The Squawking Dead

A missing Phoenix. A murder in the animal sanctuary. Can this pet psychic stand the heat and catch the killer? When the owner of an animal sanctuary is found dead inside one of the cages, Jolene teams up with her hot cop boyfriend and his lie sniffing dog to catch the killer. But with rumors that the victim axed her millionaire husband, a second body, and a missing phoenix thrown in the mix, it’s turning into a zoo of a case. To add fuel to the fire, the animals are giving this pet psychic the silent treatment, and Jolene fears the sanctuary is hiding a dark secret. Will this cursed witch be able to find the fire bird before it combusts, and bring the truth of the murders to light? Or will Jolene get burned as the whole thing goes up in flames?

A cursed witch with the ability to speak to animals must recover a missing phoenix and find justice for a murdered animal sanctuary owner. But when secrets from the black widow's past come to light, this mystery turns into a zoo of a case.

Science fiction and horror television shows predict how the world might be different if zombies were real, or if artificial intelligence could develop consciousness. Pop culture critics reveal that these not-quite humans are often proxies for race, and the post-apocalyptic landscapes set the stage for reimagining social and political institutions. This book advances horror scholarship by placing those stories within a long tradition of mythologizing U.S. history. It demonstrates how Disney's Zombies reenacts the civil rights movement, how The Walking Dead fulfills Thoreau's fantasy against the backdrop of founding a new nation, and how Westworld permits visitors to experience the Old West while bearing witness to Indian Removal. Each of these narratives imagines a future that retells the past. The chapters within look at that tradition in order to understand the present.

Most people think I’m exaggerating at first when I talk about the Chinese Squawking Chicken. But once they actually spend some time with her, they understand. They get it. Right away. She’s Chinese, she squawks like a chicken, she is totally nuts, and I am totally dependent on her. When Elaine Lui was growing up, her mother told her, “Why do you need to prepare for the good things that happen? They’re good. They won’t hurt you. My job is to prepare you for the hard times, and teach you how to avoid them, whenever possible.” Neither traditionally Eastern nor conventionally Western, the Squawking Chicken raised her daughter drawing on Chinese fortune-telling, feng shui blackmail, good old-fashioned ghost stories, and shame and embarrassment in equal measure. And despite years of chafing against her mother’s parenting style, Elaine came to recognize the hidden wisdom—and immeasurable value—in her rather unorthodox upbringing. Listen to the Squawking Chicken lays bare the playbook of unusual advice and warnings used to teach Elaine about hard work (“Miss Hong Kong is a whore”), humility (“I should have given birth to a piece of barbecue pork”), love and friendship, family loyalty (“Where’s my money?”), style and deportment (“Don’t be low classy”), finding one’s own voice (“Walk like an elephant, squawk like a chicken”) among other essentials. Along the way, Elaine poignantly reveals how her mother earned the nickname “Tsiahng Gai” or “squawking chicken” growing up in Hong Kong, enduring and rising from the ashes of her own hard times. Listen to the Squawking Chicken is a loving mother-daughter memoir that will have readers laughing out loud, gasping in shock, and reconsidering the honesty and guts it takes to be a parent.

If you were forced to sail with pirates . . . captured and tried for piracy . . . and sentenced to hang . . . would you trade your body to the crew of the "Flying Dutchman" in order to save your soul? Ricky did. Some dead men DO tell tales. And there is stolen treasure in this pirate story. ★ Directors' Choice Award Winner Finalist ★ Last winter Ricky Bradshaw was another gangly freshman hoping to fit in -- or at least not get picked on -- and maybe catch the attention of Becky Nance, a girl in his biology class. Except sometimes Ricky "zones out" in class because he has absence seizures. If you've never heard of absence seizures, that's okay. A lot of people haven't. Ricky's teachers are a lot of those people. And that's what happened to Ricky last Christmas Eve: he had an episode and ended up in pirate land. When Dead Calm, Bone Dry begins, Ricky is on his way to be tried for piracy. In the ship's brig he is about to learn that some things are worse than being unpopular in high school. MUCH worse. Like sailing to . . . Well, we best let Ricky tell the account. It is his story, after all. Parents can trust the Caribbean Chronicles Series. There is no sexual dialogue or situations, violence, or strong language, only positive moral values and a wee little bit of humor. :) We hope you enjoy these pirate books for young adults, teens, and older kids.

The twisted copycat who looked to the stars... He slipped like a sinister shadow in the night, stalking, then savagely attacking. Most of his unsuspecting targets were shot at close range and one woman was stabbed over one hundred times. After dispatching his victims, police allege he left their bloodstained bodies and crept back to the neatly kept room in his mother's apartment. Sleep my little dead... The taunting, bizarre letters alleged killer Heriberto Seda sent to the police and the New York Post were full of strange symbols and mysterious references to the Zodiac. For six terror-filled years, the Zodiac killer ruled the night, claiming nine victims in his homicidal rage. One of the biggest manhunts in New York City's history was unleashed...and still the body count rose. When would the terror end? Police claim his lethal fury finally exploded one summer afternoon. After shooting his own sister, he held her boyfriend hostage and kept scores of heavily armed police pinned down in a ferocious firefight that finally ended with his surrender. But it was only when an alert detective recognized a symbol drawn on Seda's confession as similar to the personal signature used by the Zodiac Killer in his letters, that investigators concluded that the madman they had arrested was in fact the notorious Zodiac Killer. Author Kieran Crowley, an award-winning New York Post reporter who covered the case from the first grisly shooting and cracked the psychopath's secret code, reveals the exclusive inside story and finally solves the biggest remaining mystery of the case.

The latest novel in the TV smash hit and New York Times bestselling Walking Dead series from Jay Bonansinga. To risk everything... She has weathered over four years of the apocalypse. She has done things that she would not have dreamt of doing in her darkest nightmares. But she has survived. And now, she has staked a claim in the plague-ravaged city of Atlanta. It is a safe haven for her people, rising high above the walker-ridden streets, a place of warmth and comfort. But for Lilly Caul, something is missing... She still dreams of her former home—the quaint little village known as Woodbury—a place of heartache as well as hope. For Lilly, Woodbury, Georgia, has become a symbol of the future, of family, of a return to normal life amidst this hell on earth. The call is so powerful that Lilly decides to risk everything in order to go back... to reclaim that little oasis in the wilderness. Against all odds, against the wishes of her people, Lilly leads a ragtag group of true believers back across the impossible landscape of walker swarms, flooded rivers, psychotic bands of murderers, and dangers the likes of which she has never known. Along the way, she discovers a disturbing truth about herself. She is willing to go to the darkest place in order to survive, in order to save her people, in order to do the one thing she knows she has to do: Return to Woodbury.

The classic work on female bullying now revised and updated to include new material on cyberbullying and the dangers of life online. When Odd Girl Out was first published, it became an instant bestseller and ignited a long-overdue conversation about the hidden culture of female bullying. Today the dirty looks, taunting notes, and social exclusion that plague girls’ friendships have gained new momentum in cyberspace. In this updated edition, educator and bullying expert Rachel Simmons gives girls, parents, and educators proven and innovative strategies for navigating social dynamics in person and online, as well as brand new classroom initiatives and step-by-step parental suggestions for dealing with conventional bullying. With up-to-the-minute research and real-life stories, Odd Girl Out continues to be the definitive resource on the most pressing social issues facing girls today. “Peels away the smiley surfaces of adolescent female society to expose one of girlhood’s dark secrets: the vicious psychological warfare waged every day in the halls of our . . . schools.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Provocative . . . Cathartic to any teen or parent trying to find company . . . it will sound depressingly familiar to any girl with a pulse.”—Detroit Free Press “Encourages girls to address one another when they feel angry or jealous, rather than engage in the rumor mill.”—Chicago Tribune “Simmons examines how such ‘alternative aggression’—where girls use their relationship with the victim as a weapon—flourishes and its harmful effects . . . Simmons makes an impassioned plea that no form of bullying be permitted.”—Publishers Weekly