Download or read book Grasshopper Jungle written by Andrew Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-02-11 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 2015 Michael L. Printz Honor Book Winner of the 2014 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction "Raunchy, bizarre, smart and compelling." --Rolling Stone “Grasshopper Jungle is simultaneously creepy and hilarious. Reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut’s in “Slaughterhouse Five,” in the best sense.” --New York Times Book Review In the small town of Ealing, Iowa, Austin and his best friend, Robby, have accidentally unleashed an unstoppable army. An army of horny, hungry, six-foot-tall praying mantises that only want to do two things. This is the truth. This is history. It’s the end of the world. And nobody knows anything about it. You know what I mean. Funny, intense, complex, and brave, Grasshopper Jungle brilliantly weaves together everything from testicle-dissolving genetically modified corn to the struggles of recession-era, small-town America in this groundbreaking coming-of-age stunner.

Download or read book The House of Impossible Loves written by Cristina López Barrio and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2013 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Laura Esquivel's Like Water For Chocolate, The House of Impossible Loves is a novel set in twentieth-century Spain and France revolving around a family of cursed women.

Download or read book The Downside of Being Charlie written by Jenny Torres Sanchez and published by Running Press Kids. This book was released on 2012-05-22 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charlie is handed a crappy senior year. Despite losing thirty pounds over the summer, he still gets called "Chunks" Grisner. What's worse, he has to share a locker with the biggest Lord of the Rings freak his school has ever seen. He also can't figure out whether Charlotte VanderKleaton, the beautiful strawberry lip-glossed new girl, likes him the way he likes her. Oh, and then there's his mom. She's disappeared -- again -- and his dad won't talk about it. Somewhere between the madness, Charlie can at least find comfort in his one and only talent that just might get him out of this life-sucking place. But will he be able to hold his head above water in the meantime?

Download or read book The Pray n Mantis written by Marvin Harvey and published by Tate Publishing. This book was released on 2010-07 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What would it be like if you were chosen by God to fight in a battle for him? Plucked from their home at an early age, Phoenix and Joseph Toby are trained as warriors and begin a life of righteous battle. Through the years of struggles and uncertainty they meet a group of people destined to help them overcome the evil spirits sent forth from hell. Joined by Cosmo, Wisdom, Vera, Risen, Faithful, Mistress, Trumpeter and Lady Mantis, they find the strength they need to do battle for good. Phoenix's strength is tested to the utmost, and he must pray to overcome his flesh and fight in the spirit if he is going to win against the unknown. In this beautiful allegory, Marvin Harvey introduces a world of people waiting to discover whether they will live in chaos or peace—and shows just what it takes to attain the latter. Read on, and share the victories, the defeats; the sorrows and the joys; and ultimately the faith of The Pray'n Mantis.

Download or read book Two be You written by John Moore and published by John Moore. This book was released on with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edge of your seat. Compelling dialogue. Moving connections. One evening in the very near future a young man sees a report on the evening news that changes his life forever. Humanity is being contacted for the first time by beings from outer space. Unable to contain the urge to see these visitors young Matt sets out to find his missing grandfather, sent by his mother with the promise of answers. Soon into his journey he finds travel almost impossible due to the visiting ship. Caught in unfamiliar surrounds far from home he must overcome the chaos now building worldwide. Not sure if he can make it or even survive Matt needs to rely on his wits alone as he tries to reach his goal. New friends, impossible odds and a single chance to make a difference.

Download or read book The Guardians written by Rick Boyle and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2018-09-15 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No matter how good our lives seem to be going, we often long for a little more excitement. Sometimes we don’t realize it though until something unusual is presented to us, and we need to make some big, important decisions. In author Rick Boyle’s The Guardians: The Search for the Golden Praying Mantis, you join three teenagers who undertake an adventure of a lifetime. Seth is the star quarterback for La Jolla High School and his younger brother, Sean, is a genius. For the most part, the brothers are pleased with their lives. Then they meet their new science teacher. Miss Tia, a former college professor from New York University. When she shares a story about the elusive Golden Praying Mantis, the boys are intrigued. With the help of classmate, Amber, they go on a search for this mystical creature. And when they discover a black and white crystal, their lives are changed forever. The Guardians: The Search for the Golden Praying Mantis shows us that things are not always what they seem. Nor are people—even parents. Join Seth and Sean as they begin their journey to become Guardians of the Universe.

Download or read book Praying Mantises written by Colleen Sexton and published by Bellwether Media. This book was released on 2012-08-01 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Simple text accompanied by full-color photographs give an upclose look at praying mantises. Intended for kindergarten through third grade students"--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book Bite Me written by Nikki Stafford and published by ECW Press. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Take a deep dive into the TV series that brought us all into the Buffyverse—including an episode guide, a trivia quiz, cast bios, and more! It’s been more than a decade since Buffy Summers first walked into the Sunnydale High library and came face-to-face with her Watcher, who told her she was the Chosen One who would save the world from vampires. In the seven seasons that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was on TV, we watched her kill her true love (but he got better), graduate high school (by blowing it up), discover she had a sister (who . . . uh . . . was always there?), sacrifice her own life (but she got better), watch her sidekicks become heroes (and villains), and, essentially, grow up. Bite Me!, Nikki Stafford’s critical analysis of the show, was one of the bestselling and most critically acclaimed books on Buffy when it was released in 2002. Current up to season 6, the book examined Buffy’s development, and outlined the mythical, religious, and historical backgrounds to the episodes. Nikki’s guide to season 7 appeared in her Angel book, but there was never one place where fans could get their Buffy fix all in one place. Until now. Revised and updated, the 10th Buffyversary edition of Bite Me! contains all seven seasons of this groundbreaking series, chronicles what happened to all of its stars, gives the background story to why the series ended and what legacy it has had, and even contains information about the new Buffy “season eight” comic book series from Dark Horse. Bite Me! is the definitive guide for all Buffy fans.

Download or read book Finn written by Matthew Olshan and published by Bancroft Press. This book was released on 2001-03 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Rescued from a murderous life with her mother, Chloe Wilder lives with her grandparents in the cocoon of a quiet, middle-class neighborhood. For the first time in her life, things are steady, safe ... and stifling."--Jacket

Download or read book The Boy Who Failed Dodgeball written by Jordan Sonnenblick and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sixth grade is the worst... and also the best, as Jordan rides the ups and downs of middle-school life in hilarious fashion. Funny, outrageous things didn’t stop for Jordan Sonnenblick after he left fourth grade. No, in many ways the events detailed to hilarious effect in The Boy Who Failed Show and Tell were but a prelude to sixth grade, a time when Jordan would have to deal with... -- A rival named Jiminy (his real name is Jimmy -- but, hey, he looks like a cricket) -- A stickler English teacher who doesn’t care that all the old, worn copies of Great Expectations smell like puke -- An Evel Knievel obsession -- A first crush on a girl from band -- An assistant principal who brands Jordan a repeat offender... on his first day (If you want to know why, you have to read the book. A tooth is involved.) -- A continued reckoning with both anxiety and asthma -- And more!

Download or read book Little Monk and the Mantis written by John Fusco and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 53 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Engaging and knowledgeable…brings magical light and clarity to veiled martial arts history. In a cocoon shell, a man 'tis not a mantis til Fusco's faithful rendering of true life hero Wong Long bugs the Shaolin elders into accepting the teachings and virtues of the world's most dynamic insect…the praying mantis.--Dr. Craig D. Reid, Martial Arts Historian"

Download or read book Long Division written by Kiese Laymon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Fiction From Kiese Laymon, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Heavy, comes a “funny, astute, searching” (The Wall Street Journal) debut novel about Black teenagers that is a satirical exploration of celebrity, authorship, violence, religion, and coming of age in post-Katrina Mississippi. Written in a voice that’s alternately humorous, lacerating, and wise, Long Division features two interwoven stories. In the first, it’s 2013: after an on-stage meltdown during a nationally televised quiz contest, fourteen-year-old Citoyen “City” Coldson becomes an overnight YouTube celebrity. The next day, he’s sent to stay with his grandmother in the small coastal community of Melahatchie, where a young girl named Baize Shephard has recently disappeared. Before leaving, City is given a strange book without an author called Long Division. He learns that one of the book’s main characters is also named City Coldson—but Long Division is set in 1985. This 1985-version of City, along with his friend and love interest, Shalaya Crump, discovers a way to travel into the future, and steals a laptop and cellphone from an orphaned teenage rapper called...Baize Shephard. They ultimately take these items with them all the way back to 1964, to help another time-traveler they meet to protect his family from the Ku Klux Klan. City’s two stories ultimately converge in the work shed behind his grandmother’s house, where he discovers the key to Baize’s disappearance. Brilliantly “skewering the disingenuous masquerade of institutional racism” (Publishers Weekly), this dreamlike “smart, funny, and sharp” (Jesmyn Ward), novel shows the work that young Black Americans must do, while living under the shadow of a history “that they only gropingly understand and must try to fill in for themselves” (The Wall Street Journal).

Download or read book Gods of Noonday written by Elaine Neil Orr and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2003-08-29 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The daughter of medical missionaries, Elaine Neil Orr was born in Nigeria in 1954, in the midst of the national movement that would lead to independence from Great Britain. But as she tells it in her captivating new memoir, Orr did not grow up as a stranger abroad; she was a girl at home—only half American, the other half Nigerian. When she was sent alone to the United States for high school, she didn't realize how much leaving Africa would cost her. It was only in her forties, in the crisis of kidney failure, that she began to recover her African life. In writing Gods of Noonday she came to understand her double-rootedness: in the Christian church and the Yoruba shrine, the piano and the talking drum. Memory took her back from Duke Medical Center in North Carolina to the shores of West Africa and her hometown of Ogbomosho in the land of the Yoruba people. Hers was not the dysfunctional American family whose tensions are brought into high relief by the equatorial sun, but a mission girlhood is haunted nonetheless--by spiritual atmospheres and the limits of good intentions. Orr's father, Lloyd Neil, formerly a high school athlete and World War II pilot, and her mother, Anne, found in Nigeria the adventure that would have escaped them in 1950s America. Elaine identified with her strong, fun-loving father more than her reserved mother, but she herself was as introspective and solitary as her sister Becky was pretty and social. Lloyd acquired a Chevrolet station wagon which carried Elaine and her friends to the Ethiope River, where they swam much as they might have in the United States. But at night the roads were becoming dangerous, and soon the days were clouded by smoke from the coming Biafran War. Interweaving the lush mission compounds with Nigerian culture, furloughs in the American South with boarding school in Nigeria, and eventually Orr's failing health, the narrative builds in intensity as she recognizes that only through recovering her homeland can she find the strength to survive. Taking its place with classics such as Out of Africa and more recent works like The Poisonwood Bible and Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Gods of Noonday is a deeply felt, courageous portrait of a woman's life.

Download or read book Women After All Sex Evolution and the End of Male Supremacy written by Melvin Konner and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-03-09 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A sparkling, thought-provoking account of sexual differences. Whether you’re a man or a woman, you’ll find his conclusions gripping.”—Jared Diamond There is a human genetic fluke that is surprisingly common, due to a change in a key pair of chromosomes. In the normal condition the two look the same, but in this disorder one is malformed and shrunken beyond recognition. The result is a shortened life span, higher mortality at all ages, an inability to reproduce, premature hair loss, and brain defects variously resulting in attention deficit, hyperactivity, conduct disorder, hypersexuality, and an enormous excess of both outward and self-directed aggression. It is called maleness. Melvin Konner traces the arc of evolution to explain the relationships between women and men. With patience and wit he explores the knotty question of whether men are necessary in the biological destiny of the human race. He draws on multiple, colorful examples from the natural world—such as the mating habits of the octopus, black widow, angler fish, and jacana—and argues that maleness in humans is hardly necessary to the survival of the species. In characteristically humorous and engaging prose, Konner sheds light on our biologically different identities, while noting the poignant exceptions that challenge the male/female divide. We meet hunter-gatherers such as those in Botswana, whose culture gave women a prominent place, invented the working mother, and respected women’s voices around the fire. Recent human history has upset this balance, as a dense world of war fostered extreme male dominance. But our species has been recovering over the past two centuries, and an unstoppable move toward equality is afoot. It will not be the end of men, but it will be the end of male supremacy and a better, wiser world for women and men alike.

Download or read book Headless Males Make Great Lovers written by Marty Crump and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-11-15 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The natural world is filled with diverse—not to mention quirky and odd—animal behaviors. Consider the male praying mantis that continues to mate after being beheaded; the spiders, insects, and birds that offer gifts of food in return for sex; the male hip-pocket frog that carries his own tadpoles; the baby spiders that dine on their mother; the beetle that craves excrement; or the starfish that sheds an arm or two to escape a predator's grasp. Headless Males Make Great Lovers and Other Unusual Natural Histories celebrates the extraordinary world of animals with essays on curious creatures and their amazing behaviors. In five thematic chapters, Marty Crump—a tropical field biologist well known for her work with the reproductive behavior of amphibians—examines the bizarre conduct of animals as they mate, parent, feed, defend themselves, and communicate. Crump's enthusiasm for the unusual behaviors she describes-from sex change and free love in sponges to aphrodisiac concoctions in bats-is visible on every page, thanks to her skilled storytelling, which makes even sea slugs, dung beetles, ticks, and tapeworms fascinating and appealing. Steeped in biology, Headless Males Make Great Lovers points out that diverse and unrelated animals often share seemingly bizarre behaviors—evidence, Crump argues, that these natural histories, though outwardly weird, are successful ways of living. Illustrated throughout, and filled with vignettes of personal and scientific interest, Headless Males Make Great Lovers will enchant the general reader with its tales of blood-squirting horned lizards and intestine-ejecting sea cucumbers—all in the service of a greater appreciation of the diversity of the natural histories of animals.

Download or read book The Youth s Companion written by Nathaniel Willis and published by . This book was released on 1872 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes music.

Download or read book Joel Whitburn s Top Pop Albums 1955 2001 written by Joel Whitburn and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 1222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From pop music's early LPs to its latest CDs, Top Pop Albums 1955-2001 is a sweeping, stunning saga of Billboard's Pop Albums chart. This artist-by-artist listing includes every charted album from 1955 through June 30, 2001 - over 22,000 in all by more than 5,200 recording artists, and the more than 225,000 cuts from those albums. Along with complete chart data, artist biographies and complete track listings for every artist, Top Pop Albums sports new features such as each album's CD availability, data from the newly researched Top Pop Catalog Albums chart, updated album pricing and more, making this the biggest, broadest, absolute best albums book ever! Hardcover, ISBN 0-89820-147-0.