The letters of the alphabet have been the object of speculation since their invention. This book examines the many ways in which the letters of the alphabet have been assigned value in political, spiritual, or religious systems over two millennia.

Relive Jim Henson's classic film Labyrinth in a storybook that moves through the alphabet and is perfect for new and returning fans! B is for Baby Brother, lost in the labyrinth. G is for the Goblin King, whose castle lies at the maze’s center. S is for Sarah, who must go on an incredible adventure to make it right. Only by journeying across the ABCs can our hero find her way through the labyrinth, with the help of fantastic creatures she meets along the way! Jim Henson, one of the greatest creative minds of our time, created a fantasy world unlike any other in Labyrinth. Now you can relive Sarah’s adventure through the alphabet with letters for each of the film’s unforgettable characters and many twists and turns. Featuring beautiful art by acclaimed illustrator Luke Flowers, this memorable retelling will delight fans of every age. An Imprint Book

Courage is tested, myths come to life, and long-held secrets are revealed Lilith Bennette runs at midnight. She scales walls in the dark and climbs without a harness. She hopes that if she follows exactly in the steps of her strong air force pilot mother, she’ll somehow figure out the mystery of her mother’s death—and the reason why her necklace of Greek symbols has been missing ever since. So when Lil is invited to Crete for a Future Leaders International conference, the same conference her mom attended years ago, she jumps at the chance to find some answers. But things in Melios Manor are not what they seem. Lil finds herself ensnared in an adventure of mythological proportions that leads her and her friends through the very labyrinth in which the real Minotaur was imprisoned. And they’re not in there alone. What secrets does the labyrinth hold, and will they help Lil find the truth about her mother? This book is perfect for older fans of Percy Jackson and the Olympians and the Heroes of Olympus--and anyone who wants to find out the true story behind the magic of the Greek gods. Praise for KEEPERS OF THE LABYRINTH: "Secret societies, mythology, and puzzles worthy of a Dan Brown novel all figure prominently in this thriller....There is much to recommend this book: all the protagonists are empowered female characters, it explores the idea that behind the stories of classical Greek mythology is a history of real people, and it is filled with exciting action."--VOYA "Secret societies, Greek mythology, and a group of strong female characters are all wrapped up in a mystery which will hit the mark with readers who have finished Rick Riordan’s “Percy Jackson” series."--School Library Journal "Greek mythology provides the frame for this exciting amalgam of action, friendship, and girl-detective fiction."--Booklist

The discovery and deciphering of Europe’s earliest known written language is recounted with “almost nail-biting suspense” in this prize-winning account (Booklist, starred review). In 1900, famed archaeologist Arthur Evans uncovered the ruins of Knossos, a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on Crete 1,000 years before Greece’s Classical Age. The massive discovery included a cache of ancient tablets, Europe’s earliest written records. For half a century, the meaning of the inscriptions, and even the language in which they were written, would remain an enigma. Award–winning New York Times journalist Margalit Fox follows this intellectual mystery from the Bronze Age Aegean to a legendary archeological dig at the turn of the twentieth century, and on to the brilliant decipherers who finally cracked the code in the 1950s. These include Michael Ventris, the amateur linguist who deciphered the script but met with a sudden, mysterious death that may have been a direct consequence of his findings; and Alice Kober, the unsung heroine of the story whose painstaking work allowed Ventris to crack the code. Winner of the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing

Named a Best Book of the Year by The San Francisco Chronicle "Survivor Café . . . feels like the book Rosner was born to write. Each page is imbued with urgency, with sincerity, with heartache, with heart.... Her words, alongside the words of other survivors of atrocity and their descendants across the globe, can help us build a more humane world." —San Francisco Chronicle As firsthand survivors of many of the twentieth century's most monumental events—the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the Killing Fields—begin to pass away, Survivor Café addresses urgent questions: How do we carry those stories forward? How do we collectively ensure that the horrors of the past are not forgotten? Elizabeth Rosner organizes her book around three trips with her father to Buchenwald concentration camp—in 1983, in 1995, and in 2015—each journey an experience in which personal history confronts both commemoration and memorialization. She explores the echoes of similar legacies among descendants of African American slaves, descendants of Cambodian survivors of the Killing Fields, descendants of survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the effects of 9/11 on the general population. Examining current brain research, Rosner depicts the efforts to understand the intergenerational inheritance of trauma, as well as the intricacies of remembrance in the aftermath of atrocity. Survivor Café becomes a lens for numerous constructs of memory—from museums and commemorative sites to national reconciliation projects to small–group cross–cultural encounters. Beyond preserving the firsthand testimonies of participants and witnesses, individuals and societies must continually take responsibility for learning the painful lessons of the past in order to offer hope for the future. Survivor Café offers a clear–eyed sense of the enormity of our twenty–first–century human inheritance—not only among direct descendants of the Holocaust but also in the shape of our collective responsibility to learn from tragedy, and to keep the ever–changing conversations alive between the past and the present.

See how the Roman alphabet began and how it has changed through the years.