Rascal is only a baby when young Sterling brings him home. He and the mischievous raccoon are best friends for a perfect year of adventure—until the spring day when everything suddenly changes. A Newbery Honor Book

Sissy is deeply involved in the competition between two gymnastics schools while worrying about her father's trying to save an old and historical hotel.

Quest for freedom: Rascal the cat and his friends are looking for freedom? Will they find it and return home safely? Enchanted forest: The Enchanted Forest is a very dangerous place for cats, but that doesn't stop Rascal from exploring the home of the prehistoric Mouse Tram-bam-bu.

An engaging and enlightening account of taxation told through lively, dramatic, and sometimes ludicrous stories drawn from around the world and across the ages Governments have always struggled to tax in ways that are effective and tolerably fair. Sometimes they fail grotesquely, as when, in 1898, the British ignited a rebellion in Sierra Leone by imposing a tax on huts—and, in repressing it, ended up burning the very huts they intended to tax. Sometimes they succeed astonishingly, as when, in eighteenth-century Britain, a cut in the tax on tea massively increased revenue. In this entertaining book, two leading authorities on taxation, Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod, provide a fascinating and informative tour through these and many other episodes in tax history, both preposterous and dramatic—from the plundering described by Herodotus and an Incan tax payable in lice to the (misremembered) Boston Tea Party and the scandals of the Panama Papers. Along the way, readers meet a colorful cast of tax rascals, and even a few tax heroes. While it is hard to fathom the inspiration behind such taxes as one on ships that tended to make them sink, Keen and Slemrod show that yesterday’s tax systems have more in common with ours than we may think. Georgian England’s window tax now seems quaint, but was an ingenious way of judging wealth unobtrusively. And Tsar Peter the Great’s tax on beards aimed to induce the nobility to shave, much like today’s carbon taxes aim to slow global warming. Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue is a surprising and one-of-a-kind account of how history illuminates the perennial challenges and timeless principles of taxation—and how the past holds clues to solving the tax problems of today.

In their trademark style, author Kate Klise and illustrator M. Sarah Klise blend a story bursting with jokes, puns, and wordplay with illustrations, signs, letters, recipes, and bold graphics to introduce Three-Ring Rascals. When Sir Sidney, a kindly old circus owner, becomes too tired to travel with his show, he places a Help Wanted ad in the newspaper. Enter Barnabas Brambles: “I have a degree in lion taming from the University of Piccadilly Circus.” But does Leo the lion need taming? Will Elsa the elephant still get her gourmet peanuts? And what will Brambles say when he discovers Bert and Gert—two mice who travel with the circus on popcorn cleanup patrol? Brambles has big plans: More cities! More shows! No more free popcorn. Soon he’s made a big mess of Sir Sidney’s Circus, but Leo, Elsa, Bert, Gert, and the rest of the performers agree: The Show Must Go On! Black and white line drawings throughout.

God is real. Everything we say about God is made up. Holy Rascals is a rousing call to anyone ready to go beyond “isms” and ideologies, and live in the world as a liberating force of justice, compassion, and joy. “Holy rascals are spiritual culture jammers who use humor, play, creativity, and critical thinking to reveal the human origins of religions—and how religions mask their true origins behind the conceit of divine origins,” writes Rabbi Rami. Here, he illuminates: • The making of a holy rascal and the great task of “freeing religion from the parochial and for the perennial” • The art of “hacking the holy,” or pulling back the curtain on religion’s fear-based mechanisms of control • The provocative tools and one-of-a-kind practices of the holy rascal, with guidance for creating your very own “rascally” ways “Holy rascality is about rekindling spiritual creativity and critical thinking,” explains Rabbi Rami. “It is about freeing the human capacity for religiosity—the capacity for making meaning—from the confines of brand-name religion. Holy rascals are playful and lighthearted. While our task is serious—the liberation of humanity from the madness of unhealthy and harmful religions and religious beliefs—our attitude is not.” Holy Rascals brings you Rabbi Rami’s one-of-a-kind inspiration, humor, and practical insight to help you on your mission.