Asha And The Spirit Bird

In contemporary India, 12-year-old Asha will journey across the dangerous Himalayas to find her missing father and save her family's home -- guided by a mythical bird and a green-eyed tiger who she believes to be the spirits of her ancestors. This is an incredibly unique debut about loss, family, buried treasure, and hope. Asha lives on a family farm with her mother in rural India in the foothills of the Himalayas. Life would be perfect if her father were with them instead of working at the factory in the faraway city. But she knows they wouldn't be able to afford their home without the money he sends home.When four months go by without a single letter, a ruthless debt collector arrives with a warning, and soon the entire world that Asha has known is threatened. Determined to save her home, Asha and her best friend must swallow their fears and set out on a dangerous journey across the Himalayas to find her father.As desperation turns to peril, Asha will face law enforcement, natural disaster, and the wild dangers of the Himalayas. But with a majestic bird and a green-eyed tiger as her guides, who she believes to be the spirits of her ancestors, she's determined to keep faith in order to save her family.

A powerful story of loss and identity, home and family, Tamarind and the Star of Ishta weaves a family mystery together with adventure and wonder from Costa Award-winning author, Jasbinder Bilan. Tamarind has never met her Indian mother, Chinty, who died shortly after she was born. But when her father remarries, Tamarind is sent to India to stay with the family she has never met, in their atmospheric ancestral home—a huge mansion high in the Himalaya mountains. Her arrival in India brings culture shock, secrets, and unanswered questions: What is the tension between her father and the family, and why will no one talk about her mother? Instead of answers, she is greeted with ominous silence. Taking refuge in the lush gardens one moon-lit night, she follows a friendly monkey to find an abandoned hut and a glowing star ring, and meets Ishta, a mysterious mountain girl. Tamarind unravels the mysteries of the house alongside the search for her own identity.

From the author of the Costa Award-winning Asha & the Spirit Bird and Tamarind & the Star of Ishta comes a atmospheric, magical adventure with a stunning twist ... Aarti has lived on the island with Aunt for as long as she can remember. Like the weather, Aunt rules her world with rare warmth. Aarti's only comforts are a book of Indian myths full of blue gods, a fox's friendship, and a toy rabbit she finds in a locked room. Then, she learns Aunt has been feeding her lies. Fate intervenes when a half-drowned boy washes up on the beach. With his help, Aarti hopes to remember who she really is ... and perhaps find a way home. ö A mesmerising third novel from Costa-winning and Waterstones- shortlisted Jasbinder Bilan, one of the most exciting writers of middle-grade fiction. ö Themes of identity, faith and belonging with a stunning twist in an evocative and remote island setting. Praise for Jasbinder Bilan's novels: 'I absolutely adored it ... an achingly beautiful story' SITA BRAHMACHARI 'Atmospheric, dreamy, charged with wonder and menace, loss, sorrow and delight' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT 'A lush, gorgeous setting in a novel as vivid and original as her Costa-winning debut.' THE GUARDIAN 'Beautifully written, richly atmospheric and touchingly spiritual, this brief novel sparkles like a polished gem' DAILY MAIL

In the spirit if Tony Abbott's UNDERWORLD books, comes the new kid on the block - Barkari Katari Johnson! Shy fourth-grader Bakari Katari Johnson is having a bad day. He's always coming up against Tariq Thomas, the most popular kid in their class, and today is no different. On top of that, Bakari has found a strange ring that appears to have magical powers--and the people from the ring's fantastical other world want it back! Can Bakari and his best friend Wardell stave off the intruders' attempts, keep the ring safe, and stand up to Tariq and his pal Keisha, all before the school bell rings? Media celebrity and Essence Magazine entertainment producer, Patrik Henry Bass delivers adventure, fun, fantasy and friendship in this illustrated action-packed adventure starring an African American boy hero and his classmates.

Twister's beloved father has gone missing and as she's searching for him she stumbles across a witch living in the woods. She is given a magical necklace that holds the souls of living things and can turn the wearer into a wolf, or a rushing river, or a rainstorm. But there's a dark foe on the hunt for this necklace, a baddie who wears a coat crawling with creatures and who might have something to do with her father's sudden disappearance...

COSTA BOOK AWARD WINNER: BOOK OF THE YEAR • #1 SUNDAY TIMES (UK) BESTSELLER “Superbly written and breathtakingly researched, The Volunteer smuggles us into Auschwitz and shows us—as if watching a movie—the story of a Polish agent who infiltrated the infamous camp, organized a rebellion, and then snuck back out. ... Fairweather has dug up a story of incalculable value and delivered it to us in the most compelling prose I have read in a long time.” —Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm and Tribe The incredible true story of a Polish resistance fighter’s infiltration of Auschwitz to sabotage the camp from within, and his death-defying attempt to warn the Allies about the Nazis’ plans for a “Final Solution” before it was too late. To uncover the fate of the thousands being interred at a mysterious Nazi camp on the border of the Reich, a thirty-nine-year-old Polish resistance fighter named Witold Pilecki volunteered for an audacious mission: assume a fake identity, intentionally get captured and sent to the new camp, and then report back to the underground on what had happened to his compatriots there. But gathering information was not his only task: he was to execute an attack from inside—where the Germans would least expect it. The name of the camp was Auschwitz. Over the next two and half years, Pilecki forged an underground army within Auschwitz that sabotaged facilities, assassinated Nazi informants and officers, and gathered evidence of terrifying abuse and mass murder. But as he pieced together the horrifying truth that the camp was to become the epicenter of Nazi plans to exterminate Europe’s Jews, Pilecki realized he would have to risk his men, his life, and his family to warn the West before all was lost. To do so, meant attempting the impossible—an escape from Auschwitz itself. Completely erased from the historical record by Poland’s post-war Communist government, Pilecki remains almost unknown to the world. Now, with exclusive access to previously hidden diaries, family and camp survivor accounts, and recently declassified files, Jack Fairweather offers an unflinching portrayal of survival, revenge and betrayal in mankind’s darkest hour. And in uncovering the tragic outcome of Pilecki’s mission, he reveals that its ultimate defeat originated not in Auschwitz or Berlin, but in London and Washington.

Arianwyn fluffs her witch's assessment - instead of qualifying, she's declared an apprentice and sent to remote Lull in disgrace. Then her arch-enemy, mean girl Gimma, arrives on holiday determined to make her life a misery. But as a mysterious darkness begins to haunt her spells, Arianwyn realizes there's much more than her pride at stake ...

'Had me giggling all the way through . . . I loved it!' Jasbinder Bilan 'Action-packed and bursting with fun' Sinéad O'Hart Welcome to Little Snoddington, where nothing is normal and every day is magic . . . Nine-year-old Alfie Blackstack’s parents have met a very unfortunate end. Now he’s living in the SUPER CREEPY Switherbroom Hall with his mad-haired Aunt Gertie and warty Aunt Zita. The thing is, Alfie's aunts aren't just weird – they’re WITCHES! When the circus arrives in town Alfie makes his first ever friend, the FEARLESS Calypso Fagan. But when Calypso's little sister Nova disappears, they must face the TERRIFYING Head Witch in a race to find Nova and stop the next Witch War.