Discover the beautiful stories of Michael Morpurgo, author of Warhorse and the nation’s favourite storyteller A moving story of a brother, a sister and a swallow, and how all are in some way victims of the horrors of landmines.

This collection of 267 personal letters will introduce you to Oliver, Eleanor & Marietta Boizard and their friends. You will journey with the Boizards to Florida during the Seminole Indian War where Eleanor works as a laundress at Fort Myers while Oliver's Army unit is building a road through the swamp near Lake Okeechobee. From there Oliver's Army unit moves to Fort Leavenworth and Fort Ridgely in the Nebraska Territory. In 1861 when the American Civil War begins, Oliver is stationed in Newport Barracks, Kentucky. At the expiration of his enlistment in February 1864, Oliver moves to Chicago. Due to health reasons, his wife and daughter move to Glen Arbor, Michigan. From 1864-1870 Oliver and Eleanor write to each other and occasionally visit. Oliver works to support his family. You will read about Indians, military outposts, Civil War Battles, General Grant, Sherman's march and the assassination of President Lincoln. You will also discover the cost of many everyday items during the mid-1800's.

From the Costa award-winning author of Harvey Angell comes the perfect book for fathers and sons to share - and for anyone who has ever been part of a crazy but loveable family. Oliver Coggin lives with his chaotic family in Dizzy Perch, a crazy house on top of a mountain somewhere remote in Scotland. With Pa away - on mysterious but exciting scientific research - Oliver keeps the household going. Not that everyone always listens to what he has to say. Or appreciates him. But what does Oliver want himself? He'd like to escape the house sometimes. He'd like a friend, like the new boy he sees in the village. Most of all, he'd like to understand why his father went away. And where's he's gone. So Oliver sets out on a long journey to get Pa back.

This particular story is about Olly’s local zoo and the adventures he has with some of the creatures who live there. After Olly’s father sees an article about the zoo in the local paper and how they might have to close down, he decides to take the family there for a day out. Whilst they are there, the family each decide to sponsor one of the creatures to help support the zoo and keep it open. This prompts a whole series of dreams where Olly imagines himself taking the animals the family have sponsored, out on various adventures. The story ends with Olly going to see where zoo animals come from and he learns what an important job they do in protecting endamgered species. This story aims to show young readers how important it is to support zoos which offer sanctuary to the worlds’ most endangered animal species. Whilst in an ideal world animals are best left in their natural habitat, this story aims to show that this is not always in their best interests to live in the wild. In cases where species are hunted down and killed for medicine, and where unrestrained habitat destruction occurs, zoo parks have an important role to play. Not only do zoo parks offer sanctuary for such animals, they also raise important publicity in respect to their plight in their natural habitats, which can be used to put pressure on politicians and world leaders to offer protection to such creatures and their habitats. They also offer important breeding opportunities so that colonies of the animals can be re-established in their original habitat, once conditions allow. In the latter part of the story, habitat destruction is illustrated very clearly in order to make young readers’/listeners conscious of how rainforests are being destroyed at an alarming rate.

Bibi feels out of place everywhere - everywhere that is, except for Tyme's End, the deserted house that she breaks into when she thinks nobody is nearby. There she unexpectedly meets Oliver Gardner, the owner of the house, who's just returned after ten years away. Their story and the story of Oliver's grandfather becomes inextricably entwined, linked as they are by Tyme's End itself. For Tyme's End is more than just a deserted house. It is a house that by turns can be romantic, beguiling, sinister and malevolent. It is a house that had a cruel and manipulative owner. And anybody who enters Tyme's End must prepare themselves for terror . . . Part mystery, part psychological thriller, set in the present yet with forays into the past, this is a cleverly ambitious novel that makes for a compulsive and gripping read.

Three unforgettable life-affirming journeys from the nation’s favourite storyteller to capture your heart.

Early one evening, a young boy called Olly was taken to see a performing circus as a special treat. For Olly it proved to be a very interesting night, filled with excitement and drama, as the various performers went through their acts. This story is about the things Olly saw during the circus performance, and about a dream he had later that night as he lay asleep in his bed. This particular book aims to teach young readers about the plight of the world’s endangered animals and was written in support of zoo parks and conservation projects around the world.

Pussweek is a magazine-style book written by cats, for cats. This means STRICTLY NO HUMANS ALLOWED, so if you have opposable thumbs just get out of here right meow! Pussweek Issue One covers important issues such as catnip addiction, litter, sleep, scratching post selection, plus competitions, advice, quizzes and much more.

Another 87th precinct novel from 'the undisputed master - and there's nobody who does it better' DAILY MIRROR Irritating though he was, Lester Henderson had it all when he strode up to rehearse his keynote address in the darkness of a downtown theatre. Widely tipped to be the next mayor and possessing a nice line in catalogue-casual daywear, Henderson stood four-square facing his glorious future. But five shots later and his lifeblood was seeping away - gunned down by person or persons unknown from stage-right... At that point he became Ollie Weeks' problem. But this savage crime is suddenly overshadowed by a deed even more repugnant. Ollie's life's work is his novel. Honed by countless rejection letters, it is finally ready to be released to the general populace. But then the one and only manuscript disappears, leaving Ollie to head off in pursuit of the thief. A thief who is convinced that Ollie's work contains the secret location of a hoard of hidden diamonds...

Science fiction for blokes – that’s what you get. If you’re a bloke and you want action and adventure and the odd joke to liven things up this series is designed to keep you entertained as it follows a group of enhanced humans and aliens through various adventures; all entities are represented as normal people doing reasonably normal things at one moment and travelling through dimensions, Time and galaxies the next.

Isherwood's final work of fiction—an epistolary novel that explores sexual identity and Eastern mysticism After a long separation, two English brothers meet in India. Oliver, the idealistic younger brother, prepares to take his final vows as a Hindu monk. Patrick, a successful publisher with a wife and children in London and a male lover in California, has publicly admired his brother's convictions while privately criticizing his choices. First published in 1967, A Meeting by the River delicately depicts the complexity of sibling relationships—the resentment and competitiveness as well as the love and respect. Ultimately, the brothers' exposure to each other's differences deepens their awareness of themselves. In A Meeting by the River, Christopher Isherwood dramatizes the conflict between sexuality and spirituality that inspired his late writings. “The best prose writer in English.” Gore Vidal

As WWI draws to a close, a love affair that stretches across countries, families and class begins, in master storyteller Eva Ibbotson's classic historical romance, with an introduction from Amanda Craig. Anna Grazinsky, a young Russian countess, has lived in the glittering city of St Petersburg all her life in an ice-blue palace overlooking the River Neva. But when revolution tears Russia apart, her now-penniless family is forced to flee to England. Armed with an out-of-date book on housekeeping, Anna determines to help her family in any way possible, and she is soon hired as a housemaid at the Earl of Westerholme's crumbling but magnificent mansion. Then Rupert, the young Earl, returns home from the war and is fascinated by his new housemaid, and the more time they spend together the more they feel inexplicably drawn together. But they can never be together; Rupert is already engaged and Anna is only a servant . . . 'I have binged on Eva Ibbotson . . . her elegantly written, witty and well-observed fables' Nigella Lawson, The Times Rediscover Eva Ibbotson, award-winning author of Journey to the River Sea, in her sweeping historical romances, including The Morning Gift, A Song For Summer and The Secret Countess, originally published as A Countess Below Stairs.

Celestial advocate Brianna Winston-Beaufort is eager to set aside handling appeals for condemned souls and get back to practicing law in the land of the living. Three months after taking over the family practice Bree jumps at the opportunity to work for an earthly client. But when elderly actress Justine Coville walks into Beaufort & Company's office to make changes to her will, she drags Bree right back into a whole other-world of troubles.

True Stories of Make-Believe to Entertain Readers New book is an anthology of engaging short stories filled with mysteries and adventures. McMinnville, OR Author Wave Joann Stevens treats young readers and fantasy-lovers as she releases, through Xlibris, a rich collection of exciting tales carved out of her imaginative mind. Mystery, Adventure & Nonsense: True Stories of Make-Believe takes readers to a world of the bizarre, eccentric, and utter fun. Composed of six different stories that are somehow interrelated, this release entertains with its unusual themes and unpredictable twists. Throughout the engaging pages, readers will follow The Adventures of Ollie and Willie, the peculiarity of the Reflections in the Mirror, the unconventional twirling of The Ballerina, the oblivion of The Boy, the consequences of being Topsyturvy, and the comfort of the Wooden Arms. Offering not only amusement, all these stories are filled with lessons and morals that are oftentimes forgotten in todays modern lifestyle. With its unconventional characters and uncanny yet highly amusing feel, Mystery, Adventure & Nonsense: True Stories of Make-Believe is a complete compilation of tales that exude the importance of having dreams, the bliss of friendship, and the essence of nature. This book will entertain both the young and the young at heart. For more information on this book, log on to www.Xlibris.com.

An “ingenious, gripping, thoughtful’ novel of island adventure and psychological depth by the acclaimed author of The Sea Road (Boyd Tonkin, Independent, UK). After fraudulently winning a writing competition, Sidony Redruth is sent by her editor to write the first-ever travel book on Hy Brasil, a near-mythical island somewhere in the Atlantic whose very existence has been a matter of debate as late as the nineteenth century. Inspired by islands real and imagined—from the Hebrides to Atlantis—Elphinstone’s plot takes Hy Brasil as its starting point, throws in some old-fashioned piracy, a lost treasure, modern-day drug smuggling, political intrigue, an active volcano and a tragic love affair. Told through Sidony’s notes for her book, Hy Brasil has all the elements of an adult adventure story, but it is also a contemporary thriller with literary influences ranging from The Tempest and Treasure Island to Moby-Dick. “Every other page, it seems, is gilded with erudite detail, bringing the saga templates to life...It’s a refreshing delight to read a novel of such extremely high caliber which interweaves mythical, magical and historical...Elphinstone is a worthy successor to writers like Linklater and Mackay Brown, developing their themes in the new century with a voice which is distinctly her own.”—The Herald, UK

A young gypsy is tasked with the fate of the world and her heart in this enthralling new novel full of passionate adventure, magic, and supernatural legend...The knowledge of a prophecy her family has kept secret, will bring her closer to discovering the truth about herself. Nadya CooperSmith must face a series of bizarre events, and decide on true love while fighting forces of evil.Determine to fulfill her destiny and follow her own heart, Nadya is willing to do anything. But is it enough?"A beautiful gypsy, two immortals, and the choice that will change her life forever."