August Isle

*A Junior Library Guild Selection* From critically acclaimed author Ali Standish (The Ethan I Was Before), the story of one girl’s journey to a magical seaside town, where she uncovers her family’s long hidden secrets and ultimately finds truth and redemption. Fans of Sharon Creech and Rebecca Stead will be captivated by this story filled with warm humor, mystery, whimsy, and characters you can’t let go. A modern classic in the making! For years, Miranda has stared at postcards of August Isle, Florida. The town where her mother spent her summers as a girl. The town that Miranda has always ached to visit. She just never wanted it to happen this way. When she arrives on the Isle, alone and uncertain, to stay the summer with an old friend of her mother’s, Miranda discovers a place even more perfect than she imagined. And she finds a new friend in Sammy, “Aunt” Clare’s daughter. But there is more to August Isle than its bright streets and sandy beaches, and soon Miranda is tangled in a web of mysteries. A haunted lighthouse. An old seafarer with something to hide. A name reaching out from her mother’s shadowy past. As she closes in on answers, Miranda must reckon with the biggest question of all: Is she brave enough to face the truth she might uncover? “A beautifully written story. An emotional journey of family, friendship, loss, and healing.” —Kirkus

Taking you through the year day by day, The Isle of Wight Book of Days contains quirky, eccentric, amusing and important events and facts from different periods in the history of the Island. Ideal for dipping into, this addictive little book will keep you entertained and informed. Featuring hundreds of snippets of information gleaned from the vaults of the Isle of Wight's archives and covering the social, criminal, political, religious, industrial, military and sporting history of the Island, it will delight residents and visitors alike.

This book, drawing on wide experience of the Isle of Man, describes, interprets and explains the features that make the Island’s physical and human landscapes so distinctive and give it a unique sense of place. Although the editors have taken a strongly geographical approach to their theme, the book is unparalleled in writings on the Isle of Man in the broad range of contributions it has assembled: geology, quaternary science, geomorphology, archaeology, history, natural history, political science, demography, social policy and economics. The book definitively reviews current geographical knowledge relating to the Isle of Man, bringing together hitherto fragmented, scattered and inaccessible work. Particular emphasis is placed upon the way in which geographers are returning to their intellectual roots with a renewed focus on both the distinctiveness and sense of place. By helping readers to understand the processes that formed, and continue to change, the Isle of Man’s unique physical and human landscapes, this book aims both to inform and to enhance enjoyment of the Island.

A comprehensive monograph on the Atlantic Puffin. With its colourful beak and fast, whirring flight, this is the most recognisable and popular of all North Atlantic seabirds. Puffins spend most of the year at sea, but for a few months of the year the come to shore, nesting in burrows on steep cliffs or on inaccessible islands. Awe-inspiring numbers of these birds can sometimes be seen bobbing on the sea or flying in vast wheels over the colony, bringing fish in their beaks back to the chicks. However, the species has declined sharply over the last decade; this is due to a collapse in fish stocks caused by overfishing and global warming, combined with an exponential increase in Pipefish (which can kill the chicks). The Puffin is a revised and expanded second edition of Poyser's 1984 title on these endearing birds, widely considered to be a Poyser classic. It includes sections on their affinities, nesting and incubation, movements, foraging ecology, survivorship, predation, and research methodology; particular attention is paid to conservation, with the species considered an important 'indicator' of the health of our coasts.