The days were filled with boating, fishing and exploring. The nights were bonfires and ghost stories, chase games, and night swimming. Parents usually gathered to mix drinks and play cards well into the night. That made it easier for us to play on the large lawn in front of Harman's cabins, usually until late in the cooled night when the dew started to gather and the stars seemed to be so large and bright you could jump and reach them. This is where we usually had bonfires and told ghost stories. Some of my early childhood crushes were sparked with young girls from far away places vacationing at the lake. Some barely knew my name and the rest I only knew as a passing friend and a face across a fire that mesmerized a young heart for a few days during the summer. Those nights and faces are a distant memory now, but will remain a part of me forever. Sometimes while talking with friends about my childhood, I describe how fun-filled mine were and most of it revolved around those special times.

Welcome to Professor Brownstone's vault - containing ancient relics from around the world, all collected by his famous ancestors! This fan favourite is coming to shelves in paperback! Follow the epic journey of Brownstone's earliest ancestor, Arthur, and travel back to the age of the Vikings where this bookish young adventurer must find the courage to save his village and defeat the mighty beast Fenrir...

SPECIAL 10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION with exclusive extra behind-the-scenes material from the author

It is 1939. In Nazi Germany, the country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier - and will become busier still.

By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed forever when she picks up a single object, abandoned in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, and this is her first act of book thievery. So begins Liesel's love affair with books and words, and soon she is stealing from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library . . . wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times, and when Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, nothing will ever be the same again.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

Now a major film from Twentieth-Century Fox starring Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson.

Wag, an enterprising dog, is unique. He can talk. The family pet strives to keep his secret in a series of adventures with young twins Lucy and Tom during the summer in World War Two. It's Wag who discovers a German airman dangling by his parachute from a tree after his plane is shot down. And he helps recapture the flier following his escape. He and the twins make friends with two teenage French refugees - and later make a startling discovery. Wag comes face-to-face with Winston Churchill, Britain's wartime leader. Tense nights in the family air raid shelter. The drama of an unexploded bomb. Moments of comedy such as when Wag chases a cat into a prison during an outing. The year 1943 ends on a proud note when Wag is presented with a medal by the King in Buckingham Palace...for exposing a Nazi spy.

During the summer of 1793, Mattie Cook lives above the family coffee shop with her widowed mother and grandfather. Mattie spends her days avoiding chores and making plans to turn the family business into the finest Philadelphia has ever seen. But then the fever breaks out.

Disease sweeps the streets, destroying everything in its path and turning Mattie's world upside down. At her feverish mother's insistence, Mattie flees the city with her grandfather. But she soon discovers that the sickness is everywhere, and Mattie must learn quickly how to survive in a city turned frantic with disease.

More than anything, Ida Bidson wants to become a teacher. To do that, she must finish eighth grade, then go on to high school. But her dream falters when the one-room school in her remote Colorado town shuts down. Her only hope is to keep the school open without anyone finding out. Yet even a "secret" school needs a teacher. Ida can't be it. . . . Or can she?
In the spirit of "The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, " Newbery Medal winner Avi creates an inspiring story of a headstrong girl determined to control her own destiny.

EVERY ACT OF TRANSLATION REQUIRES SACRIFICE

Welcome to Bletchley Park… with dragons.

London, 1923. Dragons soar through the skies and protests erupt on the streets, but Vivien Featherswallow isn’t worried. She’s going to follow the rules, get an internship studying dragon languages, and make sure her little sister never has to risk growing up Third Class. By midnight, Viv has started a civil war.

With her parents arrested and her sister missing, all the safety Viv has worked for is collapsing around her. So when a lifeline is offered in the form of a mysterious ‘job’, she grabs it. Arriving at Bletchley Park, Viv discovers that she has been recruited as a codebreaker helping the war effort – if she succeeds, she and her family can all go home again. If she doesn’t, they’ll all die.

At first Viv believes that her challenge, of discovering the secrets of a hidden dragon language, is doable. But the more she learns, the more she realises that the bubble she’s grown up in isn’t as safe as she thought, and eventually Viv must decide: What war is she really fighting?

An epic, sweeping fantasy with an incredible Dark Academia setting, a clandestine, slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance, and an unputdownable story, filled with twists and turns, betrayals and secret identities, A Language of Dragons is the unmissable debut of 2025, from an extraordinary new voice.

"Powerful and unsettling. . . . As memorable an introduction to the subject as The Diary of Anne Frank." --USA Today Berlin, 1942: When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move to a new house far, far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people in the distance. But Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different from his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences. From the Hardcover edition.

1940. The world is at war, and a secret arm of the British government called the Ministry of Unladylike Activity is training up spies.

Enter May Wong: courageous, stubborn, and desperate to help end the war so that she can go home to Hong Kong (and leave her annoying school, Deepdean, behind forever). May knows that she would make the perfect spy. After all, grown-ups always underestimate children like her.

When May and her friend Eric are turned away by the Ministry, they take matters into their own hands. Masquerading as evacuees, they travel to Elysium Hall, home to the wealthy Verey family - including snobby, dramatic Nuala. They suspect that one of the Vereys is passing information to Germany. If they can prove it, the Ministry will have to take them on.

But there are more secrets at Elysium Hall than May or Eric could ever have imagined.

And then, someone is murdered...

With his older brother gone to fight in the Great War and his father prone to sudden rages, fourteen-year-old Stanley devotes himself to taking care of the family's greyhound and puppies. Until the morning Stanley wakes to find the puppies gone. Determined to find his brother, Stanley runs away to join an increasingly desperate army. Assigned to the experimental War Dog School, Stanley is given a problematic Great Dane named Bones to train. Against all odds, the pair excels, and Stanley is sent to France.
But in "Soldier Dog" by Sam Angus, the war in France is larger and more brutal than Stanley ever imagined. How can one young boy survive and find his brother with only a dog to help?

The remarkable story of the Dick, Kerr Ladies is brought to young readers for the very first time by award winning and CILIP Carnegie nominated Eve Ainsworth. It's 1917, and Britain is at war. Shy teenager Hettie wants to help the war effort, and signs up to work in the local Dick, Kerr & Co. munitions factory. She's nervous, but she has no idea quite how much her life is about to change ... For, inside this factory are young women who are about to make sporting history. Can Hettie find the courage to join them, and in doing so, find her own place in the world? Based on the thrilling true story of the Dick, Kerr Ladies team - football's forgotten legends.

A Sequel to Swiss Family Robinson from the author of Heidi

The work known as the "Swiss Family Robinson" has long enjoyed a well-merited popularity, and has been perused by a multitude of readers, young and old, with profit as well as pleasure. A Swiss clergyman resolved to better his fortune by emigration. He embarked with his wife and four sons -- the latter ranging from eight to fifteen years of age -- for one of the newly-discovered islands in the Pacific Ocean. Along the coast of New Guinea they encountered a violent storm arose, and finally cast it a wreck upon an unknown coast. The present volume is virtually a continuation of this narrative. The careers of the four sons -- Frank, Ernest, Fritz, and Jack -- are taken up where the preceding chronicler left them off. . . .