"The teen banter is quirky and amusing and keeps the reader interested...Readers who enjoy Stuart Gibbs's "Fun Jungle" series or Carl Hiaasen's novels might enjoy the environmental and animal rights aspects of this mystery."-School Library Journal "With characters who grab your attention, illustrations that invite you to play along, and a plot with more twists than a country road, get ready for a fast and fun mystery that will keep you guessing until the end. How do I sign up to join the Gemini Detective Agency?" - James Ponti, Edgar-award winning author of the FRAMED! mystery series "The North Star is mystery and intrigue at its best. I loved putting my observational skills to the test as I searched for clues in the illustrations at the end of every chapter. Captivating. Clever. Compulsively readable. A must-have for all emerging detectives!" - Lauren Magaziner, author of Case Closed series When Martin the red panda goes missing from the zoo, the Gemini Detective Agency takes it upon themselves to crack the case. Join them and help the teenage sleuths solve their next mystery! Twins Zach and Evie Mamuya and their friends Vishal Desai and Sophia Boyd make up the Gemini Detective Agency. They've helped solve the case of the stolen diamond necklace known as the North Star, and now they've got an even bigger mystery to solve. During a dinner at the zoo, Martin the red panda goes missing. And even worse, there's a bobcat's paw print located in his enclosure! But what first looked like an unfortunate incident in the animal kingdom starts to look more like foul play when the Gemini Detective Agency finds a crumpled flier that says "Free Martin." Then they learn about local dealings in an online exotic black market where people can buy rare animals. Could Martin have been set free by extreme animal activists, or is this the work of someone involved in the black market for rare animals and will they be able to find Martin before it's too late? The Gemini Detective Agency is on the case! Readers will love this interactive mystery where clues can be found in the illustrations that appear at the end of each chapter! The Gemini Mysteries is an action-packed series full of twists and turns that will keep readers guessing until the very end.

"The teen banter is quirky and amusing and keeps the reader interested...Readers who enjoy Stuart Gibbs's "Fun Jungle" series or Carl Hiaasen's novels might enjoy the environmental and animal rights aspects of this mystery."-School Library Journal "With characters who grab your attention, illustrations that invite you to play along, and a plot with more twists than a country road, get ready for a fast and fun mystery that will keep you guessing until the end. How do I sign up to join the Gemini Detective Agency?" - James Ponti, Edgar-award winning author of the FRAMED! mystery series "The North Star is mystery and intrigue at its best. I loved putting my observational skills to the test as I searched for clues in the illustrations at the end of every chapter. Captivating. Clever. Compulsively readable. A must-have for all emerging detectives!" - Lauren Magaziner, author of Case Closed series When Martin the red panda goes missing from the zoo, the Gemini Detective Agency takes it upon themselves to crack the case. Join them and help the teenage sleuths solve their next mystery! Twins Zach and Evie Mamuya and their friends Vishal Desai and Sophia Boyd make up the Gemini Detective Agency. They've helped solve the case of the stolen diamond necklace known as the North Star, and now they've got an even bigger mystery to solve. During a dinner at the zoo, Martin the red panda goes missing. And even worse, there's a bobcat's paw print located in his enclosure! But what first looked like an unfortunate incident in the animal kingdom starts to look more like foul play when the Gemini Detective Agency finds a crumpled flier that says "Free Martin." Then they learn about local dealings in an online exotic black market where people can buy rare animals. Could Martin have been set free by extreme animal activists, or is this the work of someone involved in the black market for rare animals and will they be able to find Martin before it's too late? The Gemini Detective Agency is on the case! Readers will love this interactive mystery where clues can be found in the illustrations that appear at the end of each chapter! The Gemini Mysteries is an action-packed series full of twists and turns that will keep readers guessing until the very end.

Join the Gemini Detective Agency and help the teenage sleuths solve the theft of a priceless necklace! Twins Zach and Evie Mamuya and their friend Vishal Desai make up the Gemini Detective Agency, which is mainly an excuse to get pizza together or hit the go-kart track. But when a priceless diamond necklace known as the North Star is stolen before an auction, the kids tag along with the twins' crime reporter mom and find a few clues that make them think this was no ordinary robbery. With the help of their classmate Sophia Boyd, the Gemini Detective Agency is on the case! Will they be able to sort through the clues and solve the mystery in time? Readers will love this interactive mystery, where clues can be found throughout the illustrations at the end of each chapter! The Gemini Mysteries: The North Star is an action-packed novel full of twists and turns that will keep readers guessing until the very end.

Beginning readers can count to ten—and add—while they learn to read with P.J. Funnybunny author Marilyn Sadler's latest, funniest Bright and Early Book! Gwen the hen has laid her eggs, but just how many is anyone's guess. For now, she's quite content to sit and wait for them to hatch. Red Rooster, however, is too excited to wait. As soon as one egg hatches, he struts over to Worm World and buys ONE worm for his ONE new baby chick. Alas, Red returns to find that not ONE new baby chick, but TWO baby chicks have now hatched, requiring a return trip to Worm World. The hijinks continue back and forth until ten eggs have hatched, Red Rooster is ready to plotz, and young readers have learned a thing or two about ONE: counting to ten; TWO: simple addition; THREE: buying and selling; and FOUR: chickens and eggs! With stylized illustrations by Michael Fleming reminiscent of classic Beginner Books, this is a perfect choice for parents looking to teach reading and math to their own little chicks! Bright and Early Books are perfect for beginning beginner readers! Launched by Dr. Seuss in 1968 with The Foot Book, Bright and Early Books use fewer and easier words than Beginner Books. Readers just starting to recognize words and sound out letters will love these short books with colorful illustrations.

Why is the number seven lucky--even holy--in almost every culture? Why do we speak of the four corners of the earth? Why do cats have nine lives (except in Iran, where they have seven)? From literature to folklore to private superstitions, numbers play a conspicuous role in our daily lives. But in this fascinating book, Annemarie Schimmel shows that numbers have been filled with mystery and meaning since the earliest times, and across every society. In The Mystery of Numbers Annemarie Schimmel conducts an illuminating tour of the mysteries attributed to numbers over the centuries. She begins with an informative and often surprising introduction to the origins of number systems: pre-Roman Europeans, for example, may have had one based on twenty, not ten (as suggested by the English word "score" and the French word for 80, quatrevingt --four times twenty), while the Mayans had a system more sophisticated than our own. Schimmel also reveals how our fascination with numbers has led to a rich cross-fertilization of mathematical knowledge: "Arabic" numerals, for instance, were picked up by Europe from the Arabs, who had earlier adopted them from Indian sources ("Algorithm" and "algebra" are corruptions of the Arabic author and title names of a mathematical text prized in medieval Europe). But the heart of the book is an engrossing guide to the symbolism of numbers. Number symbolism, she shows, has deep roots in Western culture, from the philosophy of the Pythagoreans and Platonists, to the religious mysticism of the Cabala and the Islamic Brethren of Purity, to Kepler's belief that the laws of planetary motion should be mathematically elegant, to the unlucky thirteen. After exploring the sources of number symbolism, Schimmel examines individual numbers ranging from one to ten thousand, discussing the meanings they have had for Judaic, Christian, and Islamic traditions, with examples from Indian, Chinese, and Native American cultures as well. Two, for instance, has widely been seen as a number of contradiction and polarity, a number of discord and antithesis. And six, according to ancient and neo-platonic thinking, is the most perfect number because it is both the sum and the product of its parts (1+2+3=6 and 1x2x3=6). Using examples ranging from the Bible to the Mayans to Shakespeare, she shows how numbers have been considered feminine and masculine, holy and evil, lucky and unlucky. A highly respected scholar of Islamic culture, Annemarie Schimmel draws on her vast knowledge to paint a rich, cross-cultural portrait of the many meanings of numbers. Engaging and accessible, her account uncovers the roots of a phenomenon we all feel every Friday the thirteenth.

Join Thea Stilton and the Thea Sisters on an adventure to find the seven secret treasures! The search for the seven secret treasures continues. In this incredible adventure the Thea Sisters come across the legendary Jewel of the Queen. They cross rivers of ice, deserts of fire, and other fascinating places on their journey to find it.

Rome, too, wants the sound of roaring as evening falls ... The Rome Zoo: a place born of fantasy and driven by a nation’s aspirations. It has witnessed – and reflected in its tarnished mirror – the great follies of the twentieth century. Now, in an ongoing battle that has seen it survive world wars and epidemics, the zoo must once again reinvent itself, and assert its relevance in the Eternal City. Caught up in these machinations is a cast of characters worthy of this baroque backdrop: a man desperate to find meaning in his own life, a woman tasked with halting the zoo’s decline and a rare animal, the last of its species, who bewitches the world. Drifting between past and present, The Rome Zoo weaves together these and many other stories, forming a colourful and evocative tapestry of life at this strange place. It is both a love story and a poignant juxtaposition of the human need to classify, to subdue, with the untameable nature of our dramas and anxieties. Spellbinding and disturbing, precise and dreamy, this award-winning novel, translated by Stephanie Smee, is unlike any other. Winner of the Swiss Literature Award, the Prix Michel-Dentan and the Prix du public de la RTS “Like all truly great literary allegories, The Rome Zoo is both innocent and wise, filled equally with tenderness and darkness. A gorgeous, dream-like fable of Italy's past and present.” —Ceridwen Dovey

Dorothy Dunnett has earned worldwide acclaim for the masterful blending of historical fact and imagination in her two series of novels set in brilliantly reconstructed fifteenth- and sixteenth-century landscapes. The Dorothy Dunnett Companion II is an encyclopedic resource that completes and expands the reach of the first Companion in documenting the historical and literary riches of Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles and House of Niccolo novels. In this second guide, Elspeth Morrison not only covers the final three Niccolo novels for the first time, but also provides a wealth of additional information about all of the earlier novels and highlights the links between the two now-completed series. Once again, she illuminates the real figures and events and the cultural and literary allusions Dunnett weaves into her works, translating foreign phrases and offering up fascinating background details, from the history of golf and the argot of galley slaves to the uses of puffins and polar bears. Together with the first Companion, The Dorothy Dunnett Companion II provides a complete and essential guide to the world of Lymond and Niccolo.

In this vivid and brilliant biography, David Stewart describes Aaron Burr, the third vice president, as a daring and perhaps deluded figure who shook the nation’s foundations in its earliest, most vulnerable decades. In 1805, the United States was not twenty years old, an unformed infant. The government consisted of a few hundred people. The immense frontier swallowed up a tiny army of 3,300 soldiers. Following the Louisiana Purchase, no one even knew where the nation’s western border lay. Secessionist sentiment flared in New England and beyond the Appalachians. Burr had challenged Jefferson, his own running mate, in the presidential election of 1800. Indicted for murder in the dueling death of Alexander Hamilton in 1804, he dreamt huge dreams. He imagined an insurrection in New Orleans, a private invasion of Spanish Mexico and Florida, and a great empire rising on the Gulf of Mexico, which would swell when America’s western lands seceded from the Union. For two years, Burr pursued this audacious dream, enlisting support from the General-in-Chief of the Army, a paid agent of the Spanish king, and from other western leaders, including Andrew Jackson. When the army chief double-crossed Burr, Jefferson finally roused himself and ordered Burr prosecuted for treason. The trial featured the nation’s finest lawyers before the greatest judge in our history, Chief Justice John Marshall, Jefferson’s distant cousin and determined adversary. It became a contest over the nation’s identity: Should individual rights be sacrificed to punish a political apostate who challenged the nation’s very existence? In a revealing reversal of political philosophies, Jefferson championed government power over individual rights, while Marshall shielded the nation’s most notorious defendant. By concealing evidence, appealing to the rule of law, and exploiting the weaknesses of the government’s case, Burr won his freedom. Afterwards Burr left for Europe to pursue an equally outrageous scheme to liberate Spain’s American colonies, but finding no European sponsor, he returned to America and lived to an unrepentant old age. Stewart’s vivid account of Burr’s tumultuous life offers a rare and eye-opening description of the brand-new nation struggling to define itself.