Larry The Leaf

A leaf? What can be so exciting about a leaf? Well, you haven't met Larry the leaf and his friends. There's Max, the giant maple tree where Larry lives; Flo, Larry's girlfriend; and Milton, the black bear. There's also Katy and her dog, Skippy, who live in the cottage close to the woods. When the forest is ravished by fierce winds and stinging rain and when autumn arrives and Max begins to shed his leaves, what will happen to Larry, Flo, and their friends? Larry seeks the wisdom of Max and is the hero in the face of danger. As the seasons of the year change, Larry begins to understand that life is full of surprises.

Hopefully, you've already met Larry the Leaf and his friends in the original story Larry the Leaf. In this episode of Larry's life high atop Max, the majestic maple tree, you will be spellbound as Larry and the gang try to formulate and execute a plan with God's help to stop thieves from robbing Katy's farmhouse. How can a leaf, a tree, a black bear, a deer, some bees, a squirrel, a bluebird, and a raccoon possibly stop two dangerous thieves? And how is it possible that they can notify the police? And where was Katy and her dog Skippy while all this intrigue was going on? Your attention will be captured as you read this exciting adventure, including a surprise or two, with Larry and a few new friends.

Winters in Ohio are long. The days are gray and cloudy. The sun shines only occasionally. In spite of this, we love it here. It is home. It was a cold winter day in January. Everything was covered in a blanket of snow. As I looked out the window, I noticed that there was only one leaf on our pear tree. It looked so alone and so cold as it twirled around in the wind. That little leaf just wouldnt let go. I sat down in my comfortable chair near the window, and I wrote LARRY LEAF. This story teaches children about the seasons. Each season is beautiful in its own way.

After creating a controversial and hugely popular website, teenager Josh Swensen becomes trapped inside his brilliant creation and must find a way to remain anonymous. I am lying on my bed doing my homework in Greek and Latin roots for Advanced English. 'Ped' for foot, 'homo' for man, 'nym' for name. I sit with the dictionary in front of me, coming up with as many words as I can to complete the assignment. Pedestrian, homicide, pseudonym . . . I have more than thirty of them. By accident -- that's always how these life-changing things happen -- I connect two halves that don't seem like a word until I look it up. 'Pseudo', false; and 'cide,' to kill = pseudocide. To pretend to kill (yourself). I stare at the word for a good long time. Homicide, suicide, genocide: these are words you can find in the newspaper every day. But pseudocide . . . now here was something different. My mind wanders from my homework to the blue cotton threads of my bedspread. Pseudocide. A way to start again as someone completely new, a way to burn the old self and try on a new one. Josh Swensen isn't your average teenager - when he observes America, he sees a powerhouse of consumerism and waste. He's even tried to do something about it, with his start-up controversial website. But when Josh rises to messiah status of the internet world, he discovers that greed and superficiality are not easily escaped. Trapped inside his own creation, Josh feels his only way out is to stage his death and be free of his internet alter-ego, "Larry." But this plan comes with danger, and soon Josh finds himself cut off from the world, with no one to turn to for help. In this suspenseful young adult novel, Janet Tashjian has written a probing tour-de-force.

“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children. Now this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and second and third appendices. The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.