A collection of more than twenty-five short fictional works follows a theme of the intersections between life and death, perception and reality, and darkness and light. Two teenage boys crash a party and meet the girls of their dreams--and nightmares ... A mysterious circus terrifies an audience for one extraordinary performance before disappearing into the night ... In a Hugo Award-winning story, a great detective must solve a most unsettling royal...

One sleepless night, Ko slips out to walk the streets. Life after dark is a revelation! When flirtatious Nazuna invites Ko to spend the night at her place in an abandoned building, he's stoked! But then he awakens to kisses on his neck with a little too much bite to them... Is it just the delicious taste of his blood that makes her meet him night after night for late-night adventures, conversation and...naps? Or something else? Then, when a cute

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When Dustfinger finds a crooked storyteller who can read him back to Inkscape, he leaves his apprentice Farid behind. Farid seeks out Meggie and the two follow him back into the enchanted book. Although a year has passed, not a day goes by without Meggie thinking of Inkheart, the book whose characters became real. But for Dustfinger, the fire-eater brought into being from words, the need to return to the tale has become desperate. When he finds a...

Examines the life of the drug-influenced nineteenth century author of "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater," who influenced Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, and William Burroughs

The incarnation of the myth of a cursed artist, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) is a legend who became a reference for modern art. An Expressionist during the Post-Impressionist movement, his art was misunderstood during his lifetime. In Holland, he partook in the Dutch realist painting movement by studying peasant characters. Anxious and depressed, Vincent van Gogh produced more than 2000 artworks, yet sold only one in his lifetime. A self-made artist,...

The adventures of a talking wooden puppet whose nose grows whenever he tells a lie. An abridged version of this classic that nevertheless captures its flavor and excitement. Presenting that mischievous puppet Pinocchio! Gepetto, his long-suffering father Fox and Cat, those demons of the night Fire-Eater, the wicked puppet master Cricket, a constant friend Blue Fairy, an even more constant friend Candlewick, a wild, wonderful companion Dogfish, a great...

"From two of the world's top scientists and one of the world's top science writers (all parents), Dirt Is Good is a Q&A-based guide to everything you need to know about kids & germs. "Is it OK for my child to eat dirt?" That's just one of the many questions authors Jack Gilbert and Rob Knight are bombarded with every week from parents all over the world. They've heard everything from "My two-year-old gets constant ear infections. Should I give her...

"Love to tell scary stories around the camp fire? Like to solve mysteries? Brave enough to hear the truth about some pretty freaky phenomena? Then cuddle up with this spooky spine-tingler, filled with delightfully frightful true stories of real-life monsters, doomed domains, menacing mysteries, strange disappearances, and so much more. Meet ghosts, ghouls, and zombies. Go inside haunted houses, hidden graveyards, and deadly secret passages. The Fright-o-meter...

A flying teenage boy. A magical princess. And a missing girl who can only remember what happens at night. A spellbinding, post-apocalyptic fantasy.