The 'hood is divided by invisible lines, but only those in the know can see them. The Friends and The Crew, two rival gangs, form an uneasy truce against a powerful force - Deek and his drugs, his Uzis and his Trans Am. All sixteen-year-old Ty wants is to keep his kid brother safe but Deek is pushing him way past cool. When smoldering tensions explode Ty must face his own fears and decide what kind of man he is to become.

16-year-old drug dealer Deek has hired the Big Boys in a van to give both the Friends and the Crew, a rival gang, a scare. The gangs, observing their "rules" have a meet and decide that Deek must be killed. There is a gang shootout and a climactic firefight that lasts forever.

It's hard to be Velma, the littlest Gratch, entering the first grade. That's because everyone has marvelous memories of her two older sisters, who were practically perfect first graders. Poor Velma—people can barely remember her name. But all that changes on a class trip to the magnificent Butterfly Conservatory—a place neither of her sisters has ever been. When a monarch roosts on Velma's finger and won't budge for days . . . well, no one will forget Velma ever again. Acclaimed and bestselling illustrator Kevin Hawkes and author Alan Madison celebrate everything butterfly—from migration to metamorphosis. Watch as Velma Gratch metamorphosizes from a timid first grader into a confident young scientist!

The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

Discover the beautiful stories of Michael Morpurgo, author of Warhorse and the nation’s favourite storyteller Michael Morpurgo’s inspiring story of Robbie, a boy in a coma – victim of a car accident. Locked inside his own head, able to hear but not move or speak, Robbie tries to keep himself from slipping ever deeper into unconsciousness.

"A collection of ten short stories that all take place in the same day about kids walking home from school"--

Cool. It was a new word and a new way to be, and in a single generation, it became the supreme compliment of American culture. The Origins of Cool in Postwar America uncovers the hidden history of this concept and its new set of codes that came to define a global attitude and style. As Joel Dinerstein reveals in this dynamic book, cool began as a stylish defiance of racism, a challenge to suppressed sexuality, a philosophy of individual rebellion, and a youthful search for social change. Through eye-opening portraits of iconic figures, Dinerstein illuminates the cultural connections and artistic innovations among Lester Young, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Jack Kerouac, Albert Camus, Marlon Brando, and James Dean, among others. We eavesdrop on conversations among Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Miles Davis, and on a forgotten debate between Lorraine Hansberry and Norman Mailer over the "white Negro" and black cool. We come to understand how the cool worlds of Beat writers and Method actors emerged from the intersections of film noir, jazz, and existentialism. Out of this mix, Dinerstein sketches nuanced definitions of cool that unite concepts from African-American and Euro-American culture: the stylish stoicism of the ethical rebel loner; the relaxed intensity of the improvising jazz musician; the effortless, physical grace of the Method actor. To be cool is not to be hip and to be hot is definitely not to be cool. This is the first work to trace the history of cool during the Cold War by exploring the intersections of film noir, jazz, existential literature, Method acting, blues, and rock and roll. Dinerstein reveals that they came together to create something completely new—and that something is cool.