Mcmullen

A girl discovers her boarding school is actually an elite spy-training program, and she must learn the skills of the trade in order to find her mother in this action-packed middle grade debut that’s perfect for fans of Stu Gibbs. After a botched escape plan from her boarding school, Abigail is stunned to discover the school is actually a cover for an elite spy ring called The Center, along with being training grounds for future spies. Even more shocking? Abigail’s mother is a top agent for The Center and she has gone MIA, with valuable information that many people would like to have—at any cost. Along with a former nemesis and charming boy from her grade, Abigail goes through a crash course in Spy Training 101, often with hilarious—and sometimes painful—results. But Abigail realizes she might be a better spy-in-training than she thought—and the answers to her mother’s whereabouts are a lot closer than she thinks…

Souls in the Great Machine is the first volume of Sean McMullen's brilliant future history of the world of Greatwinter. The great Calculor of Libris was forced to watch as Overmayor Zarvora had four of its components lined up against a wall and shot for negligence. Thereafter, its calculations were free from errors, and that was just as well-for only this strangest of calculating machines and its two thousand enslaved components could save the world from a new ice age. And all the while a faint mirrorsun hangs in the night sky, warning of the cold to come. In Sean McMullen's glittering, dynamic, and exotic world two millennia from now, there is no more electricity, wind engines are leading-edge technology, librarians fight duels to settle disputes, steam power is banned by every major religion, and a mysterious siren "Call" lures people to their death. Nevertheless, the brilliant and ruthless Zarvora intends to start a war in space against inconceivably ancient nuclear battle stations. Unbeknownst to Zarvora, however, the greatest threat to humanity is neither a machine nor a force but her demented and implacable enemy Lemorel, who has resurrected an obscene and evil concept from the distant past: Total War. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Sent to a private school after multiple brushes with the law, twelve-year-old Lola Benko recruits classmates to help find her archaeologist father, who disappeared while seeking a powerful mythical stone.

Tucked in the northwest corner of the Sonoran Desert, east of the Colorado River, the Great Arizona Outback is a little-known refuge where the frontier has yet to close. Since the 1880s, independent, rugged individualists including Wyatt Earp have come to find peace and solitude in the pristine desert. Gold mines at Harquahala brought adventurers, miners, and thieves. Dick Wick Hall, founder and "Sage of Salome," gave the region its mythic aura. The 20th century brought successive generations of dreamers, schemers, and industrious settlers in search of health, wealth, or simply a new beginning. Mid-century Route 60 tourists in search of gas, food, and lodging supported the indomitable residents in their eccentric little enclaves. The Smithsonian Observatory above Wenden, secret World War II tank testing grounds near Bouse, brothels, slot machines, and a world-class bird aviary provided memorable diversions to travelers on the main road between Phoenix and Los Angeles.

The twelve linked stories in McMullen Circle explore the intertwined lives of faculty families at the McMullen Boarding School in Tonola Falls, Georgia in 1969-70. The school community is isolated and idyllic, yet issues of race and the Vietnam War still intrude. Does heroism require physical prowess, or is there valor in a cafeteria worker enduring a cluttered, needy life with her four young sons, or an elderly librarian caring for her disabled lesbian partner? What does it take for a young African American girl to find the courage to assert her right to attend the all-white private school? The stories in this collection ask what, and who, are the real heroes.

Shannon Hale’s Princess Academy meets Stu Gibbs’s Spy School series in the third book in the Mrs. Smith’s Spy School for Girls series. Abby and her classmates have all been invited to Briar Academy to participate in The Challenge, a prep school competition where teams compete for prizes and the glory of being the best of the best. While there, they figure out their nemesis, The Ghost, is using Briar as headquarters to plan a devastating attack on his enemies (a.k.a.: pretty much everyone) using a brand-new invention Toby developed. And this time, The Center and Mrs. Smith will be of no help as Abby suspects there is someone working for The Ghost on the inside—and they can trust no one.

Seekers of the Wild Realm meets My Diary from the Edge of the World in this poignant and “action-packed” (School Library Journal) story of a lonely girl who befriends a kitten that might be much more—the first in a new series from author of Mrs. Smith’s Spy School for Girls, Beth McMullen! Twelve-year-old Cassie King’s father always told her the universe was on her side. All she had to do was work hard and things would go her way. But then Cassie’s father died, her mom retreated into herself, and her best friend traded her in for the popular crowd at school. The only thing Cassie still has is the volunteer work she does at the local library, a place where she can leave her troubles behind. Unfortunately, classmate and school outcast Joe Robinson is always there doing the same thing. One day, while Cassie and Joe are leaving the library, a bizarre storm hits, trapping them in a narrow alley. In the storm’s aftermath, Cassie discovers a bedraggled little kitten abandoned in a smelly dumpster. Cassie feels an immediate connection to the kitten and takes him home. But the kitten—who Cassie names Albert—is a little odd, with impossible strength and agility for a creature his size. At one point, Cassie swears she sees plumes of smoke rising from his water bowl, and one afternoon, while Albert is alone in her room, a strange symbol appears on the closet door. With new friend Joe’s help, Cassie figures out the symbol is a map. But a map to what? The friends soon discover that Albert is much more than he appears and is in grave danger. He needs Cassie’s help in ways she never could have imagined. Keeping him safe is the first thing Cassie has believed in for a long time. But is she strong enough to face down a sinister enemy moving ever closer and protect everything she loves?