Who would ever suspect that a tiny little mouse could wear out an energetic young boy? Well, if you're going to go around giving an exuberantly bossy rodent a cookie, you'd best be prepared to do one or two more favors for it before your day is through. For example, he'll certainly need a glass of milk to wash down that cookie, won't he? And you can't expect him to drink the milk without a straw, can you? By the time our hero is finished granting all the mouse's very urgent requests—and cleaning up after him—it—it's no wonder his head is becoming a bit heavy. Laura Joffe Numeroff's tale of warped logic is a sure-fire winner in the giggle-generator category. But concerned parents can rest assured, there's even a little education thrown in for good measure: underneath the folly rest valuable lessons about cause and effect. Felicia Bond's hilarious pictures are full of subtle, fun details. Fans will be happy to know that this dynamic author-illustrator pair teamed up again for If You Give a Moose a Muffin and If You Give a Pig a Pancake. (Great read aloud, ages 4 to 8) —Emilie Coulter

A gripping, thought-provoking story about life after a nuclear holocaust, by a Newbery Medalist.

Jane Marlow is a true-blue good girl: plain, predictable, and perfectly responsible. But when her brother catches an episode of Music One's "Off the Record," he discovers that former pop sensation Teddy Rock is actually their childhood neighbor Theodore Brockford, and that his one-hit wonder twelve years earlier wasn't just a catchy tune that took the charts by storm-it was a song about Jane Marlow! Now Jane has a chance to live life off the record, but is she ready for the changes it brings? And even if she's willing to take the risk, is she willing to face the music?

"I wonder if Judy Blume really knows how many girls' lives she affected. I wonder if she knows that at least one of her books made a grown woman finally feel like she'd been a normal girl all along. . . ."

— FROM

Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from

Judy Blume

Whether laughing to tears reading Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great or clamoring for more unmistakable "me too!" moments in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, girls all over the world have been touched by Judy Blume's poignant coming-of-age stories. Now, in this anthology of essays, twenty-four notable female authors write straight from the heart about the unforgettable novels that left an indelible mark on their childhoods and still influence them today. After growing up from Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing into Smart Women, these writers pay tribute, through their reflections and most cherished memories, to one of the most beloved authors of all time.

Written by Patricia T. O'Conner, an editor at the New York Times Book Review, Woe Is I gives lighthearted, witty instruction on the subject most of us dreaded in school—grammar. Discussion is brief and concise, and much more engaging than the grammar books you may remember. With chapter titles such as "Woe is I: Therapy for Pronoun Anxiety," "Your Truly: The Possessive and the Possessed," "Verbal Abuse: Words on the Endangered List," "Comma Sutra; The Joy of Punctuation," and "Death Sentence: Do Cliches Deserve to Die?," O'Conner proves that even grammar can make for entertaining reading.

Scott O'Dell won the Newbery Medal for Island of the Blue Dolphins in 1961, and in 1976 the Children's Literature Association named this riveting story one of the 10 best American children's books of the past 200 years. O'Dell was inspired by the real-life story of a 12-year-old American Indian girl, Karana. The author based his book on the life of this remarkable young woman who, during the evacuation of Ghalas-at (an island off the coast of California), jumped ship to stay with her young brother who had been abandoned on the island. He died shortly thereafter, and Karana fended for herself on the island for 18 years.

O'Dell tells the miraculous story of how Karana forages on land and in the ocean, clothes herself (in a green-cormorant skirt and an otter cape on special occasions), and secures shelter. Perhaps even more startlingly, she finds strength and serenity living alone on the island. This beautiful edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins is enriched with 12 full-page watercolor paintings by Ted Lewin, illustrator of more than 100 children's books, including Ali, Child of the Desert. A gripping story of battling wild dogs and sea elephants, this simply told, suspenseful tale of survival is also an uplifting adventure of the spirit. (Ages 9 to 12)

What would you do if you were a few months from collecting early retirement—a pension for which you’d sucked up and sycophanted almost twenty years—when your obscenely overweight and extremely crass boss told you that if you didn’t raise the company’s market share by the end of the year, you’d be out on your ass without a dime?

If you’re Sky Thorne, Senior V.P. of Tailburger—a fringe fast food chain whose specialties are batter dipped, deep-fried meat patties and 96-oz. beef-flavored shakes—you’ll get to work on as many harebrained, desperate schemes as you can think of. And if that means launching a marketing campaign that asks the public, “Why just abuse your body when you can torture it?” then damn it, that’s what you’ll do! Because Sky Thorne is ready to fight dirty and do anything necessary to earn the pension he sees as the reset button on life, liberty, and the pursuit of unadulterated deep-fried happiness.

Red Meat Cures Cancer is a hilarious and poignant romp through a world of excess, and marks the arrival of a great new satirical voice in American literature.

It's winter. The holidays are over. For those living in areas where it's still snowing, and even where it's just cold or rainy, it's the time of year when magazines, newspapers, radio, and television are tantalizing us with ads of warm beaches, sunshine, relaxation, water sports, and foo-foo drinks with little umbrellas sticking out of them. Many of us would love to be able to travel to someplace warm, or to a far away place for a new adventure. However, we may not have the time or the resources to do so. Fortunately, Travelers' Tales has just the armchair adventure travel anyone can experience — the beaches of Thailand, dining on the banks of the Seine, running with the bulls of Pamplona, purchasing a suit in Hong Kong, climbing the Himalayas — all for only $17.95 (no shots or visa required). O'Reilly and Travelers' Tales have created a national campaign to help you promote Travelers' Tales titles as the "great getaway — for cheap". We'll provide you with marketing materials (signage, T-shirts, buttons, postcards, special discount for inventory order, ad slick, and book displays) to create a window or in-store display during the month of May 1997. The store with the best display wins an overstuffed armchair fully equipped with an airline style seat belt. We'll also provide you with shelftalker coupon books with space on the front for you to stamp your store name and address. The coupon is redeemable for 10% off the purchase of a Travelers' Tales book. Your customer simply tears off the coupon from the shelftalker, completes the information (name and address) on the back, and gives it to the cashier when they're ready to purchase a book. At the end of each month you send us thecoupons used by your customers, and we'll credit your account. We understand that you might be hesitant to send in coupons with the names and addresses of your customers. The reason for retrieving this information is so you can build your customer list, and so we can send a Travelers' Tales newsletter to your customers informing them of new titles available from their local bookstore — including a reference to your store.

A new kind of travel anthology, Travelers' Tales marries the best of a guidebook with travel literature. Here veteran travel writers O'Reilly and Habegger bring together those stories which best capture the experience of India—the best bazaar of human experiences that can be visited in a lifetime.

"Anellia" is a young student who, though gifted with a penetratingintelligence, is drastically inclined to obsession. Funny, mordant, and compulsive, she falls passionately in love with a brilliant yet elusive blackphilosophy student. But she is tested most severely by a figure out ofher past she'd long believed dead.

Astonishingly intimate and unsparing, and pitiless in exposing the follies of the time, I'll Take You There is a dramatic revelation of the risks — and curious rewards — of the obsessive personality as well as a testament to the stubborn strength of a certain type of contemporary female intellectual.

Experience the majestic natural beauty of the Northern Mountains, the gentility of the classic South, and the charm of the Colonial Coast's fishing villages with the help of this book. Far more than plantations and peanuts, dynamic Georgia has a multitude of museums, nature centers, wineries, famous golf courses, hunting preserves, and more.

Cathe Olson (Simply Natural Baby Food) is back with The Vegetarian Mother’s Cookbook, a collection of more than 300 delicious whole foods recipes designed to nourish mothers and their families throughout pregnancy and lactation. The easy-to-prepare dishes are packed with protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids to help both mother and baby thrive. Entrées include many "quick fix" meals and freezable dishes – perfect for the busy parent. Many of the recipes in the book are vegan, and almost all of the recipes provide vegan options. For those with allergies, wheat-free, soy-free, dairy-free, and egg-free dishes are also included. There are even teas and tonics to help ease common pregnancy discomforts.

In addition to recipes, The Vegetarian Mother’s Cookbook provides up-to-date nutritional information with recommended dietary intakes, complete guide to ingredients, suggested shopping list, and tips for saving time and minimizing work in the kitchen. This book is a comprehensive eating guide for vegetarian mothers, and for non-vegetarians who want to include more whole foods in their diets.

Haunting and harrowing, as beautiful as it is disturbing, The English Patient tells the story of the entanglement of four damaged lives in an Italian monastery as World War II ends. The exhausted nurse, Hana; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burn victim who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning. In lyrical prose informed by a poetic consciousness, Michael Ondaatje weaves these characters together, pulls them tight, then unravels the threads with unsettling acumen.

A book that binds readers of great literature, The English Patient garnered the Booker Prize for author Ondaatje. The poet and novelist has also written In the Skin of a Lion, Coming Through Slaughter and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid; two collections of poems, The Cinnamon Peeler and There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do; and a memoir, Running in the Family.