What more could a reader want from a book than epic fights between good and evil, trips to the end of the earth, and amazing creatures? The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, penned by Clive Staples Lewis in 1949, is the book that contains everything. Lewis, however, didn’t stop there. The next six books made up what is now known as The Chronicles of Narnia.
The Chronicles of Narnia have been part of the canon of great literature for the past fifty years, transcending the fantasy genre. The seven volumes are each masterpiece that transports the reader to a place where magic coexists with reality, creating a make-believe world whose vastness has captivated readers for years.
This collection includes all seven works in one stunning volume, unabridged. Each chapter of the book is accompanied by an illustration created by the original artist, Pauline Baynes, and is given here in chronological sequence. Almost fifty years after its initial publication, the deceptively straightforward and easy Chronicles of Narnia manage to captivate readers with tales of adventures, relatable characters, and universal truths.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“One day, you will be old enough to start reading fairytales again.”
“Peter did not feel very brave; indeed, he felt he was going to be sick. But that made no difference to what he had to do.”
“But very quickly they all became grave again: for, as you know, there is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes.”
“Lucy woke out of the deepest sleep you can imagine, with the feeling that the voice she liked best in the world had been calling her name.”
“Narnia! It’s all in the wardrobe just like I told you!”
It was a stormy, gloomy night. A strange visitor appears at the Murry home during this chaotic night and invites Meg, her brother Charles Wallace, and their buddy Calvin O’Keefe on an astonishing journey that will endanger both their lives and the universe as a whole. A Wrinkle in Time, which won the 1963 Newbery Medal, is the first volume of Madeleine L’Engle’s renowned Time Quintet.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. – Mrs. Whatsit”
“We can’t take any credit for our talents. It’s how we use them that counts.”
“Believing takes practice.”
“I do not know everything; still many things I understand.”
“The only way to cope with something deadly serious is to try to treat it a little lightly.”
The continent of Narnia is a hidden location that is permanently frozen in winter and a magical nation that is just waiting to be exonerated. Lucy is the first to discover the wardrobe’s hidden meaning in the professor’s enigmatic old home. When she first tells them about her trip to Narnia, her brothers and sister don’t trust her. Edmund, Peter, and Susan eventually open the wardrobe on their own, though. They discover a nation in Narnia that has been destroyed by the White Witch’s terrible spell. They understand they have been summoned to a great adventure when they encounter the Lion Aslan, and they valiantly join the fight to liberate Narnia from the Witch’s evil spell.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia.”
“All shall be done, but it may be harder than you think.”
“Always winter but never Christmas.”
“If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most, or else just silly.”
“If ever they remembered their life in this world it was as one remembers a dream.”
Stunning new full-color illustrated Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Chris Riddell is available in a luxurious hardback version with a jacket. An ideal present for families, kids, and all admirers of this beloved favorite classic. Lewis Carroll’s well-known tale was first released by Macmillan more than 150 years ago, and subsequent generations of kids have adored and savored it.
The entire text of Lewis Carroll is presented in this book along with fresh artwork by Costa Award and Kate Greenaway Medal winner Chris Riddell. Chris Riddell’s illustrations for Alice, which were published 200 years after the birth of Sir John Tenniel, the book’s original illustrator and the dominant political cartoonist of his era, raised the bar for artistic excellence with their distinctive, rich, and moving depictions of Carroll’s world.
With the inquisitive, quick-witted Alice at its center, readers will not only rediscover characters like the charming White Rabbit, the intimidating Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, and the grinning Cheshire Cat, but they will also find new and magnificent renditions of these characters by a genuine master of his art; images that will live in our hearts and thoughts for centuries to come.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“If you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison’ it is certain to disagree with you sooner or later.”
“How puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m going to be, from one minute to another.”
“And what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversation?”
“In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.”
“That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: “because they lessen from day to day.”
A 7-year-old boy washes ashore in Wales half-drowned with head trauma and no memory of his history. His mother washes ashore and raises him. Because she will not tell him about his background or her own, he does not think she is his mother, Branwen, or that his name is Emrys. Despite having to cure wounds and burns for a career, a skill many fear and loathe as “of the devil,” she takes good care of him. Emrys, 12, discovers he has remarkable powers and begins to wonder if he is “of the devil.” Emrys vows never to use his powers again if God will let him sight again after a dreadful demonstration.
Though blind, he gains a “second sight” Emrys determines he is recovered enough and leaves Branwen to continue his mission. He seeks his past, identity, and place. He only carries medicinal herbs and a miraculous stone. Emrys visits Fincayra, a bridge between our world and “the other world.” He seeks himself there. The danger that threatens Fincayra and his new pals is just as crucial. An evil spirit has blighted the realm and crushed its people’s souls, and a merciless monarch is taking all its magical abilities to himself, like Sauron from Lord of the Rings and Arawn from The Prydain Chronicles.
The darkness is spreading, destroying much of the country’s beauty. Emrys does not want to become involved, but he must save a girl he loves. Emrys’ allies, the dwarf giant Shim and the merlin hawk Trouble will need courage, luck, and sacrifice. This wide-ranging, well-rounded tale has an engaging hero, breathtaking beauties, terrifying dangers, and enticing allies. The plot echoes Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles, especially The Black Cauldron. Both undoubtedly draw influence from comparable mythology; “brilliant minds think alike.” This richly researched, well-paced book provides a taster of the next series.
The books in the Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children series follow the story of young Jacob Portman, a typical kid who lives in Florida. The tales are set in the titular home for peculiar children. At the very least, he believed it to be the case. Jacob is desperate to find out what had happened after the mysterious death of his grandfather, Abraham Portman. This determination led him to the discovery of some very unusual people who were involved in the events leading up to his grandfather’s death. They band together and beat the foe, only to discover that more foes are on their way.
Jacob and his newly acquired allies face numerous perilous beasts, both in the physical and figurative sense, as well as deceitful persons who are not what they appear to be. Furthermore, along their trip, they are forced to save each other from the edge of death consistently. Jacob has already made a lot of decisions that have altered the course of his life, but the one he is about to make is the most significant one of all: should he remain with the only true friends he has ever had or return home?
The Tuck family, who drank from a magical spring and were either cursed with or given endless life, moves around trying to live as discreetly and comfortably as they can. The Tucks take ten-year-old Winnie Foster home after she discovers their secret and explains why remaining young forever is less of a blessing than it may initially seem. When a stranger who wants to sell the spring water for a fortune follows Winnie, problems emerge.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Don’t be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don’t have to live forever, you just have to live.”
“Like all magnificent things, it’s very simple.”
“Life’s got to be lived, no matter how long or short. You got to take what comes.”
“You can’t have living without dying. So you can’t call it living, what we got. We just are, we just be, like rocks beside the road.”
“And suddenly, she longed for a thunderstorm.”
Dozens of kids sign up to participate in a series of strange, mind-bending tests after seeing this strange ad in the newspaper. Along with them, you, my reader, can put your wits to the test. But only four extraordinarily talented kids will ultimately succeed. Their task: was to go on a covert mission that could only be completed by the brightest and most resourceful kids. They will have to pose as someone else at the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, where the only rule is that there aren’t any rules, in order to complete it.
Our heroes are forced to rely on one another for support as they go through psychological and physical tests that are beyond their wildest expectations. Will they be capable of passing the most crucial exam of all, though, with their newly formed friendship on the line? Over thirty pages of added content are included in this special tenth-anniversary edition of The Mysterious Benedict Society, which will please both longtime and new readers.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“You must remember, family is often born of blood, but it doesn’t depend on blood. Nor is it exclusive of friendship. Family members can be your best friends, you know. And best friends, whether or not they are related to you, can be your family.”
“Rules and school are tools for fools! I don’t give two mules for rules.”
“Is this what family is like: the feeling that everyone’s connected, that with one piece missing, the whole thing’s broken?”
“Every great thinker keeps a journal, you know.”
“Children are capable of such open rudeness.”
If a terrible accident hadn’t left Jeffrey Lionel “Maniac” Magee an orphan, he may have led a typical life. After spending eight years with his unhappy and rigid aunt and uncle, he makes the decision to flee—and not simply run away. The tale of Maniac Magee begins here as his astounding and legendary deeds transform the lives of a tiny village divided along ethnic lines.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Nobody knows who said it first, but somebody must have: ‘Kid’s gotta be a maniac.”
“His smile was so wide he’d have had to break it into sections to fit it through a doorway”
“The blanket was there, but it was the boy’s embrace that covered and warmed him.”
“Amanda took the torn page from Maniac. To her, it was the broken wing of a bird, a pet out in the rain.”
“When somebody says or does something you like. Amen.”
The local Spook has taken on apprentice Thomas Ward, a seventh son of a seventh son. The work is challenging, the Spook is aloof, and Thomas is not the first apprentice to fail at it. Thomas must somehow acquire the skills necessary to bind boggarts, imprison witches, and exorcise spirits. But the terror starts when he is duped into unleashing Mother Malkin, the County’s most terrible witch.
When Charlie Bucket discovers one of Mr. Willy Wonka’s priceless Golden Tickets, he wins a full day inside the enigmatic chocolate factory and the fantastic journey starts. He has no idea what surprises are waiting for him!
Best Quotes from this Book:
“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books.”
“Everything in this room is edible. Even I’m edible. But, that would be called canibalism. It is looked down upon in most societies.”
“You should never, never doubt something that no one is sure of.”
“Good morning starshine the earth says hello….”
“I am the maker of music, the dreamer of dreams!”
The well-liked, best-selling first book by Kate DiCamillo is now offered in a paperback digest edition. Like Winn-Dixie himself, Kate DiCamillo’s debut book proved to be a keeper right away, becoming a New York Times bestseller, a Newbery Honor winner, the basis for a hit movie, and most importantly, a beloved classic that appeals to readers of all ages. Now that it’s available in a paperback digest version, more people will undoubtedly discover this story’s beauty.
Opal enters the Winn-Dixie grocery the summer before she and her preacher father move to Naomi, Florida, and she emerges with a puppy. a large, unattractive, distressed dog with a great sense of humor. She calls the dog Winn-Dixie. The pastor tells Opal ten things about her missing mother because of Winn-Dixie, one for each year that Opal has been alive. Together they meet Miss Franny Block, the town librarian who once repelled a bear with a copy of WAR AND PEACE, who is more adept at making friends than anybody Opal has ever met.
They encounter Otis, an ex-con who releases the pets from his pet shop after hours and soothes them with his guitar, as well as Gloria Dump, who is virtually blind but senses with her heart. Opal spends the entire beautiful summer observing her new acquaintances and reflecting on her mother. But thanks to Winn-Dixie or possibly as a result of her personal growth, Opal learns to let go just a tiny bit and realizes that forgiveness and friendship can come on suddenly like a summer storm.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“There ain’t no way you can hold onto something that wants to go, you understand? You can only love what you got while you got it.”
“You can’t always judge people by the things they done. You got to judge them by what they are doing now.”
“You can always trust a dog that likes peanut butter.”
“It’s hard not to immediately fall in love witha dog who has a good sense of humor.”
“We appreciate the complicated and wonderful gifts you give us in each other. And we appreciate the task you put down before us, of loving each other the best we can, even as you love us.”
Artemis Fowl, 12, is wealthy, smart, and above all else, a mastermind of organized crime. But even Artemis is unaware of the danger he enters when he kidnaps Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon Unit, a fairy. These are not the fairy tale fairies; rather, they pose a threat. Artemis Fowl is a captivating, mystical tale that is full of unanticipated turns and turns.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Confidence is ignorance. If you’re feeling cocky, it’s because there’s something you don’t know.”
“It’s like learning to ride a unicorn. You never forget.”
“If I win, I’m a prodigy. If I lose, then I’m crazy. That’s the way history is written.”
“Trust me. I’m a genius.”
“Let us proceed under the assumption that the fairy folk do exist, and that I am not a gibbering moron.”
The Builders built the city of Ember many several thousand years ago to contain everything required for human survival. It succeeded. But now, there isn’t enough food in the storerooms, the crops are ruined, the city is being overrun by corruption, and worst of all, the lights are going out. Ember might soon be enveloped in darkness.
However, two kids named Lina and Doon start to question whether there is a route out of Ember after finding pieces of an old scroll. Can they understand the ancient language and create a new future for all of us? Will Ember’s residents heed their advice?
Best Quotes from this Book:
“The trouble with anger is, it gets hold of you. And then you aren’t the master of yourself anymore. Anger is.”
“People find a way through just about anything.”
“Why, if its going to be allright, do we see it getting worse every day?”
“Wouldn’t it be strange, she thought, to have a blue sky? But she liked the way it looked. It would be beautiful – a blue sky.”
“Why, if its going to be allright, do we see it getting worse every day?”