The Pear Tree

In the spring of 1942 Czech Resistance fighters assassinate the head of Nazi-Occupied Czechoslovakia. On the flimsiest of evidence, the Nazi high command sends troops to demolish the small Czech town of Lidice, execute the town¿s men, and abduct and racially profile its women and children. The Pear Tree tells the story of the assassination and its effects on:

Another original Pamela Allen book to share with the very young. As with her award-winning Who Sank the Boat?, there is something for all of us to learn from this simple but amusing story of John and Jane's attempts to pick a pear from the pear tree

Esperanza tricks Señor Death but realizes the death is a necessary part of life and alleviates much suffering in the world.

Tracing the dramatic lives, through 500 years, of the old and distinguished Sephardic Jewish family from whom he is descended, Victor Perera brilliantly re-creates the history not only of his own people but of an entire culture. The story he tells begins in Spain in the fifteenth century, when the Sephardim are offered a choice of conversion, exile or death. It is the story of a richly flourishing tradition - intellectual, religious, worldly and spiritual - interrupted by massively cruel events; a story of persecution, escape and renewal, carrying us from the Iberian Peninsula across Europe to the Holy Land and Central America. And the Pere(i)ras whose lives we enter are both fascinating in themselves and emblematic of the Sephardic diaspora created by the Inquisition and the Expulsion - some of them, under threat of torture and execution, capitulating to the Cross or becoming Marranos, crypto-Jews who practiced their ancestral religion in secret; others remaining loyal to the pear tree that became their symbol and crest. Among the Marranos: Ana Pereira, a merchant's daughter, a Sephardic convert in Portugal who, at age fifteen, was sentenced to wear penitential raiment and undergo spiritual penances in prison, where, under torture, she incriminated fifteen of her close relations. Among the reclaimed: the fabulously wealthy magnate and author Abraham Israel Pereira, who participated in the excommunication of philosopher Baruch Spinoza; and the beautiful Maria Nunes, who was abducted to Shakespeare's England, and rejected the marriage proposal of a duke and Queen Elizabeth's entreaties on his behalf, marrying instead a cousin in Amsterdam's first Jewish wedding. In nineteenth-centuryFrance we follow the meteoric rise of the brothers Emile and Isaac Pereire, who founded the French railroads and the Credit Mobilier banking system. Over the centuries, the stories of Pereras in all walks of life - among them rabbis and Kabbalistic scholars in the Holy Land - unfold

The fascinating history of a tree that's older than our nation.

In 1811 John Williams was buried with a stake in his heart. Was he the notorious East End killer or his eighth victim in the bizarre and shocking Ratcliffe Highway Murders? In this vivid and gripping reconstruction P. D. James and police historian T. A. Critchley draw on forensics, public records, newspaper clippings and hitherto unpublished sources, expertly sifting the evidence to shed new light on this infamous Wapping mystery. This true crime novel begins amid the horror of a dark, wintry London in the year 1811. Using elegant historical detection P.D. James and police historian T.A. Critchley piece together new and unpublished sources in an original portrayal of the Ratcliffe Highway Murders. P.D. James, the bestselling author of Death Comes to Pemberley and Children of Men, here explores the mysterious and intense emotions responsible for the unique crime of murder, with authority and sensitivity. Her only work of true crime, this novel uses forensics, unpublished sources and forgotten documents to create a vivid image of early-nineteenth century London and a gripping reconstruction of the Ratcliffe Highway Murders.

Shen doesn’t like to share anything – especially not his yummy pears. Can a hungry beggar teach him a little kindness? The Chinese folktale specially retold for beginner readers. Part of the Usborne Reading Programme developed with reading experts at the University of Roehampton, specially written for children just starting to read alone. Includes audio. "Crack reading and make confident and enthusiastic readers with this fantastic reading programme." - Julia Eccleshare

FROM A YOUNG AGE the author was intrigued by her mother Gaetanina's storytelling. She took seriously her mother's urging to scrivi e ricorda ("write and remember"). Itri, Italy nestled in a valley south of Rome, surrounded by the Aurunci Mountains, is home to the Santuario of Maria SS della Civita, and to her parents and ancestors. Many of the Itrani people, including the author's parents, immigrated to the small town of Knightsville in Cranston, Rhode Island. Their faith, courage, and hard work in the face of severe hardships left a lifelong impression and a resolution to one day tell their story and fulfill the commitment made to her mother to write the family history. In this telling it is hoped that all generations, present and to come, will remember their familial roots and the people who have come before them. Told by the perspective of this one Itrani family, Under the Pear Tree is a moving account of the trials, traumas and emotional life surrounding the Italian immigrant experience at the turn of the 19th century. This story is sure to inspire the reader to discover one's own ancestral past.