What do you do when your garden statue comes alive and goes on the rampage? That's the challenge facing two teenagers, Scott and Brandon, when they're left alone in an island cottage during their half-term holiday. Scott Buchanan is English; Brandon Donnelly, American. They're best friends. But their friendship is tested to the limit and their holiday plans thrown into chaos when a magic statue bursts into their lives. The statue, who's called Alexander, comes from Ancient Greece. Alexander finds it difficult to adjust to the modern world. Everywhere he goes he brings bad luck. What should have been a fun holiday turns into a nightmare and a battle for survival as Alexander blunders and stirs up trouble. To make matters worse Scott and Brandon find themselves fighting a gang of school bullies. They also have to complete a holiday task set by their history teacher, or they're in trouble. And all the time Scott's guardian Uncle Henry, who's away on business, keeps phoning and nagging them to get on with their homework. How can the teenagers cope with the pressure and solve all their problems?

For young fans of wizardry everywhere, this exciting series of six books will follow the adventures of the wizard apprentice as he takes on the forces of darkness and learns more about his growing powers. Ages 8+.

Ms. Frizzle and her class are going to visit the Statue of Liberty but fall back into time, sail for France and discover how the statue was made.

Now the littlest readers can learn about how the Statue of Liberty came to be—and what it means to people all over the world. In this engaging book, preschoolers will learn the fascinating story behind the creation of the Statue of Liberty. Simple words and bright artwork bring to life the story of the people—a professor, a sculptor, a poet, a newspaperman—who helped establish this famous landmark. Little ones will learn that the torch was created first, in time for America's 100th birthday, and displayed in a park. And they'll gain a clear understanding of what the Statue of Liberty has always meant to people around the world. Fun facts, such as how schoolchildren gave their pennies to help pay for the base of the statue, complete this charming nonfiction Little Golden Book.

The fantasy of a sculpture that moves, speaks;or responds, a statue that comes to life as an oracle, lover, avenger, mocker, or monster—few images are more familiar or seductive. The living statue appears in ancient creation narratives, the myths of Pygmalion and Don Juan, lyric poetry from the Greek Anthology to Rilke, and romantic fairy tales; it is a recurrent theme in ballet and opera, in philosophy, psychoanalysis, and film. What does it mean for the statue that stands immobile in gallery or square to step down from its pedestal or speak out of its silence? What is it in this fantasy that animates us? Kenneth Gross explores the implications of fictive statues in biblical and romantic narrative; in the poetry of Ovid, Michelangelo, Blake, Rilke, and Stevens; in the drama of Shakespeare; in the writings of Freud and Wittgenstein. He also considers their place in the poetry of such contemporaries as Richard Howard and the films of Charlie Chaplin, Frarn;ois Truffaut, and Peter Greenaway. In the motif of the moving statue, we can see how the reciprocal ambitions of writing and sculpture play off each other, often producing deeply paradoxical figures of life and voice, Stories of the living statue point to the uncertain ways in which our desires, fantasies, and memories are bound to the realm of unliving objects. Clarifying the sources of our fascination with real and imaginary statues, this book asks us to reconsider some of our most basic assumptions about the uses of fantasy and fiction. Eloquent and evocative, The Dream of the Moving Statue will capture and hold a wide audience.

Randal, a young wizard, receives a powerful statue from a dying man which causes him to go on a dangerous adventure.