There is no light without dark; no highlights without shadows; no good without evil. The Devil is where things happen. Where stories begin. This collection brings together stories from multiple cultures, featuring the Devil both as an abstract concept and a creature, a terror, a force of nature, an enemy, a trickster, and so many more.Step into the world of shadows, and travel through Devil's many incarnations spanning centuries of history and myth, from the Ancient Greece, African...

A sweet and poignant story of friendship, from acclaimed short-story writer Ben LooryThe baseball player has it all—money, fame, and success. But something is missing. He doesn’t know what it is until he goes to the zoo and sees a walrus. What a splendid creature! Surely it could bring joy to his life. With happiness just a walrus away, the baseball player sets out to create the perfect enclosure for his new friend. He’s even willing to give up his job to be with t...

**“Mesmerizing and magical. . . . A stunning book.” —NPR.org“Short stories so imaginative — and yet so perplexingly familiar — they could have formed in a dream. . . . Taut, meticulously balanced and written in Loory’s direct, witty prose, his own stories take a page from Aesop: high-flying tales nonetheless boiled down to the essentials.” —The Los Angeles Times“Ben Loory’s stories are little gifts, strange and moving and wonderfully human. I devoured this book in ...

“This guy can write!” —Ray BradburyLoory's collection of wry and witty, dark and perilous contemporary fables is populated by people-and monsters and trees and jocular octopi-who are united by twin motivations: fear and desire. In his singular universe, televisions talk (and sometimes sing), animals live in small apartments where their nephews visit from the sea, and men and women and boys and girls fall down wells and fly through space and find love on Ferris whee...

Three foster brothers are called home to Neverwood, the stately Pacific Northwest mansion of their youth. They have nothing in common but a promise to Audrey, the woman they all called mother-that upon her death, they would restore the house and preserve it as a home for troubled boys.But going home is never easy.Cal struggles to recover from past heartbreak, while Danny fears his mistakes are too big to overcome. Devon believes he may never break down the barriers that sep...

A young bridge painter is awakened from the hum of daily routine by a face-to-face encounter with a woman in free fall."The Bridge" is a story from Daniel Orozco's critically acclaimed collection Orientation, which leads the reader through the hidden lives and moral philosophies of bridge painters, men housebound by obesity, office temps, and warehouse workers. He reveals the secret pleasures of late-night supermarket trips for cookie binges, exceptional data entry, and an...

Lightship Chronicles is a young adult adventure set on a mysterious world. Carpatia is a harsh desert land, but one with spectacular vistas and populated by two very different yet resilient people, the Carpati and the Bitani. Both believe in competing myths of their history. Myths of great ancient battles fought over by a clan of mysterious Sacred Warriors against magical Light-Fairies. Under the glowing warmth of their red-giant sun, it's easy for the Carpati to believe in their beautiful...

The exciting prequel to the Witches of East End series from Blue Bloods author, Melissa de la Cruz.

The acclaimed author "assembles a stellar collection of twenty stories that create their own worlds in twenty pages or less" ( USA Today ).Tom Perrotta explains in his introduction that "all of [these stories] took me somewhere I didn't expect to go, and jolted me into that state of heightened awareness and emotional receptivity that's one of the great rewards of reading good fiction."In Nathan Englander s What We ...

Alvin takes on camping in the second book in the hilarious chapter book series that tackles anxiety in a fun, kid-friendly way. Perfect for both beginning and reluctant readers, and fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid!Alvin, an Asian American second grader who's afraid of everything, is back, and his worst fear has come true: he has to go camping. What will he do exposed in the wilderness with bears and darkness and . . . pit toilets? Luckily, he’s got his night-vision go...

After the death of her father, Sabrina Bishop feels a sense of relief that he’s gone.No longer will he be able to abuse her mother mentally or physically, and just maybe her mother might grow to see what he’d done to her was wrong. But with the death of Jim Bishop, Sabrina is now responsible for her mother’s well-being since Ruby can’t read or write and has lived a sheltered life. But Ruby has a very small comfort zone in rural West Tennessee, and that means she can’t come live wit...

A chilling middle grade novel featuring a brave young girl, missing parents, and a terrifying stranger, based on a Native American legend. R.L. Stine, New York Times bestselling author of the Goosebumps series, raved, "This book gave ME nightmares!”Molly’s father, who grew up on the Mohawk Reserve of Akwesasne, always had the best scary stories. One of her favorites was the legend of Skeleton Man, a gruesome tale about a man with such insatiable hunger he ...