Toby and the Secrets of the Tree

Toby and the Secrets of the Tree
Author: Timothée de Fombelle
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2010-08-10
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0763651966

A breathless, high-stakes quest to save the miniature world of the Tree --and reunite loved ones lost --unfolds with wit, suspense, and startling revelations. (Ages 9 and up) Toby’s world is under greater threat than ever before. A giant crater has been dug right into the center of the Tree, moss and lichen have invaded the branches, and one tyrant controls it all. Leo Blue, once Toby’s best friend, is holding Toby’s beloved Elisha prisoner, hunting the Grass People with merciless force, and inflicting a life of poverty and fear on the Tree People. But after several years among the Grass People, Toby has returned to fight back. And this time he’s not alone: a resistance is forming. In the much-anticipated sequel to the award-winning TOBY ALONE, the compelling eco-adventure reaches its gripping conclusion.

Toby Alone

Toby Alone
Author: Timothée de Fombelle
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2010-08-10
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 076365180X

Translated into twenty-two languages. Toby Lolness may be just one and a half millimeters tall, but he’s the most wanted person in his world -- the world of the great oak Tree. Toby’s father has made a groundbreaking discovery: the Tree itself is alive, lowing with vital energy, and there may even be a world beyond it. Greedy developers itch to exploit this forbidden knowledge, risking permanent damage to their natural world. But Toby’s father has refused to reveal his findings, causing the family to be exiled to the lower branches. Only Toby has managed to escape -- but for how long? And how can he bear to leave his parents to their terrible fate?

Vango

Vango
Author: Timothée de Fombelle
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Total Pages: 428
Release: 2014-10-14
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0763675830

A breathless adventure from international award winner Timothée de Fombelle charts a desperate search for identity across the vast expanses of Europe. In a world between wars, a young man on the cusp of taking priestly vows is suddenly made a fugitive. Fleeing the accusations of police who blame him for a murder, as well as more sinister forces with darker intentions, Vango attempts to trace the secrets of his shrouded past and prove his innocence before all is lost. As he crisscrosses the continent via train, boat, and even the Graf Zeppelin airship, his adventures take him from Parisian rooftops to Mediterranean islands to Scottish forests. A mysterious, unforgettable, and romantic protagonist, Vango tells a thrilling story sure to captivate lovers of daring escapades and subversive heroes.

The Witch Elm

The Witch Elm
Author: Tana French
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 529
Release: 2018-10-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0735224633

A New York Times bestseller and a Best Book of 2018 by NPR, The New York Times Book Review, Amazon, The Boston Globe, LitHub, Vulture, Slate, Elle, Vox, and Electric Literature “Tana French’s best and most intricately nuanced novel yet.” —The New York Times An “extraordinary” (Stephen King) and “mesmerizing” (LA Times) standalone novel from the master of crime and suspense and author of the forthcoming novel The Hunter. From the writer who “inspires cultic devotion in readers” (The New Yorker) and has been called “incandescent” by Stephen King, “absolutely mesmerizing” by Gillian Flynn, and “unputdownable” (People) comes a gripping new novel that turns a crime story inside out. Toby is a happy-go-lucky charmer who’s dodged a scrape at work and is celebrating with friends when the night takes a turn that will change his life—he surprises two burglars who beat him and leave him for dead. Struggling to recover from his injuries, beginning to understand that he might never be the same man again, he takes refuge at his family’s ancestral home to care for his dying uncle Hugo. Then a skull is found in the trunk of an elm tree in the garden—and as detectives close in, Toby is forced to face the possibility that his past may not be what he has always believed. A spellbinding standalone from one of the best suspense writers working today, The Witch Elm asks what we become, and what we’re capable of, when we no longer know who we are.

The Nile

The Nile
Author: Toby Wilkinson
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2014-02-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1408839938

From Herodotus's day to the present political upheavals, the steady flow of the Nile has been Egypt's heartbeat. It has shaped its geography, controlled its economy and moulded its civilisation. The same stretch of water which conveyed Pharaonic battleships, Ptolemaic grain ships, Roman troop-carriers and Victorian steamers today carries modern-day tourists past bankside settlements in which rural life – fishing, farming, flooding – continues much as it has for millennia. At this most critical juncture in the country's history, foremost Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson takes us on a journey up the Nile, north from Lake Victoria, from Cataract to Cataract, past the Aswan Dam, to the delta. The country is a palimpsest, every age has left its trace: as we pass the Nilometer on the island of Elephantine which since the days of the Pharaohs has measured the height of Nile floodwaters to predict the following season's agricultural yield and set the parameters for the entire Egyptian economy, the wonders of Giza which bear the scars of assault by nineteenth-century archaeologists and the modern-day unbridled urban expansion of Cairo – and in Egypt's earliest art (prehistoric images of fish-traps carved into cliffs) and the Arab Spring (fought on the bridges of Cairo) – the Nile is our guide to understanding the past and present of this unique, chaotic, vital, conservative yet rapidly changing land.

Doubleborn

Doubleborn
Author: Toby Forward
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2015-02-03
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1619635283

Bound together by a magical force in spite of their differences, Tamrin and Sam embark on respective missions only to discover that Ash holds the key to unlocking their mysterious pasts.

The Earth Hums in B Flat

The Earth Hums in B Flat
Author: Mari Strachan
Publisher: Canongate U.S.
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2009-06-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0802197671

The Earth Hums in B Flat is a story of dark family secrets unraveled by the shrewd insight of twelve-year-old Gwenni Morgan, a child with an irrepressible spirit living in a Welsh village that is reluctantly entering the modern age. From the small bed that she shares with her sister at night she flies up into the starry sky above her village and looks down on the lives of its inhabitants. And when the family that she babysits for is rocked by the sudden, unexplainable disappearance of their patriarch, Gwenni is determined to solve the mystery of Ifan EvanÕs whereabouts. Turning amateur detective, she is unaware that the trail will lead her closer to home than she ever imagined. Told with a breathtaking, irresistible blend of freshness and wisdom, the voice that sixty-two-year-old Welsh debut novelist Mari Strachan has created with Gwenni is vibrant, charming, and full of heart. An unforgettable character, GwenniÕs unique way of seeing the world lends her the ability to make the ordinary extraordinary. A magical novel about the trials of youth, familial duty, and understanding, The Earth Hums in B Flat will transport you to another time and place.Ê

Captain Rosalie

Captain Rosalie
Author: Timothee de Fombelle
Publisher: Candlewick
Total Pages: 63
Release: 2019-06-11
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1536205206

Timothée de Fombelle and Isabelle Arsenault capture the heart-wrenching cost of war for one small girl in a delicately drawn, expertly told tale. While her father is at war, five-year-old Rosalie is a captain on her own secret mission. She wears the disguise of a little girl and tracks her progress in a secret notebook. Some evenings, Rosalie’s mother reads aloud Father’s letters from the front lines, so that Rosalie knows he is thinking of her and looking forward to the end of the war and to finally coming home. But one day a letter comes that her mother doesn’t read to her, and Rosalie knows her mission must soon come to an end. Author Timothée de Fombelle reveals the true consequence of war through the experiences of small, determined Rosalie, while acclaimed artist Isabelle Arsenault illustrates Rosalie’s story in muted grays marked with soft spots of color — the orange flame of Rosalie’s hair, the pale pink of a scarf, the deep blue ink of her father’s letters. All the more captivating for the simplicity with which it is drawn and told, this quiet tale will stay with the reader long after its last page is turned.

The Book of Pearl

The Book of Pearl
Author: Timothée de Fombelle
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2018-02-06
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0763694088

In prose as magical and intricate as the tale it tells, Timothée de Fombelle delivers an unforgettable story of a first love that defines a lifetime. Joshua Pearl comes from a world that we no longer believe in — a world of fairy tale. He knows that his great love waits for him there, but he is stuck in an unfamiliar time and place — an old-world marshmallow shop in Paris on the eve of World War II. As his memories begin to fade, Joshua seeks out strange objects: tiny fragments of tales that have already been told, trinkets that might possibly help him prove his own story before his love is lost forever. Sarah Ardizzone and Sam Gordon translate the original French into a work both luminous and layered, enabling Timothée de Fombelle’s modern fairy tale to thrum with magic. Brimming with romance and history, mystery and adventure, this ode to the power of memory, storytelling, and love will ensnare any reader’s imagination, and every reader’s heart.