Family Life Science

When Abby and Jonah's magic mirror brings them into the story of Hansel and Gretel, they're determined not to fracture this tasty fairy tale. They figure it'll be a piece of gingerbread cake - until Hansel and Gretel turn out to be not so sweet. The brother and sister end up trapping Abby and Jonah in the witch's candy house. So now it's up to the Smithville siblings to escape - and find their way back to home sweet home!

Chess has always been the protector over his younger siblings, Emma loves math, and Finn does what Finn does best - acting silly and being adored. They’ve been a happy family, just the three of them and their mom. But everything changes when reports of three kidnapped children reach the Greystone kids, and they’re shocked by the startling similarities between themselves and these complete strangers. The other kids share their same first and middle names. They’re the same ages. They even have identical birthdays. Who, exactly, are these strangers?

The two princesses of Bamarre couldn't be more different. Princess Addie is fearful and shy. Her deepest wish is for safety. Princess Meryl is bold and brave. Her deepest wish is to save the kingdom of Bamarre. They are sisters, and they mean the world to each other. Then disaster strikes, and Addie - terrified and unprepared - sets out on a perilous quest. In her path are monsters of Bamarre: ogres, specters, gryphons, and dragons.

Bea’s five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away, consumed by the smog and pollution of the overdeveloped metropolis that most of the population now calls home. If they stay in the city, Agnes will die. There is only one alternative: the Wilderness State, the last swath of untouched, protected land, where people have always been forbidden. Until now.

From the creator of the Land of Elyon comes a riveting adventure set in an extraordinary satellite world—created as a refuge from a dying Earth—that begins to collapse and forever change the lives of its inhabitants.

Fridays at Castle Glower are about to get interesting! With newborn griffins hatching left and right, new Castle passageways to explore, and an out-of-the-blue wedding to plan, life is as exciting as ever for Celie, Lilah, and Rolf. But when the dangerous, ancient wizard Arkwright escapes from the dungeon, no one can rest until he is found. Celie has an idea of where he may be hiding, but the only way to stop him could be to erase parts of the Castle for good.

After surviving an infamous family tragedy, 16-year-old Kennedy Jones has made it her mission to keep her brother's search through the cosmos alive. But then something disturbs the frequency on his radio telescope - a pattern registering where no signal should transmit. In a neighboring county, 17-year-old Nolan Chandler is determined to find out what really happened to his brother, who disappeared the day after Nolan had an eerie premonition. There hasn't been a single lead for two years, until Nolan picks up an odd signal - a pattern coming from his brother's bedroom.

When their grandmother Sylvie is rushed to the hospital, Ivy Sparrow and her annoying big brother Seb cannot imagine what adventure lies in store. Soon their house is ransacked by unknown intruders, and a very strange policeman turns up on the scene, determined to apprehend them with a toilet brush. Ivy and Seb make their escape only to find themselves in a completely uncommon world, a secret underground city called Lundinor where ordinary objects have amazing powers.

Return with Portia and her younger brother, Foster, as they rediscover an abandoned summer resort, consisting of deserted crumbling Victorian summer homes surrounding a vanished lake, which is now a swamp.

Simon Watson, a young librarian on the verge of losing his job, lives alone on the Long Island Sound in his family home - a house, perched on the edge of a bluff, that is slowly crumbling toward the sea. His parents are long dead, his mother having drowned in the water his house overlooks. His younger sister, Enola, works for a traveling carnival reading tarot cards and seldom calls.

Amy is pretty happy living the quiet life at home. She can mine ore, read up on oceanography, hang out with her pet cat. What’s not to love? Her brother, on the other hand . . . Marc is always leaving their village to look for excitement. But when a couple of weeks go by without any word from him, Amy can’t help but worry. Digging around, she discovers Marc has gone off alone in search of someplace called Glory’s Haven, a house deep in the forests where (supposedly) the greatest adventurer their town has ever seen stashed a ton of loot.

The 100-year-old Doll family, beautifully crafted china dolls passed down through four generations of girls in one American family, meet their new neighbors, the Funcrafts, a doll family made completely of plastic and delivered straight from the factory shelves.

Sam Elling works for an internet dating company, but he still can't get a date. So he creates an algorithm that will match you with your soul mate. Sam meets the love of his life, Meredith. When Meredith's grandmother, Livvie, dies suddenly, Sam creates a computer program that will allow Meredith to have one last conversation with her grandmother. Mining from all her correspondence - email, Skype, texts - Sam constructs a computer simulation of Livvie who can respond to email or video chat just as if she were still alive. Meredith loves it, and the couple to wonders if this is something that could help more people through their grief.

In the last decade there has been a revolution in our understanding of the minds of infants and young children. We used to believe that babies were irrational, and that their thinking and experience were limited. Now Alison Gopnik - a leading psychologist and philosopher, as well as a mother - explains the cutting-edge scientific and psychological research that has revealed that babies learn more, create more, care more, and experience more than we could ever have imagined.

In this fifth book in the Magykal series, Septimus ends up on a captivatingly beautiful island, one of seven set in a sparkling sea. He's stranded there with his badly injured dragon, Spit Fyre, along with Jenna and Beetle. There are some strange things about the island, including a Magykal girl named Syrah, a cat-shaped lighthouse that has lost its Light, and an eerie presence that sings to Septimus - can he escape the persistent call?

Twelve-year-old Gordy Stitser is one of the few people who knows the truth about the secret society of potion masters, because not only is Gordy's mom on the Board of Ruling Elixirists Worldwide (BREW), but she has also been training Gordy in the art of potion-making. Gordy is a natural, and every day he sneaks down to the basement lab to invent new potions using exotic ingredients like fire ant eggs, porcupine quills, and Bosnian tickling juice. One afternoon, Gordy receives a mysterious package containing an extremely rare potion known as "The Eternity Elixir."

It’s the new normal at the Garber household in Connecticut: Glen, a contractor, has seen his business shaken by the housing crisis, and now his wife, Sheila, is taking a business course at night to increase her chances of landing a good-paying job. But she should have been home by now. Waiting for Sheila’s return, with their eight-year-old daughter sleeping soundly, Glen soon finds his worst fears confirmed: Sheila and two others have been killed in a car accident. Adding to the tragedy, the police claim Sheila was responsible. Glen knows it’s impossible.

In the summer of 1990, fourteen-year-old Trevor Riddell gets his first glimpse of Riddell House. Built from the spoils of a massive timber fortune, the legendary family mansion is constructed of giant, whole trees, and is set on a huge estate overlooking Puget Sound. Trevor’s bankrupt parents have begun a trial separation, and his father, Jones Riddell, has brought Trevor to Riddell House with a goal: to join forces with his sister, Serena, dispatch Grandpa Samuel—who is flickering in and out of dementia...

One morning, Erec's mother is missing. The force inside Erec commands him to find her, leading him on an adventure that will change him forever. When he arrives in Alypium, a hidden world where old knowledge of magic is kept, Erec learns that his mother and the entire kingdom are in peril. And he might be the only one who can save them.

Eleven-year-old Reuben spends his days exploring, hiding, and practicing parkour among the abandoned buildings of the Lower Downs as a way to escape the rough times that have befallen him and his mom - but his discovery of an extraordinary antique pocket watch changes everything. When Reuben finds that the watch has the power to turn him invisible, he's propelled on the adventure of a lifetime. Now Reuben is being pursued by a group of dangerous men called the Directions, and someone - or something - ominously called The Smoke.