peppers, chard gratin, creamy carrot soup, and morels with rhubarb and asparagus.

"This is the fascinating insight into the artistic development of one of the world's most distinguished illustrators, from the start of his career until 2000. The words describe his approach to the challenges and opportunities of illustration; the pictures, chosen from fifty years of publication, show the progress from his first experience of Punch magazine to the publishing of his own-authored picture books such as Fantastic Daisy Artichoke. Some are familiar, such as those of Roald Dahl's Matilda, or The BFG, while others are from early in his career, and some - roughs, layouts and personal drawings - will be completely new to most readers." -- Back cover.

Day after day, brand new ducks roll off a giant assembly line operated by alligators at the Colossal Duck Factory. They are loaded into trucks and taken to Ducktown, where they are fattened up in preparation for their final destination—into the stomachs of alligators. Everything proceeds smoothly, until the day one of the alligators decides to take a wayward duck home. Over time, the alligator grows fond of his future dinner. Can a duck and an alligator really be friends in an alligator-eat-duck world? Find out in this charming and humorous friendship story.

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • Celebrated food blogger and best-selling cookbook author Deb Perelman knows just the thing for a Tuesday night, or your most special occasion—from salads and slaws that make perfect side dishes (or a full meal) to savory tarts and galettes; from Mushroom Bourguignon to Chocolate Hazelnut Crepe. “Innovative, creative, and effortlessly funny." —Cooking Light Deb Perelman loves to cook. She isn’t a chef or a restaurant owner—she’s never even waitressed. Cooking in her tiny Manhattan kitchen was, at least at first, for special occasions—and, too often, an unnecessarily daunting venture. Deb found herself overwhelmed by the number of recipes available to her. Have you ever searched for the perfect birthday cake on Google? You’ll get more than three million results. Where do you start? What if you pick a recipe that’s downright bad? With the same warmth, candor, and can-do spirit her award-winning blog, Smitten Kitchen, is known for, here Deb presents more than 100 recipes—almost entirely new, plus a few favorites from the site—that guarantee delicious results every time. Gorgeously illustrated with hundreds of her beautiful color photographs, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook is all about approachable, uncompromised home cooking. Here you’ll find better uses for your favorite vegetables: asparagus blanketing a pizza; ratatouille dressing up a sandwich; cauliflower masquerading as pesto. These are recipes you’ll bookmark and use so often they become your own, recipes you’ll slip to a friend who wants to impress her new in-laws, and recipes with simple ingredients that yield amazing results in a minimum amount of time. Deb tells you her favorite summer cocktail; how to lose your fear of cooking for a crowd; and the essential items you need for your own kitchen. From salads and slaws that make perfect side dishes (or a full meal) to savory tarts and galettes; from Mushroom Bourguignon to Chocolate Hazelnut Crepe Cake, Deb knows just the thing for a Tuesday night, or your most special occasion. Look for Deb Perelman’s latest cookbook, Smitten Kitchen Keepers!