Family Life Science

Ella's one wish is to become a fairy like her mom. She dreams of the day she will have her sparkly crown and Computwand. Ella even imagines what her first spell would be: a glittery unicorn of her very own. But Ella knows that spells are often harder than they look, even with the special fairy apps available...and being a fairy in waiting is not all rainbows and butterflies. Will Ella learn more magic to help her become a fairy someday? Or will she learn she doesn't need to be a fairy yet for all her wishes to come true?

Today’s college-bound kids are stressed, anxious, and navigating demands in their lives unimaginable to a previous generation. They’re performance machines, hitting the benchmarks they’re “supposed” to in order to reach the next tier of a relentless ladder. Then, their mental and physical exhaustion carries over right into first jobs. What have traditionally been considered the best years of life have become the beaten-down years of life.

On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn’t exactly the one she expected. She’s happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday.

Prue McKeel’s life is ordinary. At least until her brother is abducted by a murder of crows and taken to the Impassable Wilderness, a dense, tangled forest on the edge of Portland. No one’s ever gone in – or at least returned to tell of it. So begins an adventure that will take Prue and her friend, Curtis, deep into the Impassable Wilderness. There they uncover a secret world in the midst of violent upheaval - a world full of warring creatures, peaceable mystics, and powerful figures with the darkest intentions.

Book two left off with Gregor reading the Prophecy of Blood: a prophecy that calls for Gregor and Boots to return to the Underland to help ward off a plague. But this time, Gregor's mother refuses to let Gregor return to the Underland...until the rat Ripred assures the family that Gregor and Boots are needed only for a short meeting, which the crawlers will attend only if their "princess" Boots is present.

Now that Septimus, Jenna, and Beetle are 14 years old, they have assumed larger roles in their Magykal world. Beetle is the Chief Hermetic Scribe of the Manuscriptorium and Jenna will soon be Queen, but Septimus is still battling the remnants of the Darke Domaine, which will remain until the power of the evil Two-Faced Ring is destroyed forever. To accomplish that, the ancient Alchemie Fyre must be relit - a task that sends Septimus to the very origins of Magyk and Physik.

Life of a Klansman tells the story of a warrior in the Ku Klux Klan, a carpenter in Louisiana who took up the cause of fanatical racism during the years after the Civil War. Edward Ball, a descendant of the Klansman, paints a portrait of his family’s anti-Black militant that is part history, part memoir rich in personal detail.

From New York Times best-selling author and award-winning reporter Ronald Kessler, The First Family Detail tells eye-opening, behind-the-scenes stories from Secret Service agents about presidents and their families.

Immerse yourself in a land of bomnubbles and quarreling cousins, sea dragons and book publishers, thieves and Fangs and secret maps. Inside this book lie seven stories of the distant past, lost adventures, forgotten songs, and heartbreaking histories. The Shining Isle is restored, but Aerwiar is vast - and these authors have tales yet to tell.

A taste of her own medicine. George is alone in the house with Grandma. The most horrid, grizzly old grunion of a grandma ever. She needs something stronger than her usual medicine to cure her grouchiness. A special grandma medicine, a remedy for everything. And George knows just what to put into it. Grandma's in for the surprise of her life - and so is George, when he sees the results of his mixture!

The Masked Man is on the loose in the Land of Stories, and it's up to Alex and Conner Bailey to stop him...except Alex has been thrown off the Fairy Council, and no one will believe they're in danger.

What are we going to do with those 20 or 30 years we didn’t expect? Due to unfounded fears of unhappiness and regret, many intelligent, otherwise rational people, even into their 40s and 50s, are so convinced that old age is a time of misery that they simply deny any other outcome and refuse to plan their own destiny. This optimistic and highly informative guide to smart aging will detail for listeners the steps they need to take to ensure that long life becomes synonymous with good life.

The fate of Artimé is at stake - and an unlikely alliance could redeem it - in book three in the New York Times best-selling Unwanteds series. The magical world of Artimé is gone. The Unwanteds have no food, no water, and no hope. And everyone is looking to Alex Stowe for answers. Overwhelmed and feeling totally helpless, Alex knows it’s up to him to find a way to restore Artimé, rescue his captive friends, and free Megan from her voice-stealing necklace of thorns - three impossible tasks.

When Natalie’s science teacher suggests that she enter an egg drop competition, she thinks it could be the perfect solution to all of her problems. With the prize money, she can fly her botanist mother to see the miraculous Cobalt Blue Orchids—flowers with the resilience to survive against impossible odds. Her mother has been suffering from depression, and Natalie is positive that the flowers’ magic will inspire her mom to fall in love with life again.

For nearly a century, Victorian London relied on “climbing boys” - orphans owned by chimney sweeps - to clean flues and protect homes from fire. The work was hard, thankless, and brutally dangerous. Eleven-year-old Nan Sparrow is quite possibly the best climber who ever lived - and a girl. But when Nan gets stuck in a deadly chimney fire, she fears her time has come. Instead, she wakes to find herself in an abandoned attic. And she is not alone. Huddled in the corner is a mysterious creature - a golem - made from ash and coal. This is the creature that saved her from the fire.

Magic is fading from the Wild Wood. To renew it, goblins must perform an ancient ritual involving the rarest of their kind - a newborn changeling. But when the fateful night arrives to trade a human baby for a goblin one, something goes terribly wrong. After laying the changeling in a human infant's crib, the goblin Kull is briefly distracted from his task. By the time he turns back, the changeling has already perfectly mimicked the human child. Too perfectly: Kull cannot tell them apart. Not knowing which to bring back, he leaves both babies behind.

On a family trip to Paris, Greg Rich's parents disappear. They're not just missing from the city - they're missing from the century. So, Greg does what any other 14-year-old would do: He travels through time to rescue them. Greg soon finds out that his family history is tied to the legendary Three Musketeers. But when he meets them, they're his age, and they'll only live long enough to become true heroes if he can save them.

From these disparate phenomena: Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse who as president of a Midwestern college observed the trials of this generation up close, sees an existential threat to the American way of life. In The Vanishing American Adult, Sasse diagnoses the causes of a generation that can't grow up and offers a path for raising children to become active and engaged citizens. He identifies core formative experiences that all young people should pursue.

Gregor is summoned back to the Underland by the terms of a second prophecy. Spies have reported the sighting of a Rat King, a character who has been legendary since the Middle Ages. Recognizable by its tremendous size and snow-white coat, the Rat King is destined to bring a World War to the Underland. Gregor eventually comes face to face with the Rat King, and to his surprise, he finds he is unable to kill this creature. His heart tells him he's making the right decision.

Find out just how odd things get in this hilarious story of time travel and breakfast cereal, expertly told by Newbery Medalist and best-selling author Neil Gaiman.