I Thought I Could Fly

Stunning portraits--in words and photographs--of tragedy and hope in confronting mental illness.

You just can't keep a good girl down . . . unless you use the proper methods. Piper McCloud can fly. Just like that. Easy as pie. Sure, she hasn't mastered reverse propulsion and her turns are kind of sloppy, but she's real good at loop-the-loops. Problem is, the good folk of Lowland County are afraid of Piper. And her ma's at her wit's end. So it seems only fitting that she leave her parents' farm to attend a top-secret, maximum-security school for kids with exceptional abilities. School is great at first with a bunch of new friends whose skills range from super-strength to super-genius. (Plus all the homemade apple pie she can eat!) But Piper is special, even among the special. And there are consequences. Consequences too dire to talk about. Too crazy to consider. And too dangerous to ignore. At turns exhilarating and terrifying, Victoria Forester's debut novel has been praised by Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight saga, as "the oddest/sweetest mix of Little House on the Prairie and X-Men...Prepare to have your heart warmed." The Girl Who Could Fly is an unforgettable story of defiance and courage about an irrepressible heroine who can, who will, who must . . . fly. This title has Common Core connections. Praise for Victoria Forester and The Girl Who Could Fly: "It's the oddest/sweetest mix of Little House on the Prairie and X-Men. I was smiling the whole time (except for the part where I cried). I gave it to my mom, and I'm reading it to my kids—it's absolutely multigenerational. Prepare to have your heart warmed." Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight saga "In this terrific debut novel, readers meet Piper McCloud, the late-in-life daughter of farmers...The story soars, just like Piper, with enough loop-de-loops to keep kids uncertain about what will come next....Best of all are the book's strong, lightly wrapped messages about friendship and authenticity and the difference between doing well and doing good."--Booklist, Starred Review "Forester's disparate settings (down-home farm and futuristic ice-bunker institute) are unified by the rock-solid point of view and unpretentious diction... any child who has felt different will take strength from Piper's fight to be herself against the tide of family, church, and society."--The Horn Book Review The Girl Who Could Fly is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

"An eight year old boy believes he can fly because his grandfather told him it was possible to do during a bed time story. Nick follows the instructions and discovers that he can fly ... maybe! The end of the book leaves the reader wondering if this was a dream or reality."--Back cover.

Little Jay's mom is thrifty, his dad is extravagant, and Jay always seems to be caught in the middle.

In this graphic novel from the co-creator/showrunner of AMC's acclaimed show Halt and Catch Fire, a disturbed 15-year-old girl obsessively searches for the truth behind a mysterious flying woman who explodes in the sky one day. Over the course of 51 days in Chicago, an unknown woman appears publicly 11 times, flying at speeds of 120 miles per hour and at heights reaching 2,000 feet. Then she suddenly dies in a fiery explosion mid-air. No one knows who she was, how she flew, or why. A disturbed 15-year-old girl named Luna becomes obsessed with learning everything about her, even as rumors and conspiracy theories roil. As Luna comes closer to the truth--all while defense contractors, government investigators, and foreign sources creep around the fringes--she hopes that cracking the secrets of the Flying Woman's inner life will somehow lead to liberation from her own troubled mind. "...a frightening yet commanding series that you can't help but be transfixed over."-Geek.com "Devastating and wonderful."--Bleeding Cool "Full of unexpected pleasures...masterful, joyful, poignant... A must-read"-G. Willow Wilson (Wonder Woman, Ms. Marvel) "She Could Fly is a modern-day masterpiece...It's heartbreakingly beautiful and honest to its core."-Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) "She Could Fly is one of the best comic book debuts I've ever read. It's everything I want from a comic."-Gerry Duggan (Deadpool, Analog)

THE MAN WHO THOUGHT HE COULD FLY is a wildly entertaining and deeply thought-provoking collection of short stories filled with drama, intrigue, suspense, and allegory, all cleverly delivered in the familiar Twilight Zone-style of storytelling that J.L. Pattison's fans have come to expect. Entertaining enough to provide the casual reader with a mental escape, but deep enough to provide the critical thinker with morsels of thought candy, The Man Who Thought He Could Fly features the following 12 tales of suspense: KILLING TIME The marching of time has always weighed heavy on the mind of Solomon Grover--but after his arrest for vandalizing a century-old city clock, he'll discover that time is no longer his greatest concern. THE DRAGON KEEPER When the last dragon on earth is trapped in a cave, an old man proposes a way for his village to make money off the dragon, but it requires keeping the beast alive. The village jumps at the opportunity to become rich but the old man has ulterior motives that the village won't discover till it's too late. MAJORITY RULES To prevent continued attacks from a pack of wild dogs who roam the countryside, a farm's ruling class of sheep passes a new law that promises to keep all the animals safe--but their good intentions come with unforeseen consequences. THE WEIGHT OF CHAINS A farmer tending to his property draws the attention of a passing stranger who carries with him a big book--and some unsettling news. COLLISION The lives of four vastly different people intersect in the span of a few minutes as each one sees the other through a different set of eyes. THEY CAME UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR Everything changed the night the invaders arrived--including one man's reason for living. THE GREAT DIVORCE Breakups are never easy, but this one is exceptionally brutal. THE DREAMS OF EVIL MEN Harold Crawford is searching for an answer to why he's been plagued with vividly realistic nightmares. Today he will get that answer, but it won't be what he expected. THE MAN WHO THOUGHT HE COULD FLY Believing he can fly, a young man is encouraged by a crowd of onlookers to step from the ledge of a building. But there is one dissenting voice in the crowd who's courageous enough to tell the truth. REVOLUTION IN THE PARK An ordinary-looking man on a park bench draws the attention of the world because of his remarkably unusual behavior. A BEAUTIFUL DAY While his country is at war, a man awakens from a week-long, near-death illness to discover the world outside his apartment is about to get much worse. HALL OF ROOMS Murphy McAllister's Marvelously Magnificent Hall of Rooms offers customers a way to confront their past hurts, but Murphy's latest client learns that some hurts are better left in the past.

In a rusted unnamed city full of five-dollar hotels and flea markets, a young homeless girl named Eggs is trying to make her way in the world. She’s shy and bold at the same time, and wary of strangers, but she is convinced beyond all reason that she can fly. And fly she does, from rooftop to rooftop, from chimneys to phone wires; she scurries up the sides of buildings, and sneaks into secret lairs. Eggs is a loner but she makes two friends: Grack, who sells 100 different kinds of hot dogs from his bicycle cart, and Splendid Wren, a punk rocker whose open window Eggs came crashing through one night. Both Grack and Splendid Wren try their best to protect her, but Eggs meets her match when on a cold night she swoops onto a rooftop and steals a warm jacket belonging to Robin, a neighbourhood baddie with anger management issues. Can Eggs elude his wrathful revenge? Beguiling and otherworldly, The Girl Who Was Convinced Beyond All Reason That She Could Fly is a fevered dream about a young girl’s flights of fancy in order to survive, and to thrive. Ages 14 and up. This publication meets the EPUB Accessibility requirements and it also meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG-AA). It is screen-reader friendly and is accessible to persons with disabilities. A book with many images, which is defined with accessible structural markup. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order and semantic structure.

Twelve-year-old Patsy keeps a diary of the ripe but confusing time following the end of the Civil War and the granting of freedom to former slaves.