Armpit and X-Ray are living in Austin, Texas. It is three years since they left the confines of Camp Green Lake Detention Centre and Armpit is taking small steps to turn his life around. He is working for a landscape gardener because he is good at digging holes, he is going to school and he is enjoying his first proper romance, but is he going to be able to stay out of trouble when there is so much building up against him? In this exciting novel, Armpit is joined by many vibrant new characters, and is learning what it takes to stay on course, and that doing the right thing is never the wrong choice.

This groundbreaking classic is now available in a special anniversary edition with bonus content. Winner of the Newbery Medal as well as the National Book Award, HOLES is a New York Times bestseller and one of the strongest-selling middle-grade books to ever hit shelves! Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. But there are an awful lot of holes. It doesn't take long for Stanley to realize there's more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. But what could be buried under a dried-up lake? Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment —and redemption. Special anniversary edition bonus content includes: A New Note From the Author!; "Ten Things You May Not Know About HOLES" by Louis Sachar; and more!

John Burbidge has aimed his brush, roller, and spray gun at everything from ritzy mansions to trashy trailers. He's gone underground to paint sewage-treatment plants and risked death to paint factory ceilings. He has no doubt inhaled enough noxious dust and paint fumes to shorten his life. But he's not dead yet. And the captivating characters he has encountered along the way have more than offset the toils of painting for a living. Ex-cons, addicts, drifting college grads, even a guy with a hole in his head-that's your typical paint crew, bonded only by the fact that they're caught in a job society thinks is for simpletons. In Watching Paint Dry, John Burbidge scrapes beneath the surface of painting's reputation for monotony while intimately portraying the men and women who craft the backdrop to our civilization. "Informative, funny, and sometimes heartbreaking . . . this is a book you will want to recommend to everyone you know." --Sharon Barrett, Chicago Sun-Times book critic for 28 years

How to get past whatever’s holding you back—and start living a whole new story We all have holes in our lives—those things we lament about ourselves. Those things we allow to define us in ways we don’t like. Those things that keep us from living the life God wants for us. But what if you discovered that the holes in your life are really the things that will ultimately make you . . . well, whole? Author and communicator Lisa Whittle knows this all too well. When her world was rocked to the core in a very public way, her faith and whole reason for living were challenged like never before. In that moment, Lisa was confronted by the holes in her spiritual life. And what she learned not only changed her life, but could bring great possibilities to yours. In Whole, Lisa calls you to take an honest look at your holes, discover how to fill them with God’s presence, and get to a real and vibrant place of wholeness instead. In her trademark bold, compassionate, and relatable voice, Lisa takes you on a transformational journey of understanding who you really are . . . and what you were born to be and do.

A “sharply funny and sobering . . . portrait of a family in financial free fall” from the New York Times–bestselling author of Young Jane Young (People). With The Hole We’re In—a bold, timeless, yet all too timely novel about a troubled American family navigating an even more troubled America—award-winning author and screenwriter, Gabrielle Zevin, delivers a work that places her in the ranks of our shrewdest social observers and top literary talents. Meet the Pomeroys: a church-going family living in a too-red house in a Texas college town. Roger, the patriarch, has impulsively gone back to school, only to find his future ambitions at odds with the temptations of the present. His wife, Georgia, tries to keep things afloat at home, but she’s been feeding the bill drawer with unopened envelopes for months and never manages to confront its swelling contents. In an attempt to climb out of the holes they’ve dug, Roger and Georgia make a series of choices that have catastrophic consequences for their three children—especially for Patsy, the youngest, who will spend most of her life fighting to overcome them. The Hole We’re In shines a spotlight on some of the most relevant issues of today: over-reliance on credit, gender and class politics, and the war in Iraq. But it is Zevin’s deft exploration of the fragile economy of family life that makes this a book for the ages. “Blazing . . . Sharp . . . a Corrections for our recessionary times . . . [Zevin] establishes herself as an astute chronicler of the way we spend now.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

A story book for all ages to experience mathematics, problems solving, and the rewards that come with perseverance."Long ago in the land of China, there were many rain storms ... and the land of China was slowly sinking into the sea. This is the story of how a wise emperor, an observant girl, and a magic turtle saved the villages of China from the great flood." So begins the story of Ying and the Magic Turtle. Children ages 5 and up, parents, and teachers can enjoy the book for its rich beauty in mathematics and as an ancient legend. It is the kind of story to revisit over and over again.This book is perhaps best experienced with someone, as a read-aloud or read-together. When reading, we learn of Ying's trouble, and we root for her to find her solution. We find ourselves drawn into the life problems that Ying is facing, but also drawn into the inherent mathematics of the story. It is through the beauty of the pattern of the dots on the turtle's shell that the solution is finally found and the land is saved.We can appreciate each scene as we read, and then pause and predict what might come next. We can play with the mathematics, solving right alongside Ying. We can delve deeper into the power of magic squares by working with puzzles presented at the end of the story. There are unsolved problems in number theory even a young child can try, such as finding all the possible magic squares of a given size.