One part fable and one part Southern yarn, Kiss of the Jewel Bird soars from ancient Mesopotamia to modern-day Manhattan, rewriting history and opening a window onto a wider, more magical world, where the path to destiny is anything but straight.

Entrenched secrets, mysterious spirits, and an astonishing friendship weave together in this extraordinary and haunting debut that School Library Journal calls “a powerful story about loss and moving on.” Nothing matters. Only Bird matters. And he flew away. Jewel never knew her brother Bird, but all her life she has lived in his shadow. Her parents blame Grandpa for the tragedy of their family’s past: they say that Grandpa attracted a malevolent spirit—a duppy—into their home. Grandpa hasn’t spoken a word since. Now Jewel is twelve, and she lives in a house full of secrets and impenetrable silence. Jewel is sure that no one will ever love her like they loved Bird, until the night that she meets a mysterious boy in a tree. Grandpa is convinced that the boy is a duppy, but Jewel knows that he is something more. And that maybe—just maybe—the time has come to break through the stagnant silence of the past.

The New Theatre, "The Blue Bird," by Maurice Maeterlinck, translation by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, Mr. George Foster Platt, producer, Mr. Frederick Stanhope, assistant producer, Mr. E. Hamilton Bell, art director, Mr. Elliott Schenck musical director, Mr. Wilfrid North, stage manager, scenery painted by Messrs. Unitt & Wicks, dances arranged by Miss Caroline Crawford.

"Each of these spare and elegant tales rings like a bell in your head. memorable, original, and not much like anything you've read."—Karen Joy Fowler “A strange and enchanting book, written in crisp, winning sentences; each story begs to be read aloud and savored.”—Aimee Bender "Horse, Flower, Bird rests uneasily between the intersection of fantasy and reality, dreaming and wakefulness, and the sacred and profane. Like a series of beautiful but troubling dreams, this book will linger long in the memory. Kate Bernheimer is reinventing the fairy tale."—Peter Buck, R.E.M. In Kate Bernheimer's familiar and spare—yet wondrous—world, an exotic dancer builds her own cage, a wife tends a secret basement menagerie, a fishmonger's daughter befriends a tulip bulb, and sisters explore cycles of love and violence by reenacting scenes from Star Wars. Enthralling, subtle, and poetic, this collection takes readers back to the age-old pleasures of classic fairy tales and makes them new. Their haunting lessons are an evocative reminder that cracking open the door to the imagination is no mere child's play, that delight and tragedy lurk in every corner, and that we all "have the key to the library . . . only be careful what you read."

A teenage assassin kills with a single kiss until she is ordered to kill the one boy she loves. This commercial YA fantasy is romantic and addictive—like a poison kiss—and will thrill fans of Sarah J. Maas and Victoria Aveyard. Marinda has kissed dozens of boys. They all die afterward. It’s a miserable life, but being a visha kanya—a poison maiden—is what she was created to do. Marinda serves the Raja by dispatching his enemies with only her lips as a weapon. Until now, the men she was ordered to kiss have been strangers, enemies of the kingdom. Then she receives orders to kiss Deven, a boy she knows too well to be convinced he needs to die. She begins to question who she’s really working for. And that is a thread that, once pulled, will unravel more than she can afford to lose. This rich, surprising, and accessible debut is based in Indian folklore and delivers a story that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

This classic and widely influential work brings together the talents of the greatest American ornithologist of his generation (Coues), a pioneering nature writer/editor/ornithologist (Wright), and a young artist whose contribution to the American tradition of bird illustration proved to be second only to Audubon's own (Fuertes); this book features the first substantial body of his work. Directed at the general public, especially children, and written in an entertaining and fanciful fiction style, the work imparts solid scientific knowledge while inculcating conservation values. It exemplifies the extensive literature of popular yet scientifically-grounded ornithology which nurtured the national passion for birds in this era, thereby fostering some of conservationism's most vital and widespread grass roots. Women were particularly well-represented in this literature, often--like Wright--combining literary gifts with serious scientific knowledge (Wright was elected to membership in the American Ornithologists' Union) to bridge the widening gap between professional science and amateur nature-study, and often--as in this work--confirming contemporary expectations of gender roles by directing their writings particularly toward children.

Andersons Survive the Civil Wartakes the reader on a fascinating journey of one Irish family's relocation from New York to New Orleans right as the Civil War was about to erupt. The Anderson family survived not only the long wagon ride south, but also the tense years of conflict that saw Union soldiers take over the city of New Orleans in hostile fashion. The book, thankfully, does not stop there. You will go up and down the Mississippi River ona riverboat with Michael Anderson, "The World's Greatest Magician," as he performs nightlyin the trade his parents taught him. You will also follow the paths of Mr. and Mrs. Anderson and all of their children as theyspread across the country and make a good living in the careers they choose, or have chosen for them. You will also see how love can persist overmany years andthousands of miles, against all odds.