A collection of 11 new short stories & 6 new poems by Ireland`s top children`s writers, edited by Laureate na n Og Eoin Colfer & illustrated by world renowned artist PJ Lynch. Each of the stories & poems is based around the theme of place, being set or inspired by a particular location within Irel&. Contributors include: Eoin Colfer Roddy Doyle Derek Landy Siobhan Parkinson Paula Leyden John Connolly Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick Oisin Mc Gann Jane Mitchell Sarah Webb Jim Sheridan Enda Wyley Pat Boran Seamus Cashman Mark Granier Geraldine Mills Kate Newmann ...

A collection of 11 short stories & 6 poems by Ireland`s top children`s writers, commissioned & edited by Eoin Colfer & illustrated by world-renowned artist & Laureate na n Og PJ Lynch. Each of the stories & poems is based around the theme of place, being set in or inspired by a particular location within Irel&. Contributors include: Eoin Colfer Roddy Doyle Derek Landy Siobhan Parkinson Paula Leyden John Connolly Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick Oisin Mc Gann Jane Mitchell Sarah Webb Jim Sheridan Enda Wyley Pat Boran Seamus Cashman Mark Granier Geraldine Mills Kate Newmann ...

From wicked queens, beautiful princesses, elves, monsters, & goblins to giants, glass slippers, poisoned apples, magic keys, & mirrors, the characters & images of fairy tales have cast a spell over readers & audiences, both adults & children, for centuries. These fantastic stories have travelled across cultural borders, & been passed on from generation to generation, ever-changing, renewed with each re-telling. Few forms of literature have greater power to enchant us & rekindle our imagination than a fairy tale. But what is a fairy tale? Where do they come from & what do they mean? What do they try & communicate to us about morality, sexuality, & society? The range of fairy tales stretches across great distances & time; their history is entangled with folklore & myth, & their inspiration draws on ideas about nature & the supernatural, imagination & fantasy, psychoanalysis, & feminism. Marina Warner has loved fairy tales over a long writing life, & she explores here a multitude of tales through the ages, their different manifestations on the page, the stage, & the screen. From the phenomenal rise of Victorian & Edwardian literature to contemporary children`s stories, Warner unfolds a glittering array of examples, from classics such as Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, & The Sleeping Beauty, the Grimm Brothers` Hansel & Gretel, & Hans Andersen`s The Little Mermaid, to modern-day realizations including Walt Disney`s Snow White & gothic interpretations such as Pan`s Labyrinth. In ten succinct chapters, Marina Warner digs into a rich hoard of fairy tales in their brilliant & fantastical variations, in order to define a genre & evaluate a literary form that keeps shifting through time & history. Her book makes a persuasive case for fairy tale as a crucial repository of human understanding & culture. ...

* Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award 2017* * Shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award 2017** Selected as a 2017 Book of the Year in the Sunday Times* Xiaolu Guo meets her parents for the first time when she is almost seven. They are strangers to her. When she is born in 1973, her parents hand her over to a childless peasant couple in the mountains. Aged two, & suffering from malnutrition on a diet of yam leaves, they leave Xiaolu with her illiterate grandparents in a fishing village on the East China Sea. Once Upon a Time in the East takes Xiaolu from a run-down shack to film school in a rapidly changing Beijing, navigating the everyday peculiarity of modern China: censorship, underground art, Western boyfriends. In 2002 she leaves Beijing on a scholarship to study in Britain. Now, after a decade in Europe, her tale of East to West resonates with the insight that can only come from someone who is both an outsider & at home.` This generation`s Wild Swans` Daily Telegraph ...

` This generation`s Wild Swans` Daily Telegraph ` One of the most startling & fascinating memoirs I`ve read in recent years...a story of China` Libby Purves` Impressive...moving...exhilarating` Financial Times` Guo is rebellious, flamboyant & fundamentally optimistic...fascinating` Scotland on Sunday` This stunning memoir picks up where Jung Chang`s 1991 bestseller Wild Swans left off... This book will make your jaw drop, then clench in anger` Five stars, Sunday Telegraph` Riveting... Guo is a bolder, angrier & more ambitious figure than her forebears` The Times Xiaolu Guo meets her parents for the first time when she is almost seven. They are strangers to her. When she is born her parents hand her over to a childless peasant couple in the mountains. Aged two, & suffering from malnutrition on a diet of yam leaves, they leave Xiaolu with her illiterate grandparents in a fishing village on the East China Sea. It`s a strange beginning.A Wild Swans for a new generation, Once Upon a Time in the East takes Xiaolu from a run-down shack to film school in a rapidly changing Beijing, navigating the everyday peculiarity of modern China: censorship, underground art, Western boyfriends. In 2002 she leaves Beijing on a scholarship to study in Britain. Now, after a decade in Europe, her tale of East to West resonates with the insight that can only come from someone who is both an outsider & at home. Xiaolu Guo`s extraordinary memoir is a handbook of life lessons. How to be an artist when censorship kills creativity & the only job you can get is writing bad telenovela scripts. How to be a woman when female babies are regularly drowned at birth & sexual abuse is commonplace. Most poignantly of all: how to love when you`ve never been shown how. ...

Little Green Raincape is on her way to Rapunzel`s party, deep in the wild woods. The way is long & dark, but Green is a smart girl. Smart enough to turn down apples offered by kindly old ladies, smart enough to turn down travel advice from helpful wolves, & above all, smart enough to solve a wealth of classic fairy tale problems
- not least mend a lovelorn beast`s broken heart. Once Upon a Wild Wood is a richly imagined story packed full of familiar fairy tale characters as you`ve never seen them before. Including Red Riding Hood, Thumbelina, Rapunzel, Beauty & the Beast, Cinderella, the three bears, the seven dwarfs & many more!A visual feast on every page, illustrated with warmth & humour & full of witty details to discover
- this is Chris Riddell at his picture book best!

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The letters of our alphabet work tirelessly to make words that in turn make stories, but what if there was a story for each of the letters instead? Turn the pages of this exquisite book to find out. Here you will discover twenty-six short stories introducing a host of new characters (plus the occasional familiar face). From Edmund the astronaut with his awkward fear of heights, via the dynamic new investigative duo of the Owl & the Octopus, through to the Zeppelin that just might get Edmund a little bit closer to where he needs to be, this book is packed with funny, thrilling, perilous & above all entertaining tales inspired by every letter in the alphabet. An adventure to follow from A to Z, or a treasure trove to dip in & out of, Once Upon an Alphabet is a work of exhilarating originality from artist Oliver Jeffers, the creator of much-loved modern classics such as Lost & Found & The Incredible Book Eating Boy. ...

This is the story of Maxine & Sheila Kohler, two sisters who grew up in the suffocating gentility of 1950s South Africa. When Maxine is just shy of her fortieth birthday her husb&, a brilliant & respected surgeon, drives their car off the road & kills her. Devastated, Sheila returns to the country of her birth, haunted by questions. How had she failed to protect her sister? Was Maxine`s death a matter of chance, or destiny? What lies in the soil of their troubled motherland that condemns its women to such violence? ...

Alan Duff`s groundbreaking first novel is one of the most talked about books ever published in New Zealand & now the basis of a major New Zealand film. This hard hitting story is a frank & uncompromising portrayal of Maoaris in New Zealand society. It is a raw & powerful story in which everyone ia a victim until the strength & vision of one woman transcends brutality & leads the way to a new life. ...

Shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2012 In the remote Kootenay Valley in western Canada, good people sometimes do bad things. Two adolescents sabotage a rope swing; a heartbroken young man chooses not to warn his best friend about an approaching car; sons challenge their fathers. Crackling with tension & propelled by jagged, cutting dialogue, D.W. Wilson`s stories reveal to us how our best intentions can be doomed to fail or injure, how our loves can fall short or mislead us. An intoxicating cocktail of adrenaline & vulnerability, doggedness & dignity, Once You Break a Knuckle explores the courage it takes to make it through another day. ...