Family Life Science

Prosper and Bo are orphans on the run from their cruel aunt and uncle. The brothers decide to hide out in Venice, where they meet a mysterious thirteen-year-old boy who calls himself the "Thief Lord." Brilliant and charismatic, the Thief Lord leads a ring of street children who dabble in petty crimes. Prosper and Bo delight in being part of this colorful new family. But the Thief Lord has secrets of his own.

There's trouble at the Castle, and it's all because Merrin Meredith has returned with Darke plans for Septimus. More trouble awaits Septimus and Jenna in the form of Tertius Fume, the ghost of the very first Chief Hermetic Scribe, who is determined to send Septimus on a deadly Queste. But Septimus and Jenna have other plans - they are headed for the mysterious House of Foryx.

Castle Glower has been acting weird, so it’s no surprise when two towers transport Celie and her siblings to an unknown land. When they realise that no one from home is coming to get them, the kids - along with Celie’s pet griffin Rufus - set out through the forest to figure out where they are and what’s happened to their beloved castle. Instead, they discover two wizards and an entire lost people, the oldest inhabitants of Castle Glower. And it seems they may know more of the castle’s secrets than Celie.

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.

Emotional labor is essential to our society and economy, but it’s so often invisible. In this groundbreaking, journalistic deep dive, Rose Hackman shares the stories of hundreds of women, tracing the history of this kind of work and exposing common manifestations of the phenomenon. But Hackman doesn’t simply diagnose a problem—she empowers us to combat this insidious force and forge pathways for radical evolution, justice, and change.

In order to heal after his mother's death, Sal learned how to meditate. But no one expected him to be able to take it further and "relax" things into existence. Turns out he can reach into time and space to retrieve things from other universes - even his mom! He has promised his dad and stepmom that he won't bring back his mother anymore (it causes marital tension), but sometimes, he can't help himself. Sal doesn't talk about his ability with anyone. But when he meets Gabi, the student council president and editor of the school paper, he realizes she is someone with whom he can work.

The game under the tree looked like a hundred others Peters and Judy had at home. But they were bored and restless and, looking for something interesting to do, thought they'd give Jumanji a try. Little did they know when they unfolded its ordinary-looking playing board that they were about to be plunged into the most exciting and bizarre adventure of their lives.

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.

Siblings Kate, Michael, and Emma have been in one orphanage after another for the last ten years, passed along like lost baggage. Yet these unwanted children are more remarkable than they could possibly imagine. Ripped from their parents as babies, they are being protected from a horrible evil of devastating power, an evil they know nothing about.

Orphaned as a boy, raised in the Czech countryside by his doting grandparents, Jakub Procházka has risen from small-time scientist to become the country's first astronaut. When a dangerous solo mission to Venus offers him both the chance at heroism he's dreamt of, and a way to atone for his father's sins as a Communist informer, he ventures boldly into the vast unknown.

Morgan and Eli, two Indigenous children forced away from their families and communities, are brought together in a foster home in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They each feel disconnected, from their culture and each other, and struggle to fit in at school and at their new home—until they find a secret place, walled off in an unfinished attic bedroom. A portal opens to another reality, Askí, bringing them onto frozen, barren grounds, where they meet Ochek (Fisher).

Who are the children of foster care? What, as a country, do we owe them? Cris Beam, a foster mother herself, spent five years immersed in the world of foster care looking into these questions and tracing firsthand stories. The result is To the End of June, an unforgettable portrait that takes us deep inside the lives of foster children in their search for a stable, loving family. Beam shows us the intricacies of growing up in the system - the back-and-forth with agencies, the rootless shuffling between homes, the emotionally charged tug between foster and birth parents.

Rebecca Wright has reclaimed her life, finding her way out of her grief and depression following a personal tragedy years ago. She spends her days working in customer support for the Internet dating site where she first met her husband. But she has a strange, persistent sense that everything around her is somewhat off-kilter: She constantly feels as if she has walked into a room and forgotten what she intended to do there; on TV, the president seems to be the wrong person in the wrong place; her dreams are full of disquiet.

After Daniel's young sister disappears in the woods, he starts to believe the myth about a witch and her terrifying hog who take little girls and keep them for 50 years....

The year 1904. On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there is a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. In a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families (black, white, brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond.

Ellie McFadden has intuitive gifts. She can sense what other living things are feeling. She can even talk to animals! Too bad she can’t connect with her twin sister, Parker. Parker McFadden has kinetic gifts. She can cause shocks to the Earth and produce heat energy that explodes from her body like fire, especially when she is angry. The sisters aren’t aware of the legacy they inherited from their mother until, on their 13th birthday, two mysterious relatives on the Power side whisk them off to an isolated sanctuary called Haven.

In their sixth adventure, Sabrina and Daphne must defend their friend Mr. Canis (aka the Big Bad Wolf ) when he is put on trial by the Everafters for his past crimes. It'll take all of the sisters' skills to outwit the merciless Queen of Hearts, who is determined to kick Canis and the Grimms out of Ferryport Landing - forever.

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.

Henry York never dreamed his time in Kansas would open a door to adventure, much less 100 doors. But a visit to his aunt and uncle's farm took an amazing turn when cupboard doors, hidden behind Henry's bedroom wall, revealed themselves to be portals to other worlds.

It’s wintertime at Greenglass House. The creaky smuggler’s inn is always quiet during this season, and 12-year-old Milo, the innkeepers’ adopted son, plans to spend his holidays relaxing. But on the first icy night of vacation, out of nowhere, the guest bell rings. Then rings again. And again....