The Boy Who Wanted The Moon

Crackpot notions, community spirit, and sky-high aspirations transform a quiet boy’s life in this whimsical tale from the stellar team of David Almond and Polly Dunbar. There are some strange ideas floating around in Paul’s apartment block. There’s Mabel, who now calls herself Molly and whose brother hides under a paper bag. Then there’s Clarence, the poodle who thinks he can fly. But the strangest notion of all is Paul’s. You see, Paul believes that the moon is not the moon but a great hole in the sky. And he knows that sausages are better than war. How on earth (or not) will he find out if he is bonkers or a genius? With a few equally bonkers (or genius) helpers and a very long ladder, that’s how! From a master of magical realism and a celebrated artist comes another delightfully outrageous expedition.

It's midnight - a special time of night, when anything can happen. Wide awake long past his bedtime, a young boy slips outside his house to join some special friends in a nighttime jubilation. Complete with howls and whoops, they joyously celebrate the mystery and magic of the night, basking in the glow of the moonlight. They howled at the moon, they howled at life, and they howled with all things in the night. But their revelry comes to a halt when the moon is caught in the branches of a tree. Is anyone brave enough to climb the tree and save the moon? Gorgeous atmospheric paintings lure readers of all ages into believing that anything can happen - at midnight! J. (Jim) Carroll's work has been displayed around the world, including at the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science & Technology in Milan and at the United Nations in NYC. He has been an instructor at the School of Visual Arts and at the Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art. His work has also been featured in Zoom, HOW, PRINT and Communication Arts magazines. The Boy and the Moon is his first children's book.

In a book with foldout pages, Monica's father fulfills her request for the moon by taking it down after it is small enough to carry, but it continues to change in size.

Soon to be a major motion picture, from Brad Pitt and Tony Kushner A Washington Post Best Book of 2015 A mid-century doctor's raw, unvarnished account of his own descent into madness, and his daughter's attempt to piece his life back together and make sense of her own. Texas-born and Harvard-educated, Dr. Perry Baird was a rising medical star in the late 1920s and 1930s. Early in his career, ahead of his time, he grew fascinated with identifying the biochemical root of manic depression, just as he began to suffer from it himself. By the time the results of his groundbreaking experiments were published, Dr. Baird had been institutionalized multiple times, his medical license revoked, and his wife and daughters estranged. He later received a lobotomy and died from a consequent seizure, his research incomplete, his achievements unrecognized. Mimi Baird grew up never fully knowing this story, as her family went silent about the father who had been absent for most of her childhood. Decades later, a string of extraordinary coincidences led to the recovery of a manuscript which Dr. Baird had worked on throughout his brutal institutionalization, confinement, and escape. This remarkable document, reflecting periods of both manic exhilaration and clear-headed health, presents a startling portrait of a man who was a uniquely astute observer of his own condition, struggling with a disease for which there was no cure, racing against time to unlock the key to treatment before his illness became impossible to manage. Fifty years after being told her father would forever be “ill” and “away,” Mimi Baird set off on a quest to piece together the memoir and the man. In time her fingers became stained with the lead of the pencil he had used to write his manuscript, as she devoted herself to understanding who he was, why he disappeared, and what legacy she had inherited. The result of his extraordinary record and her journey to bring his name to light is He Wanted the Moon, an unforgettable testament to the reaches of the mind and the redeeming power of a determined heart.

A New York Times Top 10 Book of 2011 The Boy in the Moon is Ian Brown's powerful, honest, and emotionally complicated memoir of raising his son, Walker—one of only a few hundred people worldwide who live with an extremely rare genetic mutation. Born with CFC (cardiofaciocutaneous) syndrome, Walker Brown is a mystery, as remote to his family as the moon. Unable to speak or swallow, compelled to hit himself, requiring surgeries, and round-the-clock care, he becomes the focus of his father's keen intelligence. An investigative journalist, Ian Brown traveled the globe, meeting with genetic scientists and neurologists as well as parents of similar children, seeking ways to reach—and perhaps cure—his son. As Brown becomes part of a community of families, he lets go of his self-blame and his desire to "fix" Walker, learning to accept the boy he loves, just as he is. A New York Times Top 10 Book of 2011, The Boy in the Moon is an extraordinary memoir that explores the value and the meaning of every human life, through the eyes of one father, searching for his son.

From the time Neil Armstrong took his first small steps and said his first words, he wanted to travel in space. Although everyone told him it was impossible, he never gave up. Tom Saunders' lilting lyrics tell the story of Armstrong's life, right up to the 'small step' and 'giant leap'. Brought to life by the award-winning illustrator Cynthia Nugent, his story will inspire children and their parents alike.

Walker Brown was born with a genetic mutation so rare that doctors call it an orphan syndrome: perhaps 300 people around the world also live with it. Walker turns twelve in 2008, but he weighs only 54 pounds, is still in diapers, can't speak and needs to wear special cuffs on his arms so that he can't continually hit himself. 'Sometimes watching him,' Brown writes, 'is like looking at the man in the moon – but you know there is actually no man there. But if Walker is so insubstantial, why does he feel so important? What is he trying to show me?' In The Boy in the Moon, Brown sets out to answer that question, a journey that takes him into deeply touching and troubling territory. 'All I really want to know is what goes on inside his off-shaped head,' he writes, 'But every time I ask, he somehow persuades me to look into my own.'