Dragons are real, and they're hungry. Marlena never expected to be a dragon slayer. She's a bleeding heart, a geek, and a lifelong animal rescuer. But when Mount St. Helens erupted for the second time in fifty years, it wasn't just ash that poured out. Dragons, legendary creatures of myth, became a terrifying reality. Now, Marlena and a ragtag band of survivors - a gamer-turned-knight, a brilliant scientist, and a former supermodel - are fighting for survival in a world where most cities have fallen. They’ve found refuge in Camelot, a makeshift haven built to withstand dragon attacks. Their leader believes the only way to fight a dragon is with another dragon. Their mission is a desperate gamble: steal a dragon egg, raise it, and hope it’s strong enough to protect them from the monstrous beasts that threaten their existence. But when Marlena encounters a wounded, abandoned dragon whelp, her heart breaks. This isn't a plan to breed a weapon. This is a mission to save the world… and a single, helpless creature caught in the crossfire. Dive into a world where the line between myth and reality has blurred. Will Marlena become the Mother of Dragons, or will she be just another victim in this post-apocalyptic tale? This story was previously published in the anthology After the Fall.

An all-new nonfiction series featuring DreamWorks Dragons! Hiccup, Toothless, and other exciting characters from DreamWorks Dragons help readers discover the real-life science and history behind volcanoes! Filled with full-color photos and lots of fun facts, these 80-page books based on JumpStart's School of Dragons online game are the perfect way to help young readers soar into the world of nonfiction.

From The Dragons of Autumn: May became June, which became July, which became August, and I didn’t see Ghost … although I left him something every day, something which was always gone when I returned, at least at first. By September, however, he’d stopped taking what I left him completely—nor would he appear when called—and I began to worry. That would have been about the time I started getting serious with Jenny—holding hands at the indoor skating rink, kissing for the first time in the balcony at The Muppet Movie—as well as my first growth spurt, all in the legs, which made me feel gangly and insecure but also made me taller than Jen, which I liked, and which she liked, too. It was also around the time the murders started happening, and what become known as the Comet’s Tail Mangler—at first just in the local paper but soon the national ones as well and finally the NBC Nightly News—started making waves across the country. Nor was that the only national news story to touch me; for my parents’ missing flight was back in the spotlight also—primarily because the business tycoon who had resumed the search (after the Coast Guard and Federal Aviation Administration abandoned it) had now given up, too. For Shad and my grandma, it was case closed—again. For me, it was the beginning of a season of denial that would last clear through September and into the school year; a season in which I became more convinced than ever that my parents were still alive. “Denial can be a powerful thing,” my mother had once said (I believe it was in the context of someone’s rumored drug and/or alcohol addiction), but for me, in that fear-addled fall of 1979, it became something more; something akin to an obsession or even a psychosis; something which rendered me deaf, dumb, and blind—to the reports of wreckage having been spotted by a private flight out of Honolulu in the wee hours of Christmas morning; to the reports of the victims of the Mangler having been mauled as if by an animal— mauled, and partially eaten. Indeed, I had even begun looking forward to introducing them to Jenny (when they were finally picked up from Gilligan’s Island, which is how I imaged their circumstances), had even selected a date: New Years, 1980—the day the call would come. The day the news would be announced that survivors had been found and that they were in good health; the day we would drive to the airport in Grandma’s black GTO and watch my parents descend the steps like soldiers returning from Vietnam, their faces tanned from the South Pacific, their necks adorned with leis. In the end, however, the New Year brought news of a different sort—though news that struck home regardless—for the latest victim of the Mangler turned out to be Stuart Dalton himself: decorated veteran, local hero (for his service in Vietnam), and a close, personal friend of our parents—so close that we were invited to his funeral; where I ended up in line behind his widow for the viewing of the casket, a casket which had been draped with a veil to prevent scrutiny of the body. Even now, some forty years later, it would be difficult to describe what I felt that day, as Song Li offered her final words and her husband lay hidden beneath the gauze and the reality of what had occurred—what had been occurring, ever since the death of the convict—came crashing down; as Song said goodbye to her “darling Stuart” and I said hello to reality (for the first time in months, possibly even since my parents had disappeared), and knew, though the thought of it tore me down the middle, what had to be done. If, that was, I could even find the portal. If, that was … I could find my friend.

A volume of essays exploring some of the best genre fiction of the last 40 years.

Containing writings that are variously wise, witty, heartfelt, and profound, this is the fourth volume in an annual series that brings together the year's most notable literature inspired by Buddhist philosophy and practice. Selected by the editors of the Shambhala Sun, North America's leading Buddhist-inspired magazine, the pieces in this anthology offer an entertaining mix of writing styles and reflect on a wide range of issues from a Buddhist point of view. The collection includes writings by the Dalai Lama, Matthieu Ricard, Dzongsar Khyentse, Diana Mukpo, Thich Nhat Hanh, Charles Johnson, Susan Piver, bell hooks, John Tarrant, Natalie Goldberg, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso, Thinley Norbu, Karen Maezen Miller, Pema Ch�dr�n, and Norman Fischer, among others.

Contains alphabetically arranged entries that describe the imaginary creatures found in legends, religions, folklore, oral history, and theologies around the world.

Fifteen-year-old Lily is assigned to the office of the Light Element of Earth -- a role for which she feels very unprepared. She finds herself facing a foreign culture in which she must learn to avoid the Dark Elements, navigate the nuances of human society, and grasp the Elemental laws, all while struggling to control her burning hunger to find her sister's killer.