From the time she was a very young girl, Rachel Carson felt a bond with nature. Growing up in Pennsylvania, she spent hours exploring meadows and woods, dreaming of seeing the ocean. As Rachel grew older, she combined her gift for writing with her love of nature, producing award-winning books about the sea. But her best-known achievement was the publication of Silent Spring, an account of the dangerous effects of pesticides on plants and animals. With Silent Spring, Rachel helped create a movement to ban these harmful chemicals. Her findings helped to assure that future generations would be able to dream about the ocean and listen to crickets.

With ears like a bat and webbed toes, it seems as if ten-yearold Jake could fly right out of reality into the freedom of his dreams. No more worries about asthma, special reading class, or his parents' fighting-just sky. But Jake can't simply fly away. There's his little sister, Cassie, to tell stories to when the night sounds become frightening, amazing facts to learn from his best friend Luke, and a safe place-Dragon's Nest-to build in the backyard. This beautifully written middle grade novel tells the courageous story of Jake-a night watchman-a protector in the truest sense of the word who finds hope in crickets, friends, teachers, and dreams.

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One day, a little cricket is born and meets a big cricket who chirps his welcome. But the little cricket cannot make a sound. The cricket meets many insects, but it isn't until he meets a beautiful female cricket that he can finally chirp "hello!" Excerpt: Hello! whispered a praying mantis, scraping its huge front legs together. The little cricket wanted to answer, so he rubbed his wings together. But nothing happened. Not a sound.

After Chester lands, in the Times Square subway station, he makes himself comfortable in a nearby newsstand. There, he has the good fortune to make three new friends: Mario, a little boy whose parents run the falling newsstand, Tucker, a fast-talking Broadway mouse, and Tucker's sidekick, Harry the Cat. The escapades of these four friends in bustling New York City makes for lively listening and humorous entertainment. And somehow, they manage to bring a taste of success to the nearly bankrupt newsstand. Join Chester Cricket and his friends in this classic children's book by George Selden, with illustrations by Garth Williams. The Cricket in Times Square is a 1961 Newbery Honor Book.

From the bestselling author of The Mountain Between Us comes the moving story of a man with a painful past, a little girl with a doubtful future, and a shared journey toward healing for both of their hearts. It begins on the shaded town square in a sleepy Southern town. A spirited seven-year-old has a brisk business at her lemonade stand. But the little girl’s pretty yellow dress can’t quite hide the ugly scar on her chest. Her latest customer, a bearded stranger, drains his cup and heads to his car, his mind on a boat he's restoring at a nearby lake. The stranger understands more about the scar than he wants to admit. And the beat-up bread truck careening around the corner with its radio blaring is about to change the trajectory of both their lives. Before it's over, they'll both know there are painful reasons why crickets cry . . . and that miracles lurk around unexpected corners. “Charming characters and twists that keep the pages turning.” —Southern Living A Southern Living Book of the Month selection Stand-alone contemporary Christian fiction (approx. 85,000 words) Also by Charles Martin: The Water Keeper, The Mountain Between Us, Send Down the Rain, and Chasing Fireflies

From Mount Washington to the salt marshes of Cape Cod, a chorus of insects chirrups and peeps and rustles away the golden hours of summer and fall. In Crickets and Katydids, Vincent G. Dethier invites us to share in the pleasure offered by these tiny musicians in our midst. A companion volume to G. W. Pierce's 1948 classic Songs of Insects this book introduces amateur naturalism and lovers of nature to some of the more common singing crickets, locusts, and grasshoppers of the northeastern United States. Dethier emphasizes the "world" of these insects and their place in it. He presents us with a captivating glimpse of the ecology of the singing Orthoptera, the conditions under which they are studied, and the people who have studied them. For those who wish to delve more deeply into the classification, structure, and habits of particular species, Dethier includes keys for identification of insects and their songs, as well as a table of seasonal distribution. His graceful text is adorned with fine drawings of insects by Abigail Rorer. Though always softly with us, the insect's timeless song is only vaguely known and little understood. Bringing a natural historian's appreciation to this mysterious facet of nature, Crickets and Katydids, Concerts and Solos will be a source of instruction and delight, an enhancement of the pleasure and fascination afforded by the natural world in miniature.