Twelve stories about animals, insects, and other subjects, including "How the Aphabet Was Made," "How the Camel Got His Hump," and "The Elephant's Child."

Buffalo Valley, North Dakota. A few years ago, this was a dying town. Now it's come back to life! People are feeling good about living here again-the way they used to. They're feeling confident about the future. Stalled lives are moving forward. People like Margaret Clemens are taking risks on new ventures and on lifelong dreams. On happiness. Margaret is a local rancher who's finally getting what she wants most. Marriage to cowboy Matt Eilers....

This depicts the men of Alpha Company. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves while she...

By the time the Velveteen Rabbit is dirty, worn out, and about to be burned, he has almost given up hope of ever finding the magic called Real.

Hannah Swensen of the Cookie Jar in Lake Eden, Minn., discovers her neighbor's head bashed in; Jaine Austen's holiday stay at her parents' home in the Tampa Vistas retirement community is enlivened by the murder of elderly lothario; and, Maine reporter Lucy Stone investigates a four-year-old boy's disappearance. Includes recipes.

How do you handle an encounter with Medusa on the New Jersey interstate? What's the best way to take down a minotaur? Become an expert on everything in Percy's world with this must-have guide to the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. Complete with interviews, puzzles, games, and original short stories by Rick Riordan.

"Translated, edited, and with an Introduction by Stanley Corngold Featuring essays by Philip Roth, W. H Auden, and Walter Benjamin "When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin." With this startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first sentence, Franz Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant...

James Patterson presents two heartwarming tales about the power of a good story to open our eyes to life's possibilities. Tell me your best story: Anne McWilliams has lost everything. Her marriage fell apart so she turned to photography, only to have her world turned upside down again when a hurricane destroyed her home and all of her beloved photos. In the aftermath of the storm, Anne takes to the road to ask long-lost family, friends, and strangers...

In his stories, Saunders explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. Wickedly funny, unsentimental, and perfectly tuned, the stories challenge and surprise as they encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality. -- adapted from back cover "The 'best short story writer in English' (Time) is back with a masterful collection...

In 1896, an archaeological dig unearths an ancient trunk containing manuscripts that confirm the existence of Araluen Rangers Will and Halt and tell of their first meeting and some of their previously unknown exploits.