Download or read book An Awfully Big Adventure written by Beryl Bainbridge and published by Abacus. This book was released on 2010-12-02 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'This is one of Bainbridge's best books. The close observation and hilarity are underlain by a sense of tragedy as deep as any in fiction' The Times SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE IN 1990 It is 1950 and the Liverpool repertory theatre company is rehearsing its Christmas production of Peter Pan, a story of childhood innocence and loss. Stella has been taken on as assistant stage manager and quickly becomes obsessed with Meredith, the dissolute director. But it is only when the celebrated O'Hara arrives to take the lead, that a different drama unfolds. In it, he and Stella are bound together in a past that neither dares to interpret.

Download or read book The Awfully Big Adventure written by Paul Morley and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Jackson died on June 25 2009 in Los Angeles, from of acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication (according to Wikipedia). The one-time King of Pop was preparing for one last assault on the mainstream with a proposed 50 night run of shows at the 02 (thereby trumping his arch-rival, Prince, who had just concluded his legendary 21 Nights). His exhaustion, paranoia and general ill-heath were an open secret. He had lived many lives and inhabited many bodies; PT Barnum, Fred Astaire, and Peter Pan in one mortal coil. His death was mourned by hundreds of millions of fans but it was almost as if he had been dead for some time already. And in his death, in vivid technicolor, we relived the dreams, nightmares, fantasies, and perversions that we had all projected on to him for four decades. Paul Morley's short biographical portrait of Michael Jackson looks at how we turned the most outrageous child star talent of the late 20th century into a monster; how his decline soundtracked the end of Pop and the end of American Imperialism; how his once staggeringly modern and funky music became secondary to the dysfunctional freak show of watching a vulnerable man literally disintegrate. Tender, erudite, and provocative, Morley's monograph documents a tragedy that is so Shakespearean in scale that it obscures the legacy of the last of the great Song and Dance Men.

Download or read book Second Star to the Right written by Lester D. Friedman and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2008-11-28 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over a century after its first stage performance, Peter Pan has become deeply embedded in Western popular culture, as an enduring part of childhood memories, in every part of popular media, and in commercial enterprises. Since 2003 the characters from this story have had a highly visible presence in nearly every genre of popular culture: two major films, a literary sequel to the original adventures, a graphic novel featuring a grown-up Wendy Darling, and an Argentinean novel about a children's book writer inspired by J. M. Barrie. Simultaneously, Barrie surfaced as the subject of two major biographies and a feature film. The engaging essays in Second Star to the Right approach Pan from literary, dramatic, film, television, and sociological perspectives and, in the process, analyze his emergence and preservation in the cultural imagination.

Download or read book The Collected Peter Pan written by James Matthew Barrie and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new collection of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan stories--from his first appearance in The Little White Bird to the final version of the Peter Pan play we know today.

Download or read book The History of Soul 2065 written by Barbara Krasnoff and published by Mythic Delirium Books. This book was released on 2019-06-11 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Achingly familiar and wonderfully strange.” —Samuel R. Delany, Hugo and Nebula Award winner “Plunge into The History of Soul 2065, there’s nothing like it.” —Jeffrey Ford, World Fantasy Award winner Months before World War I breaks out, two young Jewish girls just on the edge of adolescence—one from a bustling Russian city, the other from a German estate—meet in an eerie, magical forest glade. They are immediately drawn to one another and swear an oath to meet again. Though war and an ocean will separate the two for the rest of their lives, the promise that they made to each other continues through the intertwined lives of their descendants. This epic tale of the supernatural follows their families from the turn of the 20th Century through the terrors of the Holocaust and ultimately to the wonders of a future they never could have imagined. The History of Soul 2065 encompasses accounts of sorcery, ghosts, time travel, virtual reality, alien contact, and elemental confrontations between good and evil. Understated and epic, cathartic and bittersweet, the twenty connected stories in Nebula Award finalist Barbara Krasnoff’s debut form a mosaic narrative even greater than its finely crafted parts. Jane Yolen, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master, says in her introduction: “If you, like me, love quirky and original fantasy stories, I advise you to dive right in. If you, like me, admire tough writing that’s not afraid of the grit, dive right in. If you, like me, want to hang out a while with characters rich in their own traditions, dive right in. This is storytelling at the top of the heap.”

Download or read book Everland The Everland Trilogy Book 1 written by Wendy Spinale and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2016-05-10 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forget the story of Peter Pan and Wendy you know. Because in Everland, the only way to grow up is to survive. London has been destroyed in a blitz of bombs and disease. The only ones who have survived are children, among them Gwen Darling and her siblings, Joanna and Mikey. They spend their nights scavenging and their days avoiding the ruthless Marauders -- the German Army led by Captain Hanz Otto Oswald Kretschmer. Unsure if the virus has spread past England's borders but desperate to leave, Captain Hook hunts for a cure, which he thinks can be found in one of the survivors. He and his Marauders stalk the streets snatching children for experimentation. None ever return. Until the day they grab Joanna. As Gwen sets out to save her, she meets a daredevil boy named Pete. Pete offers the assistance of his gang of Lost Boys and the fierce sharpshooter Bella, who have all been living in a city hidden underground. But in a place where help has a steep price and every promise is bound by blood, it will cost Gwen. And are she, Pete, the Lost Boys, and Bella enough to outsmart Captain Hook?

Download or read book Chickenshed written by Elizabeth Thomson and published by Elliott & Thompson. This book was released on 2013-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Chickenshed, the Theatre Company in North London, is one of the most innovative and best loved performing arts organisations in Britain today. A pioneer of inclusion, open to people of all ages, backgrounds, races and abilities, it has profoundly affected the lives of the thousands who have walked through its doors. Now, to celebrate its 40th anniversary, the full tale of this .. Company is told for the first time. In chickenshed... charts this incredible story through interviews and personal recollections from those who have been touched by the theatre's work. Featuring hundreds of unpublished images that reveal the passion and vibrancy that have made Chickenshed the success it is today..."-- Back cover.

Download or read book The Panda the Cat and the Dreadful Teddy A Parody written by Paul Magrs and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The surely soon-to-be million-copy bestselling sort-of inspirational parody..

Download or read book The Wendy Project written by Melissa Jane Osborne and published by Super Genius. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 16-year-old Wendy Davies crashes her car into a lake on a late summer night in New England with her two younger brothers in the backseat. When she wakes in the hospital, she is told that her youngest brother, Michael, is dead. Wendy — a once rational teenager – shocks her family by insisting that Michael is alive and in the custody of a mysterious flying boy. Placed in a new school, Wendy negotiates fantasy and reality as students and adults around her resemble characters from Neverland. Given a sketchbook by her therapist, Wendy starts to draw. But is The Wendy Project merely her safe space, or a portal between worlds?

Download or read book The Time travelling Caveman written by Terry Pratchett and published by Random House. This book was released on 2020-09-03 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *The final collection of short stories from the incredible Sir Terry Pratchett!* Imagination is an amazing thing. It can take you to the top of the highest mountain, or down to the bottom of the deepest depths of the sea. This where it took Doggins on his Awfully Big Adventure: a quest full of magic and flying machines. (And the world's best joke - trust me, it's hilarious.) It took three young inventors to the moon (where they may or may not have left a bottle of lemonade) and a caveman on a trip to the dentist. You can join them on these adventures, and many more, in this incredible collection of stories . . . From the greatest imagination there ever was. Written for local newspapers when Terry Pratchett was a young lad, these never previously published stories are packed full of anarchic humour and wonderful wit. A must-have for Terry fans . . . and young readers looking for a fix of magic.

Download or read book Hook s Tale written by John Leonard Pielmeier and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-07-18 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rollicking debut novel from award-winning playwright and screenwriter John Pielmeier reimagines the childhood of the much maligned Captain Hook: his quest for buried treasure, his friendship with Peter Pan, and the story behind the swashbuckling world of Neverland. Long defamed as a vicious pirate, Captain James Cook (a.k.a Hook) was in fact a dazzling wordsmith who left behind a vibrant, wildly entertaining, and entirely truthful memoir. His chronicle offers a counter narrative to the works of J.M. Barrie, a “dour Scotsman” whose spurious accounts got it all wrong. Now, award-winning playwright John Pielmeier is proud to present this crucial historic artifact in its entirety for the first time. Cook’s story begins in London, where he lives with his widowed mother. At thirteen, he runs away from home, but is kidnapped and pressed into naval service as an unlikely cabin boy. Soon he discovers a treasure map that leads to a mysterious archipelago called the “Never-Isles” from which there appears to be no escape. In the course of his adventures he meets the pirates Smee and Starkey, falls in love with the enchanting Tiger Lily, adopts an oddly affectionate crocodile, and befriends a charming boy named Peter—who teaches him to fly. He battles monsters, fights in mutinies, swims with mermaids, and eventually learns both the sad and terrible tale of his mother’s life and the true story of his father’s disappearance. Like Gregory Maguire’s Wicked, Hook’s Tale offers a radical new version of a classic story, bringing readers into a much richer, darker, and enchanting version of Neverland than ever before. The characters that our hero meets—including the terrible Doctor Uriah Slinque and a little girl named Wendy—lead him to the most difficult decision of his life: whether to submit to the temptation of eternal youth, or to embrace the responsibilities of maturity and the inevitability of his own mortality. His choice, like his story, is not what you might expect.

Download or read book Bang Goes a Troll written by David Sinden and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-09-15 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's A Troll Hunt! When a messenger bat arrives at the RSPCB, boy-werewolf Ulf receives a warning that beasts are in trouble in the wild. Unaware of the danger he is facing, Ulf soon uncovers foul play: A rare colony of trolls is being smoked out from their caves to be used as game in an evil beast-hunting preserve. It's up to Ulf to save the day!

Download or read book Boris and Bella written by Carolyn Crimi and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2006-09 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bella Legrossi and Boris Kleanitoff, the messiest and cleanest monsters in Booville respectively, do nothing but argue until the night of Harry Beastie's Halloween party.

Download or read book Read Me Like A Book written by Liz Kessler and published by Orion Children's Books. This book was released on 2015-05-14 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'An important contribution to the YA literary canon and a welcome reminder that love is love, no matter what.' - Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author The first YA novel from bestselling author Liz Kessler, Read Me Like A Book is a brave, honest and vital coming-out story that follows one girl's exploration of love, identity and sexuality. Ashleigh Walker is having a difficult year. She's struggling at school, and coming home to parents who are on the verge of divorce. She knows she should be happy spending time with her boyfriend - but, for some reason, being around him just makes her worry more. It's only in her English teacher, Miss Murray, that she feels she's found a kindred spirit. Miss Murray helps Ashleigh develop her writing skills and her confidence - but what happens when boundaries begin to blur? What will the repercussions be for Ashleigh? And how will she navigate her own sexuality?

Download or read book A Time of Gifts written by Patrick Leigh Fermor and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2011-09-14 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This beloved account about an intrepid young Englishman on the first leg of his walk from London to Constantinople is simply one of the best works of travel literature ever written. At the age of eighteen, Patrick Leigh Fermor set off from the heart of London on an epic journey—to walk to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the rich account of his adventures as far as Hungary, after which Between the Woods and the Water continues the story to the Iron Gates that divide the Carpathian and Balkan mountains. Acclaimed for its sweep and intelligence, Leigh Fermor’s book explores a remarkable moment in time. Hitler has just come to power but war is still ahead, as he walks through a Europe soon to be forever changed—through the Lowlands to Mitteleuropa, to Teutonic and Slav heartlands, through the baroque remains of the Holy Roman Empire; up the Rhine, and down to the Danube. At once a memoir of coming-of-age, an account of a journey, and a dazzling exposition of the English language, A Time of Gifts is also a portrait of a continent already showing ominous signs of the holocaust to come.

Download or read book Mega Robo Bros written by Neill Cameron and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2018-03-27 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: London! The future! Alex and Freddy are just like any other brothers. They squabble. They drive their parents crazy. There's only one difference... They're the most powerful robots on Earth! But Alex and Freddy will soon discover that they're not the only super-powered robots around. For an evil robotic mind is making sinister plans, and their lives won't stay peaceful for much longer...

Download or read book The Magic Bojabi Tree written by Dianne Hofmeyr and published by Lincoln Children's Books. This book was released on 2014-04-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Python has wrapped himself around the melon/mango/pomegranate tree with its delicious fruit, and he won't share the fruit unless the animals can tell him the correct name of the tree. Elephant, Monkey and Zebra each in turn visit Lion, who alone knows the name of the tree. But every time, the animals forget the name on the journey back to the tree. Then Tortoise, the slowest, smallest animal goes to Lion - and sings a special song to remind him of the name. It is the Bojabi Tree! Python unwraps himself from the trunk, and all the animals share a feast.