Becoming A Good Creature

"A luxe, full color picture book adaptation of Sy Montgomery and Rebecca Green's New York Times bestselling How to Be a Good Creature"--

National Book Award finalist Sy Montgomery reflects on the personalities and quirks of 13 animals--her friends--who have profoundly affected her in this stunning, poetic, and life-affirming memoir featuring illustrations by Rebecca Green.

Winner of the Moonbeam Children's Animals/Pets Non-Fiction Gold Medal! A story about the fundamental connection between animals and people and how we can treat all of Earth's creatures with compassion and empathy. Furry polar bears, playful sea otters, slow sloths, prickly porcupines, and slimy snakes are just a few of the many animals we share our world with. And even though we might not look the same or have the same needs as our animal neighbors, we have more in common with them than we might think. Our Animal Neighbors introduces children to the importance of treating all animals with the care and compassion they deserve. We all want to experience love, safety, and respect and this book is the first step to instilling those values at an early age. This planet is our home, and we should all be free to live a prosperous life regardless of whether we have hands, hooves, scales, or fur. “A serious message delivered with humor, simplicity, and charm makes this book an excellent purchase for families that value open-ended discussions. Also a good resource for classrooms and libraries that welcome diverse opinions and points of view.”—School Library Journal

Photographer Andrew Zuckerman's collection of astonishing studio portraits of 175 wild creatures from baby leopards to parrots, bears, mandrills, and many more are stunningly foregrounded against white backgrounds, depicting their subjects with rare sensitivity, insight, humor, and wonder. --From publisher description.

What makes us human, and why are we so sure we're different from other animals? Humans are the most inquisitive, emotional, imaginative, aggressive, and baffling animals on the planet. But how well do we really know ourselves? How to Be Animal rewrites the remarkable human story and argues that at the heart of our psychology is a profound struggle with being animal. Most of our effects on the planet are the consequences of technological improvements and advances in our understanding of natural mechanisms. But why did this cognitive and technological edge come about in the first place and what kind of being has it made us? In How to Be Animal, Challenger brilliantly argues that this dizzying trajectory is the result of a singular characteristic of our species: the struggle with being an animal. Using a combination of memoir, historical texts, interweaving interviews and cultural and environmental history, How to Be Animal is lively and thought-provoking, bursting with ideas. This is a book for anyone who has ever contemplated what humans are and what makes our species so simultaneously brilliant and awful. Even more so, it is a book that asks tantalizing philosophical questions, such as whether and how human life matters. How to Be Animal is a tough-minded but ultimately sympathetic portrait of humanity. It exposes human beings as extraordinary animals defined by a profound struggle. In the third millennium, the way humans respond to being an animal among animals is the greatest and most inspiring challenge we face.

There were no surprises in Gatlin County. We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere. At least, that's what I thought. Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong. There was a curse. There was a girl. And in the end, there was a grave. Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever. Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them. In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.

“A lost classic . . . the history of a horror-film star and a treatise on human frailty . . . is back to be savored and marveled at anew” (James Ellroy, New York Times–bestselling author of the Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy). Simon Moro, a sixty-eight-year-old star, is making his last picture, a low-budget remake of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. Moro, infuriated by the bland horror movies of his day, sees his own career—even as it ends—as an ongoing effort to wallop the public with an overwhelming moral shock. And he succeeds when an elaborate publicity stunt turns into a gruesome and grand personal statement. As Moro’s life reels toward its macabre end, it also reels backward through lies and evasions to show its surprising beginning. Underneath his Frankensteinian exaggeration, Moro has a vivid and humane story to tell, even as the coffins break open and dark, erotic secrets are revealed. Brock Brower has taken the horror film in all its gory glory to create a book that recycles pop material into literature, creating a Dickensian tale of America. “A wonderful book . . . Like a circus with several brilliant performances going on at the same time . . . A real breaking through. I don’t think anybody ever again will be able to dabble politely in mixing ‘real life’ and fiction.” —Joan Didion, New York Times–bestselling author of Slouching Towards Bethlehem “The way the book skewers society’s obsession with celebrity culture is even more valid today than when it was written, proving that great art stands the test of time.” —Forbes “A cult novel that amounts to a loving satiric tribute to cinema schlockmeister Roger Corman.” —New York Post

A stunning picture book biography about the tightrope walker who dazzled Paris as she danced across the sky with impeccable balance and unparalleled skill during the French Revolution. In revolutionary France, a girl named Marguerite Lalanne longed to perform above large crowds on a tightrope, just like her acrobatic parents. Sneaking off to the fairgrounds for secret tightrope walking lessons, Marguerite finessed her performance skills, ultimately performing for crowds as a young rope dancer. And eventually, Marguerite would perform as Madame Saqui, waltzing and pirouetting across- and never falling off- countless ropes above adoring crowds. A nouvelle chérie de Paris, Madame Saqui cemented her place in circus history, winning the adoration of the French people and royalty alike, including Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. This remarkable biography unveils the inspiring story of a trailblazing woman who revolutionized the circus world-- without ever missing a step.