A heart warming tale about a sensitive snail who overcomes her shyness with a little help from her new friends. Discover a world of lovable creatures in the Once Upon a Garden series. Sophie was always ponders big questions, like Why is the sky blue? Why are raindrops wet? What are stars made of? But when Sophie starts school, there’s a wobbly feeling in her tummy and she can’t help popping back into her shell. She is left with one big question Why am I so shy? When Sophie meets Stanley, she realizes that she's not the only one who feels shy. Can she gain the confidence to help a new friend?

Sophie the otter needs help finding seashells with matching patterns in a lift-the-flap board book based on a best-selling children’s game. Down on the ocean floor, Sophie the otter is collecting pairs of seashells. She’s hoping to find two of each kind—purple shells covered in triangles, green shells with squiggles, red shells with squares, and yellow shells with dots—and she needs little readers’ help! Inspired by a popular game, and with plenty of flaps to explore, this fun, sturdy board book in the Sneaky Snacky Squirrel series strengthens matching skills as well as color and shape recognition.

"Little Snail and her friends play a sweet and silly game of hide-and-seek, and Little Snail is the hardest to find of all!"--

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

At the end of a long and useful life, Penelope Keeling's prized possession is The Shell Seekers, painted by her father, and symbolizing her unconventional life, from bohemian childhood to wartime romance. When her grown children learn their grandfather's work is now worth a fortune, each has an idea as to what Penelope should do. But as she recalls the passions, tragedies, and secrets of her life, she knows there is only one answer...and it lies in her heart, in this beloved Cornwall novel from Rosamunde Pilcher.

A deep exploration of the regenerative and magical secrets of sacred masculinity hidden in familiar myths both ancient and modern • Reveals the restorative fungi archetype of Osiris, the Orphic mysteries as an underground mycelium linking forests and people, how Dionysus teaches us about invasive species and playful sexuality, and the ecology of Jesus as depicted in his nature-focused parables • Liberates Tristan, Merlin, and the Grail legends from the bounds of Campbell’s hero’s journey and invites the masculine into more nuanced, complex ways of dealing with trauma, growth, and self-knowledge Long before the sword-wielding heroes of legend readily cut down forests, slaughtered the old deities, and vanquished their enemies, there were playful gods, animal-headed kings, mischievous lovers, trickster harpists, and vegetal magicians with flowering wands. As eco-feminist scholar Sophie Strand discovered, these wilder, more magical modes of the masculine have always been hidden in plain sight. Sharing the culmination of eight years of research into myth, folklore, and the history of religion, Strand leads us back into the forgotten landscapes and hidden secrets of familiar myths, revealing the beautiful range of the divine masculine, including expressions of male friendship, male intimacy, and male creative collaboration. In discussing Dionysus and Osiris, Strand encourages us to think like an ecosystem instead of like an individual. She connects dying, vegetal gods to the virtuous cycle of composting and decay, highlighting the ways in which mushrooms can restore soil and heal polluted landscapes. Exploring esoteric Christianity, the author celebrates the Gnostic Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas, imagining the ecology that the Rabbi Yeshua would have actually been referencing in his nature-focused parables. Strand frees Tristan, Merlin, and the Grail legends from the bounds of Campbell’s hero’s journey and invites the masculine into more nuanced, complex ways of dealing with trauma, growth, and self-knowledge. Strand reseeds our minds with new visions of male identity and shows how each of us, regardless of gender, can develop a matured ecological empathy and witness a blossoming of sacred masculine powers that are soft, curious, connective, and celebratory.

“[Sophie] combines the creepy narrative power of a young William Golding with the disturbingly accurate memory of what it is like to be a child. . . . So good that one can only wonder what [Burt] will do next.” —The Times (London) In a dark room of a dilapidated house, as a storm rages outside, Matthew lights a candle and places it in the center of the floor. Its light spreads across the wall and illuminates Sophie, tied up in a chair facing him. She is frightened, fearful of what he might do next. But for now, it seems, all Matthew wants to do is talk. Talk about the events of nearly twenty years ago, about their strange childhood, and about the summer when Sophie grew up and everything changed . . . forever. Young Mattie and Sophie lived in a world seemingly without constraints. Their cold mother barely paid attention to her children. Their father, a mere shadow in their lives, was never home. So Mattie and Sophie had the run of the gardens and the woods beyond. They played youthful games, but Sophie was extraordinarily intelligent, a fact she took great pains to hide from her teachers, so as not to stand out. Sophie was everything to Mattie, and he worshiped her. He wanted to know her secrets, the things that went on inside her brilliant mind. But Sophie was changing. And the summer before she went away to boarding school, the things she had worked so hard to conceal would come spilling out—and Mattie would have to live with the shocking consequences. Now he’s all grown up, too, and Matthew wants answers to the questions that still darken his mind—no matter what the cost. . . .

Since 2009, Iris Haussler has produced the complete oeuvre of unknown and fictitious French painter Sophie La Rosiere, who died in 1948. Furthermore, she has created an artistic persona--a heteronym--through which to channel this invented artist's secrets. In this wonderful fictional account of an artist's life, Haussler fabricates a biography for La Rosiere as well as an elaborate back story of a hidden erotic liaison that intersects with real people, historical events and actual artistic movements. This project includes the recreation of La Rosiere's life circumstances, studio, its products and detritus, and the elements of a forensic investigation that tries to answer the questions, after the paintings' discovery, of why these paintings were abandoned and what secrets they conceal. Iris Haussler is a German-born conceptual and installation artist, who lives and works in Toronto, Canada. She consistently works with immersive installations that revolve around fictitious stories. Beginning with detailed biographies of invented characters, she builds the material evidence of their obsessive lives and works. This results in unsettling site-specific environments in domestic dwellings, historical houses and museum spaces. The book includes a catalogue raisonne of all Sophie La Rosiere's 293 works, forensic evidence, expert analyses and official reports.

When trouble looms, family becomes more important than ever... In The Wild Child, Anne Baker writes a touching saga of two sisters overcoming their differences to face the future together. Perfect for fans of Lyn Andrews and Dilly Court. Raising her daughters alone, widowed Flora Wilcox often feels out of her depth. There's no problem with mousy Hilary, but Isobel is a wayward beauty who can never forgive her plainer sister for stealing her boyfriend, and will be pregnant before she marries. Worse, the father of Isobel's baby isn't her new husband - and when the truth comes out, her marriage is likely to hit the rocks. Hilary's life seems to be moving along more calmly, until her husband is badly injured in an accident. And, as she takes charge of his business, Hilary also faces the discovery that her adored children are struggling at school. There's hope if the sisters can pull together at last - but can they ever put the past behind them? What readers are saying about The Wild Child: 'Very good book, didn't want to put it down once started. This is the same with all books by Anne Baker... She keeps me riveted'

A soaring love story set in Napoleonic France This irresistible literary debut novel was inspired by the life of Sophie Blanchard, one of the first women to fly. In Paris, a young widow inherits her late husband’s considerable debts, as well as his celebrated hydrogen balloon. Drawn by the allure of flight despite its dangers, Sophie takes to the skies with a boldness that wins her fame throughout the country. Along with her new celebrity, Sophie wins the love of two very different men: one, her faithful childhood friend Andre Giroux, and the other a brash young Napoleon Bonaparte, soon to be emperor of France. Beautifully written and enriched with seven historical etchings, The Little Balloonist distills themes of love, freedom, and loyalty into a powerful tale that brings to mind bestselling historical fiction like Silk by Allessandro Baricco and I Was Amelia Earhart by Jane Mendelsohn. BACKCOVER: “Exquisite and beautiful . . . It will break your heart and take your breath away.” —National Book Award–winning author Lily Tuck “Delightful. . . . Glimpses of the history of primitive flight, tales of high romance and juicy anecdotes about Napoleon make this sweet novel soar. . . . Charming and smart—singularly high-spirited historical fiction.” —Kirkus Reviews “Whimsical . . . as pretty and slight as its heroine.” —Publishers Weekly