Young Child

Many looked on Gladys Aylward's expedition to mainland China as foolhardy and dangerous. It was. On her own, as a single female, she carried her passport and other documents, along with the only money and belongings that she had, in a small briefcase with a teapot and a saucepan tied to the handle. After having purchased her one-way ticket to China, she left the UK with a single-minded determination to do what God had commanded her. She knew she was meant to go to China - even if no mission was prepared to support her.

Persinette Basile has always known the ruling family of Gaule was meant to be her enemy. With no other choice, she fought to join them anyway. And they will break her now that they know her true name. As she sits in her prison cell, she wants one thing: for the kingdom of Gaule to burn to the ground. But they need her. When the king is kidnapped, the kingdom turns to the only person who could possibly find him: the woman tied to him by magic: Etta.

The Wizard's Council of Tarador was supposed to tell young Koren Bladewell that he is a wizard. They were supposed to tell everyone that he is not a jinx, that all the bad things that happen around him are because he can't control the power inside him, power he doesn't know about. The people of his village, even his parents, are afraid of him, afraid he is cursed. That he is a dangerous, evil jinx.

Mia Tang has a lot of secrets. Number one: She lives in a motel, not a big house. Every day, while her immigrant parents clean the rooms, 10-year-old Mia manages the front desk of the Calivista Motel and tends to its guests. Number two: Her parents hide immigrants. And if the mean motel owner, Mr. Yao, finds out they've been letting them stay in the empty rooms for free, the Tangs will be doomed. Number three: She wants to be a writer. But how can she when her mom thinks she should stick to math because English is not her first language?

The Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard trilogy may have concluded, but we haven't heard the last of our favorite peeps from the Nine Worlds. Join Hearthstone, Blitzen, Samirah, Alex, Jack, T.J., Mallory, Halfborn, and more on a hilarious and unforgettable journey through Rick Riordan's unique take on Norse mythology. While Magnus is off visiting his cousin, Annabeth, his friends find themselves in some sticky, hairy, and smelly situations as they try to outwit moronic giants, murderous creatures, and meddlesome gods. Can they stave off Ragnarok at least until Magnus gets back?

This academy's gone to the gods. I'm Penelope DeLuna, and I'm a demigod. I didn't think half bloods were real, until a sexy-as-sin guy showed up with a three-headed dog and kidnapped me to a world of magic. After my powers emerged, I discovered I'm the daughter of a goddess. To join my family, I'll have to prove my worth at an academy for preppy mythological heroes and fight my way up Mount Olympus. If I'm lucky, no one will find out I had a naughty hook-up with the totally off-limits son of Hades...

All Ruby Behl wants for her 17th birthday is a good career path match, and to kiss her best friend and longtime crush, Wesley Fairchild. Unfortunately, the simplicity of teenage wishes evaporated a decade ago when the Tercera virus nearly wiped out the human race. Transmitted through touch, the slightest contact is prohibited in the safe haven community of Port Gibson.

Finding himself alone on a desert island when everything and everyone he knows and loved has been washed away in a huge storm, Mau is the last surviving member of his nation. He's also completely alone - or so he thinks until he finds the ghost girl. She has no toes, wears strange lacy trousers like the grandfather bird and gives him a stick which can make fire. Daphne, sole survivor of the wreck of the Sweet Judy, almost immediately regrets trying to shoot the native boy.

In the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, the ice dragon was a creature of legend and fear, for no man had ever tamed one. When it flew overhead, it left in its wake desolate cold and frozen land. But Adara was not afraid. For Adara was a winter child, born during the worst freeze that anyone, even the Old Ones, could remember. Adara could not remember the first time she had seen the ice dragon. It seemed that it had always been in her life, glimpsed from afar as she played in the frigid snow long after the other children had fled the cold.

It's been barely a day since Edwy left Fredtown to be with his parents and, already, he is being sent away. He's smuggled off to boarding school in Refuge City, where he will be with his brother and sister, who don't even like him very much. The boarding school is nothing like the school that he knew, there's no one around looking up to him now, and he's still not allowed to ask questions! Alone and confused, Edwy seeks out other children brought back from Fredtown and soon discovers that Rosi and the others might be in danger.

A match at bowls was being played in which Drake and other high officers of the fleet were engaged, when a small armed vessel was seen running before the wind into Plymouth Harbor, with all sails set. Her commander landed in haste, and eagerly sought the place where the English lord admiral and his captains were standing. He was master of a Scottish privateer, and he told the English officers that he had that morning seen the Spanish Armada off the Cornish coast.

Lara just got told off on Facebook. She thought that Christian liked her, that he was finally going to ask her to his school's homecoming dance. It's been a long time since Lara's felt this bad, this depressed. She's worked really hard since starting high school to be happy and make new friends. Bree used to be BBFs with overweight, depressed Lara in middle school, but constantly listening to Lara's problems got to be too much. Bree's secretly glad that Christian's pointed out Lara's flaws to the world. Lara's not nearly as great as everyone thinks.

Skylar Reid is shaken when Sasha, the little girl she babysits, is kidnapped. She's scared that the weird dreams she's been having about Sasha are real - and even more afraid that Sasha is already dead. When a mysterious girl with extreme butt-kicking abilities roars into town on a motorcycle and starts stalking Skylar, things get even weirder. Supergirl Dana tells Sky that she also has abilities, that a hormone in their blood makes them stronger, faster, smarter...

Some secrets are deadly. It's no secret that Sundew wants to destroy the HiveWings. It's her life's mission to exact revenge on the tribe that tried to wipe out the LeafWings and ripped every tree from the surface of Pantala. Every tree, that is, except the wild and dangerous Poison Jungle, where the surviving LeafWings have been hiding since the war. Hiding, plotting, and waiting for a dragon like Sundew, who is uniquely qualified to bring down the Hives.

Having garnered both Young Readers’ Choice and Special Edgar Awards, Donald J. Sobol’s Encyclopedia Brown stories have been children’s classics for decades. In this installment, the 10-year-old detective uses his vast knowledge and probing questions to expose a muscle-bound scam, a crooked protection racket, a circus frame-up, and other baffling mysteries.

Charles Dickens is known not only for his novels, but also for his short stories, particularly "A Christmas Carol." In the latter genre, interestingly, these stories had a powerful commercial impulse, for they were serialized in magazines at the Christmas season.

When snow shuts down Greg Heffley’s middle school, his neighborhood transforms into a wintry battlefield. Rival groups fight over territory, build massive snow forts, and stage epic snowball fights. In the crosshairs are Greg and his trusty best friend, Rowley Jefferson. It’s a fight for survival as Greg and Rowley navigate alliances, betrayals, and warring gangs in a neighborhood meltdown.

More than half a century ago, the naturalist Farley Mowat accepted an assignment to investigate why wolves were killing Arctic caribou. Mowat’s account of the summer he lived in the frozen tundra alone – studying the wolf population and developing a deep affection for these wild creatures (who were no threat to caribou or man) – is today celebrated as a classic of nature writing, at once a tale of remarkable adventure and an indelible record of the myths and magic of wolves.

Evil is spreading across the Western Continent. One by one, kingdom, king, and wizard are falling under its influence. Dragon King Bakari, Battlemaster Alli, and High Wizard Roland are now powerful leaders in their own right. Differing missions and responsibilities have separated them; Bakari flies north to find the last Dragon Rider, Alli goes south to find the source of the evil, and Roland, leader of the Citadel, finds himself stuck in the magic stream without his body.

Drs. Barbara Oakley and Terrence Sejnowski's popular Online course Learning How to Learn, has enrolled more than 1.8 million students. In this much needed follow-up to A Mind for Numbers, the authors teach kids and teens how to learn effectively at a time when they most need these skills. Learning How to Learn teaches them about the importance of both focused concentration and letting their minds wander, how the brain makes connections between different pieces of information, why procrastination is the enemy of problem solving, and much more.