A selection of short stories by Enid Blyton suitable for readers aged 5-8 years.

Building on the tradition of Little Bee, Chris Cleave again writes with elegance, humor, and passion about friendship, marriage, parenthood, tragedy, and redemption. What would you sacrifice for the people you love? KATE AND ZOE met at nineteen when they both made the cut for the national training program in track cycling—a sport that demands intense focus, blinding exertion, and unwavering commitment. They are built to exploit the barest physical and psychological edge over equally skilled rivals, all of whom are fighting for the last one tenth of a second that separates triumph from despair. Now at thirty-two, the women are facing their last and biggest race: the 2012 Olympics. Each wants desperately to win gold, and each has more than a medal to lose. Kate is the more naturally gifted, but the demands of her life have a tendency to slow her down. Her eight-year-old daughter Sophie dreams of the Death Star and of battling alongside the Rebels as evil white blood cells ravage her personal galaxy—she is fighting a recurrence of the leukemia that nearly killed her three years ago. Sophie doesn’t want to stand in the way of her mum’s Olympic dreams, but each day the dark forces of the universe seem to be massing against her. Devoted and self-sacrificing Kate knows her daughter is fragile, but at the height of her last frenzied months of training, might she be blind to the most terrible prognosis? Intense, aloof Zoe has always hovered on the periphery of real human companionship, and her compulsive need to win at any cost has more than once threatened her friendship with Kate—and her own sanity. Will she allow her obsession, and the advantage she has over a harried, anguished mother, to sever the bond they have shared for more than a decade? Echoing the adrenaline-fueled rush of a race around the Velodrome track, Gold is a triumph of superbly paced, heart-in-throat storytelling. With great humanity and glorious prose, Chris Cleave examines the values that lie at the heart of our most intimate relationships, and the choices we make when lives are at stake and everything is on the line.

6 years of stories from the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author. Here are fifteen stories-never before collected-that tread upon familiar Haldeman territory, as well as explore the outer reaches of his phenomenal imagination.

Cycle through the sights of Beijing with Lunzi as she searches for her best friend. One, two; yi, er. Side by side, two bicycles, Lunzi and Huangche, come out of the factory. Side by side, they watch the city of Beijing from their shop window. Then a young girl comes in and buys Huangche, rolling him away from Lunzi! With the help of a delivery boy, Lunzi begins an epic race to find her friend that introduces readers to all the sights and sounds of Beijing.

In this powerful, provocative SF classic from the award-winning author of The Forever War, a young man of peace is transformed into an intergalactic killer. Once Otto McGavin was a kind and gentle soul; then he was recruited by the all-powerful Confederación. An ultrasecretive, government-linked organization, the Confederación’s stated mission of protecting threatened life, both human and alien, throughout the galaxy greatly appeals to the Anglo-Buddhist McGavin as he eagerly prepares to embark on a career of diplomacy and selfless works. But Otto’s new masters have other plans for the idealistic young recruit. Through a process of immersion therapy and hypnosis, and by encasing him in temporary bodies of plastiflesh, scientists can overlay Otto’s true persona with other ones, transforming him completely—body, mind, and soul—into the ruthlessly effective prime operator the Confederación wants him to be. But decades of interstellar subterfuge and violence, and years spent wearing the personae of spies and cold-blooded killers, must ultimately take their toll—and before he leaves behind the lives that have been cruelly thrust upon him, Otto McGavin will have to somehow come to terms with who he really is and the monstrous things he has done. One of the most powerful and thought-provoking stories from the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author of Worlds and The Forever War, Joe Haldeman’s All My Sins Remembered is a stunning work of speculative fiction. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Joe Haldeman including rare images from the author’s personal collection.

A humorous story about a silly pixie who tries to be helpful but always ends up in a terrible muddle.