category: Children's Books

READY FOR SCHOOL, MURPHY?

Murphy doesn’t want to go to school. He has butterflies in his tummy and ants in his pants! But no amount of made-up excuses convince his dad to let him stay home. Just when Murphy has all but given up, his father brings him up-to-date-it’s Saturday!

GHOSTING

On a hot summer night in a midwestern town, a high school teenage prank goes horrifically awry. Alcohol, guns, and a dare. Within minutes, as events collide, innocents becomes victims—with tragic outcomes altering lives forever, a grisly and unfortunate scenario all too familiar from current real-life headlines. But victims can also become survivors, and as we come to know each character through his/her own distinctive voice and their interactions with one another, we see how, despite pain and guilt, they can reach out to one another, find a new equilibrium, and survive.

Told through multiple points of view in naturalistic free verse and stream of consciousness, this is an unforgettable, haunting tale.

Frank & Vida Radice

Meow, more than ever, the world needs a furry hero–and his name is Sam Katz. Sam Katz is on the loose in this wildly original, glitter-sparkling book of 3-D scenes guaranteed to amaze and amuse children of all ages. Who is Sam Katz? Let’s put it this way: He is not your average humdrum Purina Cat Chow—munching, hairball-gacking pussycat. Everyday, Sam Katz’s owners leave him all alone in an apartment whose walls are hung with paintings of exotic scenes. Where does Sam go when his owners are away?

Why, he dives smack-dab into the action of the paintings, of course! From the steamy rain forest to the far-frozen north, from the hurly-burly of a boardwalk carnival to the peace and serenity of the mountain majesties, Sam Katz is one cat who doesn’t miss a scene. Children won’t want to miss out, either, as the text challenges them to explore each and every scene in full, and often hilarious, detail.

FERAL

Peculiar, Missouri, is supposed to offer Claire Cain a reprieve from the horrifying dreams that have plagued her in the months since she became the victim of a brutal gang beating. The site of her father’s sabbatical is not supposed to be a place where girls turn up missing. And it’s not a place where Claire expects to discover a dead classmate, her corpse being feasted upon by the town’s rampant feral cats, the hordes of strays who behave very much like a gang themselves.

Peculiar, Claire soon learns, is a town brimming with dangers: spirits haunt the high school, take the form of fog in the cemetery. And everyone is too quick to assume that Serena Sims, the missing girl whose body is discovered in the woods by Claire herself, has died in an accident. Claire knows there’s more to it, though—and she vows to learn the truth of what happened to Serena, never anticipating that the spirit of Serena Sims has horrific plans of her own for Claire…or that she will discover an even more terrifying truth about herself along the way.

Look for FIREFLY SEASON, soon!