Once

Felix, a Jewish boy in Poland in 1942, is hiding from the Nazis in a Catholic orphanage. The only problem is that he doesn't know anything about the war, and thinks he's only in the orphanage while his parents travel and try to salvage their bookselling business. And when he thinks his parents are in danger, Felix sets off to warn them--straight into the heart of Nazi-occupied Poland. To Felix, everything is a story: Why did he get a whole carrot in his soup? It must be sign that his parents are coming to get him. Why are the Nazis burning books? They must be foreign librarians sent to clean out the orphanage's outdated library. But as Felix's journey gets increasingly dangerous, he begins to see horrors that not even stories can explain. Despite his grim suroundings, Felix never loses hope. Morris Gleitzman takes a painful subject and expertly turns it into a story filled with love, friendship, and even humor.

Felix and Zelda have escaped the train to the death camp, but where do they go now? They're two runaway kids in Nazi-occupied Poland. Danger lies at every turn of the road. With the help of a woman named Genia and their active imaginations, Felix and Zelda find a new home and begin to heal, forming a new family together. But can it last? Morris Gleitzman's winning characters will tug at readers' hearts as they struggle to survive in the harsh political climate of Poland in 1942. Their lives are difficult, but they always remember what matters: family, love, and hope.

Set in the current day, this is the final book in Morris Gleitzman's series that began with Once, continued with Then and is . . . Now. Felix is a grandfather. He has achieved much in his life and is widely admired in the community. He has mostly buried the painful memories of his childhood, but they resurface when his granddaughter Zelda comes to stay with him. Together they face a cataclysmic event armed only with their with gusto and love—an event that helps them achieve salvation from the past, but also brings the possibility of destruction. Now is one of Kirkus Reviews' Best Children's Books of 2012

WHAT IF ALL THE LEGENDS ARE TRUE? Retired monster hunter Bridgette McGuire knows that they are. And when a group of Nationalists uncover the fabled scabbard of Excalibur in order to bring King Arthur back from the dead to reclaim England, she will be the only one who can stop them. In order to do so, she’ll need to pull her unsuspecting academic grandson, Duncan, into a deadly world of myth and prophecy. Their quest will lead them to confront the complicated history of their family, confront the deadly secrets of England’s past, and throw the Otherworld into shambles, allowing for new legends and characters to make their appearance--and bring a world of trouble along with them.

"Of all my far back memories two remain most vivid, as if they had just happened. The first is of an incident that occurred in a few minutes' time; the second, a matter of months. The first happening surely was the key to my survival of the second...." So begins, veiled in mystery, Gridelda Jackson Ohannessian's beautifully rendered childhood memoir about growing up on a farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, beneath "the friendly blue bowl" of the sky, and the dangerous, preternatural events of the summer of 1939 that changed her life forever. Once: As It Was is narrated through the lens of the author's twelve-year-old self. Her farm-home was a world of little dirt roads, kerosene lamps, and visiting hobos. There is her dear father Bousie ("rhymes with Howsie"), her loving Ma, her two sisters and brother, and the Owls, the Cherokee Indian farmhands who were also part of the family, as well as many other friends and passers-by. Ohannessian's writing-memory meanders intently like a bright creek, through her schoolhouse where Margeret Toomer, the writer Jean Toomer's daughter, was one of two black students, through the living presene of books and pen pals, amany secret places, a brief run-in with Professor Einsten, and even a little "s.e.x." Then the fateful day arrives when a band of writers, led by the poets Laura Riding and Robert Graves, moves onto the farm. Photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, poems, and a few bars of Morse code provide lively counterpoint to Ohannessia's endearing tale of what was -- and is -- Once.

Winner - CBCA Book of the Year Awards 2016 Winner - YABBA Children's Choice Awards 2016 Winner - KOALA Children's Choice Awards 2016 Shortlisted - Indie Book Awards 2016 Shortlisted - Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards 2016 I hoped the Nazis would be defeated. And they were. I hoped the war would be over. And it was. I hoped we would be safe. But we aren't. ‘Haunting... dangerous and desperate, but also full of courage and hope.’ The Guardian Having survived the holocaust, Felix is facing new challenges as he tries to rebuild his life in Poland. He is determined to find his family and uncover the truth about his past. He also has to navigate the complex realities of post-war Poland, where anti-Semitism is still prevalent. With its powerful blend of humour and heart, Soon offers a unique perspective on the aftermath of the Holocaust and the long-lasting impact of trauma, and it is a powerful reminder of the resilience and hope that can be found even in the darkest of times. ‘Morris Gleitzman has discovered the difficult trick of changing reality so that poignancy and laughter are never far apart.’ The Australian ‘Painfully truthful.’' The Sunday Times ‘Funny and shocking at the same time.’ Jewish Chronicle Other books in the series: Once Then Now After Soon Maybe Always

AN NYRB CLASSICS ORIGINAL Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature Young Once is a crucial book in the career of Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano. It was his breakthrough novel, in which he stripped away the difficulties of his earlier work and found a clear, mysteriously moving voice for his haunting stories of love, nostalgia, and grief. It has also been called “the most gripping Modiano book of all” (Der Spiegel). Odile and Louis are leading a happy, bucolic life with their two children in the French countryside near the Swiss mountains. It is Odile’s thirty-fifth birthday, and Louis’s thirty-fifth birthday is a few weeks away. Then the story shifts back to their early years: Louis, just freed from his military service and at loose ends, is taken up by a shady character who brings him to Paris to do some work for a friend who manages a garage; Odile, an aspiring singer, is at the mercy of the kindness and unkindness of strangers. In a Paris that is steeped in crime and full of secrets, they find each other and struggle together to create what, looking back, will have been their youth.