"Who am I?" I ask Sammy Pruitt that question all the time. She's a four-year-old girl who imagines me. I'm whoever she wants and whatever she needs. I'm her imaginary friend. She definitely needs me, because there's an evil queen who hates her. She treats Sammy in a way no parent ever should. And Sammy's trapped living with her. But Sammy and I have a plan. A way to forever rid life of the evil queen and be happy. It'll take hard work, imagination, and courage to reach our goal. That's why Sammy imagines me. Because I'm her protection and the means to her escape. Desmond Shepherd writes his most emotional and gripping story yet. Filled with smiles, tears, and triumph, take a journey unlike any other and one you'll never forget in Imaginary Me.

From a New York Times bestselling author, a young boy is haunted by a voice in his head in this "epic horror" novel, perfect for fans of Stephen King (Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will). Single mother Kate Reese is on the run. Determined to improve life for her and her seven year-old son, Christopher, she flees an abusive relationship in the middle of the night. At first, the tight-knit community of Mill Grove, Pennsylvania seems like the perfect place to finally settle down. Then Christopher vanishes. Days later, he emerges from the woods at the edge of town, unharmed but not unchanged. He returns with a voice in his head only he can hear, with a mission only he can complete: Build a treehouse in the woods by Christmas, or his mother and everyone in the town will never be the same again. Twenty years ago, Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower made readers everywhere feel infinite. Now, Chbosky has returned with an epic work of literary horror, years in the making, whose grand scale and rich emotion redefine the genre. Read it with the lights on. One of The Year's Best Books (People, EW, Lithub, Vox, Washington Post, and more)

My first friend was a tree. And so begins this highly original volume of comedic essays about a boy who didn't realize that the reason he didn't have an imaginary friend was because he hadn't imagined one. Told through the eyes of a child and then teenager who really needed a handbook on how life works, these stories about life's foibles are sure to roil up everyone's own memories of their childhoods and the awkward days when life was just a big mystery.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A Playful Path, the new book by games guru and fun theorist Bernard De Koven, serves as a collection of ideas and tools to help us bring our playfulness back into the open. When we find ourselves forgetting the life of the game or the game of life, the joy of form or the content, the play of brain or mind, body or spirit, this book can help us return to that which our soul is heir.

Can games be art? When film critic Roger Ebert claimed in 2010 that videogames could never be art it was seen as a snub by many gamers. But from the perspective of philosophy of art this question was topsy turvey, since according to one of the most influential theories of representation all art is a game. Kendall Walton's prop theory explains how we interact with paintings, novels, movies and other artworks in terms of imaginary games, like a child's game of make-believe, wherein the artwork acts as a prop prescribing specific imaginings, and in this view there can be no question that games are indeed a strange and wonderful form of art. In Imaginary Games, game designer and philosopher Chris Bateman expands Walton's prop theory to videogames, board games, collectible card games like Pokémon and Magic: the Gathering, and tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. The book explores the many different fictional worlds that influence the modern world, the ethics of games, and the curious role the imagination plays in everything from religion to science and mathematics.

The story of a boy and his imaginary friend—told by the imaginary friend Zach should’ve outgrown his imaginary friend by now. He knows this. He’s 11, long past the days when kids are supposed to go on epic make-believe adventures with their invisible friends. But after the death of his father five years ago, all Zach wanted was an escape from the real world. So his imaginary friend, Shovel, hasn’t faded away like the other kids’ have. Their imaginary friendship grew stronger. But now Zach’s in middle school, and things are getting awkward. His best friend ditched him for a cooler crowd. His classmates tease him in the hallways. He still misses his dad. Reality is the worst. Which is why Zach makes regular visits to a fantasy world with Shovel. But is Zach’s overactive imagination helping him deal with loss or just pushing people away? Poignant, humorous, and breathtaking, Imaginary is an inventive story of friendship, loss, and growing up . . . as only an imaginary friend could tell it.