She is smart...She is brave...She is utterly witty. Do you want to know what happened to her? Did she escape from the butcher, the cow, or the muddy old sow? Did she make friends with the motherly rabbit and how? At bedtime, or naptime, or just because it’s fun... Mommy, Daddy, Nanny, or anyone Let's read the story or sing aloud... This enchanting tale and give it a twirl The answers are in here, right now! So turn the pages and let’s learn What happened to The Gingerbread Girl

CAUGHT BETWEEN FAMILY AND DUTY - CAN SHE FOLLOW HER DREAM? Suffolk, 1925. After the death of her father, a much-loved Punch and Judy man, May Moon packs her bags and moves to the seaside in the hope of continuing his legacy. Already tasked with looking after her younger sister, May little imagines her summer will grow tougher still. Her long absent mother has finally returned - and with an agenda all of her own. But as May struggles to balance her family's competing demands - and honour her father's legacy - she's surprised to discover her passion for performing grows ever stronger. As the world around her begins to change, might she finally be able to find a dream of her own? A warm-hearted and nostalgic saga perfect for readers of Katie Flynn and Sheila Jeffries. 'Like having dinner with your mother in her warm and cosy kitchen.' Diane Allen

From The New York Times bestselling author of Prayers for Sale comes the moving and powerful story of a small town after a devastating avalanche, and the life changing effects it has on the people who live there Whiter Than Snow opens in 1920, on a spring afternoon in Swandyke, a small town near Colorado's Tenmile Range. Just moments after four o'clock, a large split of snow separates from Jubilee Mountain high above the tiny hamlet and hurtles down the rocky slope, enveloping everything in its path including nine young children who are walking home from school. But only four children survive. Whiter Than Snow takes you into the lives of each of these families: There's Lucy and Dolly Patch—two sisters, long estranged by a shocking betrayal. Joe Cobb, Swandyke's only black resident, whose love for his daughter Jane forces him to flee Alabama. There's Grace Foote, who hides secrets and scandal that belies her genteel façade. And Minder Evans, a civil war veteran who considers his cowardice his greatest sin. Finally, there's Essie Snowball, born Esther Schnable to conservative Jewish parents, but who now works as a prostitute and hides her child's parentage from all the world. Ultimately, each story serves as an allegory to the greater theme of the novel by echoing that fate, chance, and perhaps even divine providence, are all woven into the fabric of everyday life. And it's through each character's defining moment in his or her past that the reader understands how each child has become its parent's purpose for living. In the end, it's a novel of forgiveness, redemption, survival, faith and family.

"The Johnstons already had five children when fragile, terrified Nicole became part of their family on a foggy California Christmas Eve. Abused and neglected by her natural mother, the six-month-old child had gained only two pounds since her birth. It took ahile for the Johnstons to gain the confidence of the wary infant, but Nicole gradually began to repond to their kind and gentle care. She learned to smile, and then to giggle; she learned to turn over, and then to crawl; but most important, she learned to repond to love. After only two months Nicole had changed from a scrawny, screaming infant to a charming, outgoing child. But Nicole's days of terror were not over. Pictures and x-rays of her bruised and battered body, necessary to prove her natural family unfit to raise her, had never been taken. Consequently Nicole, not her mother, was sentenced. The judge decided the child should be reunited with her mother on a bi-monthly basis. The result was tragic. The Johnstons fought for Nicole. They fought insensitive social workers and judges, and they fought an uncaring system that places more value on the rights of natural parent than on the life and safety of a child. They fought with all their might, but the system won. Nicole's story is dynamic because it is so well-told; but it is tragic because it is true." --Back cover.

In Violence in the Films of Stephen King, contributors analyze the theme of violence in the film adaptations of Stephen King’s work—ranging from the earliest films in the King canonto his most recent iterations—through a variety of lenses. Investigating the diverse and varying roles that violence continues to play as both the level of violence and the gendered depictions of violence have evolved, many of the contributors come to the conclusion that King’s films have grown more violent over time. This book also examines the fine line between necessary violence and sensationalist violence, discussing the complexity of determining what constitutes violence with a narrative and ethical significance versus violence intended solely to titillate, repulse, or otherwise draw an emotional reaction from viewers. Scholars of film studies, horror studies, literary studies, and gender studies will find this book particularly useful.

A stunning collection from international bestseller Stephen King that displays his phenomenally broad readership (stories published in The New Yorker, Playboy, and McSweeney’s and including the 25,000 word story “Gingerbread Girl” published in Esquire). Stephen King—who has written more than fifty books, dozens of number one New York Times bestsellers, and many unforgettable movies—delivers an astonishing collection of short stories, his first since Everything’s Eventual six years ago. As guest editor of the bestselling Best American Short Stories 2007, King spent over a year reading hundreds of stories. His renewed passion for the form is evident on every page of Just After Sunset. The stories in this collection have appeared in The New Yorker, Playboy, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, Esquire, and other publications. Who but Stephen King would turn a Port-O-San into a slimy birth canal, or a roadside honky-tonk into a place for endless love? A book salesman with a grievance might pick up a mute hitchhiker, not knowing the silent man in the passenger seat listens altogether too well. Or an exercise routine on a stationary bicycle, begun to reduce bad cholesterol, might take its rider on a captivating—and then terrifying—journey. Set on a remote key in Florida, “The Gingerbread Girl” is a riveting tale featuring a young woman as vulnerable—and resourceful—as Audrey Hepburn’s character in Wait Until Dark. In “Ayana,” a blind girl works a miracle with a kiss and the touch of her hand. For King, the line between the living and the dead is often blurry, and the seams that hold our reality intact might tear apart at any moment. In one of the longer stories here, “N.,” which recently broke new ground when it was adapted as a graphic digital entertainment, a psychiatric patient’s irrational thinking might create an apocalyptic threat in the Maine countryside...or keep the world from falling victim to it. Just After Sunset—call it dusk, call it twilight, it’s a time when human intercourse takes on an unnatural cast, when nothing is quite as it appears, when the imagination begins to reach for shadows as they dissipate to darkness and living daylight can be scared right out of you. It’s the perfect time for Stephen King.

The Callery pear tree standing at the base of the World Trade Center is almost destroyed on September 11, but it is pulled from the rubble, coaxed back to life, and replanted as part of the 9/11 memorial.