The Water Babies

A Victorian tale in which Tom, a sooty little chimney sweep with a great longing to be clean, is stolen by fairies and turned into a water-baby.

'this is all a fairy tale...and, therefore, you are not to believe a word of it, even if it is true' The Water-Babies (1863) is one of the strangest and most powerful children's stories ever written. In describing the underwater adventures of Tom, a chimney-sweeper's boy who is transformed into a water-baby after he drowns, Charles Kingsley combined comic fantasy and moral fable to extraordinary effect. Tom's encounters with friendly fish, curious lobsters, and characters such as Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby are both an exciting fairy tale and a crash course in evolutionary theory. They also reflect the quirky imagination of one of the great Victorian eccentrics. Tom's adventures are constantly interrupted by Kingsley's sideswipes at contemporary issues such as child labour and the British education system, and they offer a rich satiric take on the great scientific debates of the day. This edition reprints the original complete version of the story, and includes a lively introduction, detailed explanatory notes, and an appendix that reprints Kingsley's first attempt to describe the mysterious creatures that live under the sea.

This edition of Charles Kingsley's 'The Water-Babies', illustrated by A. E. Jackson was originally published in 1920. The story was extremely popular in England and was a mainstay of British children's literature for many decades.

Never-before-seen photographs of baby birds of the marshlands from a noted birding photographer Naturalist William Burt is known for seeking out wild places and elusive birds—and none fit the bill quite so well as the creatures featured in this book. This may well be his break out book, featuring the downy young of the wetlands, whose images are full of character and appeal. Most of these birds have never been captured on film until now. From the comic-monster herons to the fuzzy ducklings and stick-legged sandpipers, these tots have personality and spunk. In the wetlands, they come together, drawn by one essential need: for water. These babies then, are birds that get their feet wet; this book is one for bird lovers, naturalists, photographers, and animal lovers. “A perfectionist whose photographs of shy and elusive birds of the wetlands are unquestionably the finest ever taken.” –Roger Tory Peterson "What really comes through, in the writing and the photographs, is his deep and sensitive appreciation of the uniqueness of each of these most intriguing birds."--David Allen Sibley

Her name is Alexandria Aurora Fortunato, and she is as lovely as the dawn. But that is only one of her problems. There’s also the matter of those three magical gifts of treasure bestowed on her by a mysterious old woman. And King Claudio the Cruel wants to marry her for her beauty and her wealth, and so does his rival, Prince Edmund of Dorloo. Those are two more problems. And, worst of all, she is locked in a tower, with a grille of iron bars and several hundred tons of stone between her and freedom. Some days Alexandria wishes she looked like a pickled onion. Clearly the only thing to do is escape—and, with the aid of her twelve darling goose companions, that’s precisely what Alexandria does. So begins the adventure of Patrice Kindl’s beguiling heroine. Her flight will take her to strange lands and lead her into perilous situations, all of which the plucky Alexandria views with a wry and witty spirit. Here is a sprightly tale of magic and romance, in which those geese play a most surprising role.

Your favorite princes and princesses are back in the hilarious and action-packed sequel to the breakout hit The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by author Christopher Healy, which the New York Times selected as one of its best books of the year. Prince Liam. Prince Frederic. Prince Duncan. Prince Gustav. You remember them, don't you? They're the Princes Charming, who finally got some credit after they stepped out of the shadows of their princesses—Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White, and Briar Rose—to defeat an evil witch bent on destroying all their kingdoms. But alas, such fame and recognition only last so long. And when the princes discover that an object of great power might fall into any number of wrong hands, they are going to have to once again band together to stop it from happening—even if no one will ever know it was they who did it.