Boy At The Window

It all began with trying to fly. After jumping off the roof of his house in the middle of the night, Daniel Kim wakes up far from Neverland, his reprieve from the real world. Thrust into a mental health hospital and then into a brand-new high school, he struggles to hold on to reality while haunted by both his very-present past and his never-present parents. But when he joins Cranbrook Preparatory’s cross-country team, he starts to feel like he’s walking on his own two feet once again. He meets Jiwon Yoon—another cross-country runner, who may be the first person to join Daniel in his Neverland daydreams. Or maybe Jiwon is the one who will finally break Daniel free. Content warning: Emotional trauma, attempted suicide, mental illness.

In The Boy at the Window, Scott Morgan and Vallie Taylor are two young, gay men who decide they want nothing more than to adopt a child. They contact Happy Home Adoption Services in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to find out what their chances might be to adopt. They are investigated, finding out they do qualify. Prepared to adopt a newborn or toddler of any race, they find a fourteen-year-old gay teenager, Nicholas, desperately needs a home. They take the time to get to know him and decide to make him their new son. Nicholas is elusive, never smiling and does not make eye contact, but he agrees to be adopted. Nicholas starts high school and begins having trouble with a bully. Scott, Vallie, and the rest of their family do what they can to help. Nicholas goes through a frightening experience, which helps him finally realize what a real family is and how much his new family really loves him.

As sixty-eight year old Peter Abeles confronts his ambivalence over his mother’s recent death, he laces together his childhood memories of the prewar Austrian aristocracy his Jewish family belonged to, the rising tide of hate that engulfed them and their decision to flee, and the story of his life in America. In trying to come to terms with his personal history and family, Abeles looks beyond the immediate horrors of the Holocaust and the Diaspora to some of the more subtle effects on the reconstructed lives that followed. He gives a hard, honest account of his upbringing by a cold, demanding father and an embittered, materialistic mother...but he frames that account in forgiveness and redemption, imagining his dead mother as she receives a treasure box of Sefirot, the ten Hebrew words that allow an individual to know Kabbalah, or wisdom. Peter Abeles and Tom Hicks have produced an intelligent and edifying memoir that has much to say about exile and immigration, about class, money, love and forgiveness. In Otto, the Boy at the Window, they offer readers some hard-earned shreds of Kabbalah. Praise for Otto, the Boy at the Window: “This unforgettable book opens with the death of Abeles’ mother in Long Island when he was 68, which prompts him to reflect on his Viennese childhood in the 1930s. His mother was strict and possessive, and his father was unyielding. The father owned a thriving wholesale shoe business, and the family had servants and tutors. Abeles relives the Anschluss of March 12, 1938, when the Nazis took control of Austria, and he remembers mobs of Nazi sympathizers destroying synagogues and Jewish-owned properties during Kristallnacht in November of that year. In November 1939, the family sailed from Rotterdam to New York with only $10 left from their fortune. They went to Chicago, where two sponsoring families met them. Abeles recounts his subsequent service in the U.S. Air Force, his success in the business world, and his love of family life in this story of reconciliation and forgiveness, which is told with grace and insight.”

Liam James, boy next door and total douchebag, is my brother’s best friend. I can’t stand him. Well, that’s not strictly true, at night I see a side of him that no one else does. Every night Liam becomes my safe haven, my protector, the one to chase the demons of my abusive childhood away and hold all the broken pieces of me together. He’s cocky, he’s arrogant, and he’s also some sort of playboy in training. With his ‘hit it and quit it’ mentality, he’s the last person you’d want to fall in love with. I only wish someone had told my heart that… The international bestselling novel, and finalist of the Goodreads choice awards YA fiction 2012.

In a time of isolation and scarcity, a regressive regime rules with absolute power, turning neighbour against neighbour, and crushing dissidence with deadly force. A microcosm of this monstrous time: the tiny Pacific Northwest town of Gilder. In a house on the fringes of the decimated hamlet, Kasper—fifteen, intellectually disabled, limited ability to speak—has miraculously survived the slaying of his family. But alone, he is a fleeting miracle. Alone, he is on borrowed time. Alone, his yellow headphones, brown blanket and beloved copy of The Gingerbread Man are scant consolation. Alone, he is destined to die within the folds of the blue hammock hanging from his bedroom ceiling. Kasper is not alone. Tao—failed service dog turned family pet—has also survived the attack. And with the discovery of Boy, Tao understands he has a duty: guide the last living member of his pack out of the house and through the ravaged streets of Gilder to safety. The destination? The one refuge he can conceive of in a world gone mad. Boy in the Blue Hammock is an epic tale of loss and loyalty, of dissent and destruction, of assumption and ableism. With a unique premise, powerful narrative and evocative prose, the novel might be the best kept literary secret of 2022.

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series. Please note that the eBook edition does NOT include access to the audio edition and digital book. Written for learners of English as a foreign language, each title includes carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers' story comprehension and develop vocabulary. The Boy in Striped Pyjamas, a Level 4 Reader, is A2+ in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to three clauses, introducing more complex uses of present perfect simple, passives, phrasal verbs and simple relative clauses. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear regularly. One day, Bruno's father gets a new job, and the family have to move from Berlin, Germany, to a new place. There is a strange camp at the end of the garden. Bruno is very unhappy and bored until he meets Shmuel. The two boys become very good friends. But why is Shmuel in the camp? And why is he wearing striped pyjamas? Visit the Penguin Readers website Register to access online resources including tests, worksheets and answer keys. Exclusively with the print edition, readers can unlock a digital book and audio edition (not available with the eBook).