When a house full of grandmothers tries to determine who is the “best” grandma, a hilarious hullabaloo ensuesWhen a mysterious yellow envelope arrives at Hollyhock House, it causes quite the hubbub. It’s addressed simply to “the greatest grandmother in the world.” The trouble is, there are a lot of grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and even a great-great-grandmother living at Hollyhock House. So who is the best grandmother? Whether your grandma is a Bubby, a Bibi, an Abuela, a Nai Nai, or a Grammy, Grandmothers Galore! has something for everyone to enjoy: a zany tale full of mischief, mystery, and plenty of grandmotherly love.

Meet Oleander, who likes to keep busy, and her pet salamander, Sally Mander, who prefers to take it easy. As they go about their days in these five stories, they're visited by the Sprinkle Fairy (she's the owner of a word factory in Sicily) and her helpers, who've slipped a Big Word into each story. Which means, when Sally Mander is slacking off on her gardening duties, Oleander accuses her of procrastinating. And when Sally Mander loses a fight to a bird over a worm, she demands that the bird regurgitate the worm immediately. It's all fun with words --- BIG time! This collection of quirky, bite-sized stories is part of a clever series of highly original early readers by Judith Henderson. The text is dialogue driven, broken up into small bits, and accompanied by T. L. McBeth's small, simple and humor-filled spot illustrations, making it just right for emerging readers. These books are also terrific tools for expanding budding vocabularies, with the pronunciation and definition included for each of the five multisyllabic Big Words. Children will be trying them out in no time!

Though he's scared at first, a boy who encounters an alligator in the woods soon realises that all the alligator wants is companionship - and leftovers - and the two become good friends. But the mayor of the boy's town simply won't allow it. The townspeople agree with the mayor. At first. But once they see how kind and helpful the alligator is (and how nice it is to have someone to eat all their leftovers!), they decide the alligator should be allowed to stay. They help the alligator avoid the mayor, for a while. But it's becoming harder to find a place for him to hide. Can they all come together and find a way to keep the alligator in their town?

Microbial biofilms are populations of microorganisms that are found on solid-liquid interface and are typically surrounded by a matrix of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). The aggregates of cells not firmly attached to a surface are sometimes termed flocs and have the same characteristics as biofilms. Bacteria in the biofilms produce an extracellular matrix and this contributes to ~90% of the biofilm biomass. They are found in all environments such as marine, freshwater, industrial surfaces, domestic appliances exposed to tap water and wastewater, dental surfaces, medical implants etc. This book discusses the characterization, applications and recent advances in the study of biofilms.