A Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book and ALA Notable and Best of the Year in Young Adult Fiction, Howl's Moving Castle is by acclaimed fantasy writer Diane Wynne Jones and was transformed into an Academy Award nominated animated motion picture by Hayao Miyazaki. On a rare venture out from her step-mother's hat shop, Sophie attracts the attention of a witch, who casts a terrible spell transforming the young girl into an old crone.

The book is an autobiographical account of five years in the childhood of naturalist Gerald Durrell. The book is divided into three sections, marking the three villas in which the family lived on the island. Apart from Gerald (the youngest) and Larry, the family comprised their widowed mother, the gun-mad Leslie, and diet-obsessed sister Margo together with Roger the dog.

Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!

Vatanen, a journalist, is feeling burned out and sick of the city. One summer evening, he and a photographer set out on an assignment, and as they drive through the country, the car hits a young hare. Vatanen leaves the car to save the injured creature, and the grateful animal adopts him. This small incident becomes a turning point in Vatanen’s life as he decides to break free from the world’s constraints.

This charming little tale, with a gigantic heart, was written by E.B. White, best-known for the perennial favorite Charlotte's Web.

The BFG is no ordinary bone-crunching giant. He is far too nice and jumbly. It's lucky for Sophie that he is. Had she been carried off in the middle of the night by the Bloodbottler, or any of the other giants - rather than the BFG - she would have soon become breakfast. When Sophie hears that the giants are flush-bunking off to England to swollomp a few nice little chiddlers, she decides she must stop them once and for all. And the BFG is going to help her!

He wasn't born with the name Maniac Magee. He came into this world named Jeffrey Lionel Magee, but when his parents died and his life changed, so did his name. And Maniac Magee became a legend. Even today kids talk about how fast he could run; about how he hit an inside-the-park "frog" homer; about how no knot, no matter how snarled, would stay that way once he began to untie it. But the thing Maniac Magee is best known for is what he did for the kids from the East Side and those from the West Side.

The Boy lives in a cottage with his mother and father, and the Dragon lives in a cave on the Downs. The Boy is his only friend. The Dragon is not at all the sort of Dragon one might expect to meet, however: he's polite and friendly.

The holiday film A Christmas Story, first released in 1983, has become a bona fide Christmas perennial, gaining in stature and fame with each succeeding year. Its affectionate, wacky, and wryly realistic portrayal of an American family's typical Christmas joys and travails in small-town Depression-era Indiana has entered our imagination and our hearts with a force equal to It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street.

For 60 years Eleanor Estes' classic novel about a family struggling to get along in the early part of the century has charmed and delighted readers with its warmth and gentle humor. Now it comes to life in a full cast recording that will have you laughing out loud...and occasionally wiping away a tear. Our whole cast fell in love with this book, and we predict that you will, too.

William McInnes' best-selling memoir, A Man's Got to Have a Hobby, takes us back to the long summer holidays of the 1960s and '70s and the last of the baby-boomer childhoods. William narrates with humour and affection about his family and especially his mum and dad, who talked to the TV set and enjoyed life in their house near the bay. William McInnes is a talented writer and a natural storyteller.

America's most hilarious sportsman returns with this collection of insights about youth, the great outdoors, and the philosophy of fileting fish. When best-selling author Patrick McManus looks at a subject, you're sure to come away with an outrageously new perspective.

Crackpot is what everybody calls the Pott family. So when they go to buy a new car and come back with a wreck, nobody is surprised. Except for the Potts themselves. First, the car has a name. And she tells them what it is. Then they find that she can fly... and swim... Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a car on a mission to stop a criminal gang in its tracks and she is taking the Potts with her! Jump into the world s most loved magical car, for her first adventure ever!

You don't have to be a hunter or camper to enjoy this collection of hilarious stories by a writer who is often compared to Mark Twain and Garrison Keillor. In fact, the charm of Patrick F. McManus' work is that it provides plenty of reasons for staying indoors, surrounded by friendly appliances. You'll laugh aloud as McManus and his friends, including Rancid and Crazy Eddie, venture into the great outdoors to face formidable foes.

The legendary Deep Thoughts and New Yorker humorist Jack Handey is back with his very first novel - a hilarious, absurd, far-flung adventure tale. "Are you a fan of books in which famous tourist destinations are re-purposed as unlivable hellholes for no particular reason? Jack Handey's exotic tale is full of laugh-out-loud twists. A reliably unreliable narrator and his friend, who is some other guy, need to get out of town. They have a taste for adventure, so they pay a visit to a relic of bygone days - a travel agent - and discover an old treasure map."

You don't have to be a hunter or camper to enjoy this collection of hilarious stories by a writer who is often compared to Mark Twain and Garrison Keillor. In fact, the charm of Patrick F. McManus' work is that it provides plenty of reasons for staying indoors, surrounded by friendly appliances. You'll laugh aloud as McManus and his friends, including Rancid and Crazy Eddie, venture into the great outdoors to face formidable foes.

It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it. Guts, glory, danger, and sacrifice are all in a day's work for Hank the Cowdog, Head of Ranch Security. While investigating a murder on the ranch, Hank finds himself the number-one suspect.

Nominated for a 2011 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album For Children. Who better to read the novel of the new Nanny McPhee film than Nanny McPhee herself, Emma Thompson, who also wrote both the screenplay and the novel. This delightful audio edition captures the magic and the mayhem of Nanny McPhee’s brand new adventure – it will have you laughing out loud!

In The Road, Jack London embraces the concepts of unconfined individualism and Darwinism through his autobiographical account of his time riding the rails of Canada and the United States. The author of White Fang, The Call of the Wild, and Sea Wolf, relays the time leading up to turning point in his life - a perfunctory trial and a 30-day imprisonment in the Erie County Penitentiary for the crime of vagrancy - an experience so degrading that he turned to a career in writing.

Let the world's funniest sportsman tickle your funny bone with quirky homespun stories and whimsical perspectives on life. Patrick F. McManus gently pokes fun at the oddities of sacred institutions like friendship, marriage, and even hunting and fishing. Soon his crazy theories start making sense, and you know you've crossed the border into McManus country, where life is a little lighter - and much more amusing.

Aidan and Meg Falconer are their parents' only hope. The Falconers are facing life in prison -- unless Aidan and Meg can follow a trail of clues to prove their innocence. The problem? Right now they're trapped in a juvenile detention center. Until they escape one night -- and find themselves on the run, both from the authorities and from a sinister attacker who has his own reason to stop them.

The mysterious Stalkers show up at almost the same instant 12-year-old Aiden Cain’s grandmother dies. Following his grandmother’s instructions, Aiden decides to seek out a powerful sorcerer at Melstone House. Yet when he arrives, he discovers the man died a year earlier. Melstone House now belongs to the sorcerer’s adult grandson Andrew, who agrees to help Aiden with the Stalker problem.

A quest, a war, a ring that would be grounds for calling any wedding off, a king without a kingdom, and a furry little "hero" named Frito, ready - or maybe just forced by the wizard Goodgulf - to undertake the one mission that can save Lower Middle Earth from enslavement by the evil Sorhed. Luscious Elf-maidens, a roller-skating dragon, ugly plants that can soul kiss the unwary to death-these are just some of the ingredients in the wildest, wackiest, most irreverent excursion into fantasy realms that anyone has ever dared to undertake.

William McInnes' best-selling memoir, A Man's Got to Have a Hobby, takes us back to the long summer holidays of the 1960s and '70s and the last of the baby-boomer childhoods. William narrates with humour and affection about his family and especially his mum and dad, who talked to the TV set and enjoyed life in their house near the bay. William McInnes is a talented writer and a natural storyteller.

In 1851 a mysterious visitor to Art Mumby's space home has plans for a calamity that will destroy not only the entire British Empire, but also the known universe. Can disaster be prevented with help from Art's irritating sister Myrtle, a few exotic space creatures, and an extraterrestrial pirate?

This superb collection of larger-than-life folk heroes aptly represents America’s robust early days, perfectly capturing the vitality of the men and women who carved a new country out of the North American wilderness. Author Mary Pope Osborne supplies a fascinating introduction to each tale and then gives her own original twist to the telling of it. Scott Snivley takes the listener on a wild ride from sea to shining sea in this classic collection, which includes Davy Crocket, Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind, Johnny Appleseed, Stormalong, Mose, Febold Feboldson, Pecos Bill, John Henry, and Paul Bunyan.

The book is an autobiographical account of five years in the childhood of naturalist Gerald Durrell. The book is divided into three sections, marking the three villas in which the family lived on the island. Apart from Gerald (the youngest) and Larry, the family comprised their widowed mother, the gun-mad Leslie, and diet-obsessed sister Margo together with Roger the dog.

Zimbabwe, 2194. General Matsika's three children sneak out of the house on a forbidden adventure and disappear. Immediately,the general calls Africa's most unusual detectives: the Ear, the Eye, and the Arm. Together these three detectives combine their superhuman powers to find the missing children. It's a dangerous mission that leads them from the seedy streets of the Cow's Guts to the swaying top of the Mile-High MacIlwaine Hotel.

Paddington Bear had traveled all the way from Darkest Peru when the Brown family first met him on Paddington Station. Since then their lives have never been quite the same... for ordinary things become quite extraordinary when a bear called Paddington is involved.

Originally published in 1897, H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds was the first novel of alien invasion. Wells' most popular book, it inspired several unauthorized sequels, including Orson Welles' 1938 radio play, several movies, a television show, and many comic book and graphic novel adaptations. Wells' classic story remains one of the most popular Victorian novels to this day, and it set the tone for all stories of alien invasion that have followed.