A Snow Garden And Other Stories

As read on Radio 4, seven linked stories set in the Christmas holidays - all as funny, joyous, poignant and memorable as Christmas should be: A Faraway Smell of Lemon: The School Term has ended. It is almost Christmas but Binny, out last-minute shopping couldn't feel less like wishing glad tidings to all men. Ducking out of the rain she finds herself in the sort of shop she would never normally visit. The Marriage Manual: Christmas Eve. Two parents endeavour to construct their son’s Christmas present from a DIY kit and in the process find themselves deconstructing their marriage. Christmas at the Airport: A glitch in the system, travellers stranded and all sorts of lives colliding in the face of a sudden birth... The Boxing Day Ball: Maureen has never been out with the local girls before. Who knew that a disco in the Village Hall could be life-changing? A Snow Garden: Two little boys, dumped with their divorced father for his share of the Christmas holidays and none of them with a clue how to enjoy it. I'll Be Home for Christmas The most famous boy in the world comes home hoping to escape the madness with a normal family Christmas. Trees: As if Christmas wasn't wearing enough, now his elderly parent is asking for a hole in the ground ... Father and son break old habits and plant a tree to mark the start of the new year.

From the author of the international bestseller, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, comes another exquisite and emotionally resonant novel about the search for the truth and unconditional love. On a foggy spring morning in 1972, twelve-year-old Byron Hemming and his mother are driving to school in the English countryside. On the way, in a life-changing two seconds, an accident occurs. Or does it? Byron is sure it happened, but his mother, sitting right next to him in the car, has no reaction to it. Over the course of the days and weeks that follow, Byron embarks on a journey to discover what really happened--or didn't--that fateful morning when everything changed. It is a journey that will take him--a loveable and cloistered twelve-year-old boy with a loveable and cloistered twelve-year-old boy's perspective on life--into the murkier, more difficult realities of the adult world, where people lie, fathers and mothers fight without words, and even unwilling boys must become men. Byron will have to reconcile the dueling realities of that summer, a testament to the perseverance of the human spirit and the power of compassion.

From the son of Anne Rice comes his electrifying "New York Times" bestseller of infidelity, murder, and betrayal on a college campus. "An enthralling narrative . . . "--"Booklist."

A classic collection of festive poems, stories and activities by Kate Greenaway-winning author, Shirley Hughes.This beautiful Christmas anthology contains winter adventures, seasonal poems, festive recipes and easy-to-make craft activities as well as Shirley Hughes' trademark warm and classic illustrations. Whether reading stories and poems to little ones or encouraging them to make beautiful crafts and Christmas treats, this book is the perfect introduction to this very special time of year.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Joyce’s beguiling debut is [a] modest-seeming story of ‘ordinary’ English lives that enthralls and moves you as it unfolds.”—People (four stars) IN DEVELOPMENT AS A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning a letter arrives, addressed to Harold in a shaky scrawl, from a woman he hasn’t heard from in twenty years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye. But before Harold mails off a quick reply, a chance encounter convinces him that he absolutely must deliver his message to Queenie in person. In his yachting shoes and light coat, Harold Fry embarks on an urgent quest. Determined to walk six hundred miles to the hospice, Harold believes that as long as he walks, Queenie will live. A novel of charm, humor, and profound insight into the thoughts and feelings we all bury deep within our hearts, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry introduces Rachel Joyce as a wise—and utterly irresistible—storyteller.

A selection of classic stories of adventure and magic that children will want to read again and again.

Cultures all around the world have told fairy tales for centuries. For many western nations, these have included the tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Retellings of Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” and “The Red Shoes” present some chilling tales for readers, and full-color images and illustrations add beauty to each. Readers are also introduced to a Japanese fairy tale called "The Goblin of Adachigahara" and an English story of jealousy, “The Rose Tree.” Though the stories don’t offer happy endings, readers can learn about culture in other places around the world and the art of storytelling through reading these dark tales.