Willow's Challenge


Book Description

Head Rider, Willow, confronts her past when the Unicorn Riders travel to Arlen to deliver a healing elixr to her dying uncle. But when old friends are betrayed and the town is attacked, the Riders and their unicorns must help the townspeople.




Counting by 7s


Book Description

A New York Times Bestseller In the tradition of Out of My Mind, Wonder, and Mockingbird, this is an intensely moving middle grade novel about being an outsider, coping with loss, and discovering the true meaning of family. Willow Chance is a twelve-year-old genius, obsessed with nature and diagnosing medical conditions, who finds it comforting to count by 7s. It has never been easy for her to connect with anyone other than her adoptive parents, but that hasn’t kept her from leading a quietly happy life . . . until now. Suddenly Willow’s world is tragically changed when her parents both die in a car crash, leaving her alone in a baffling world. The triumph of this book is that it is not a tragedy. This extraordinarily odd, but extraordinarily endearing, girl manages to push through her grief. Her journey to find a fascinatingly diverse and fully believable surrogate family is a joy and a revelation to read. * “Willow's story is one of renewal, and her journey of rebuilding the ties that unite people as a family will stay in readers' hearts long after the last page.”—School Library Journal starred review * “A graceful, meaningful tale featuring a cast of charming, well-rounded characters who learn sweet—but never cloying—lessons about resourcefulness, community, and true resilience in the face of loss.”—Booklist starred review * “What sets this novel apart from the average orphan-finds-a-home book is its lack of sentimentality, its truly multicultural cast (Willow describes herself as a “person of color”; Mai and Quang-ha are of mixed Vietnamese, African American, and Mexican ancestry), and its tone. . . . Poignant.”—The Horn Book starred review "In achingly beautiful prose, Holly Goldberg Sloan has written a delightful tale of transformation that’s a celebration of life in all its wondrous, hilarious and confounding glory. Counting by 7s is a triumph."—Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette




Marina Willows


Book Description

"Marina Willows" is a captivating narrative that immerses readers in a timeless realm where nature, the cosmos, and humanity are intricately interwoven. From the inception of this spiritual plane to the emergence of Mister Universe as its celestial guardian, the story unfolds in a world where water and the sun's energy breathe life into a puzzle of interconnected beings. In Marina Willows, every entity has lived countless lives, united by a simple rule: have fun. Magic becomes the key to unlocking the potential for dreams to come true, but the ultimate quest is the elusive overflowing well, a source of universal power and eternal wisdom, attainable through curiosity, knowledge, and love. The story takes readers on a journey through this enchanting world of Marina Willows...




Diamond Willow


Book Description

There's more to me than most people see. Twelve-year-old Willow would rather blend in than stick out. But she still wants to be seen for who she is. She wants her parents to notice that she is growing up. She wants her best friend to like her better than she likes a certain boy. She wants, more than anything, to mush the dogs out to her grandparents' house, by herself, with Roxy in the lead. But sometimes when it's just you, one mistake can have frightening consequences . . . And when Willow stumbles, it takes a surprising group of friends to help her make things right again. Using diamond-shaped poems inspired by forms found in polished diamond willow sticks, Helen Frost tells the moving story of Willow and her family. Hidden messages within each diamond carry the reader further, into feelings Willow doesn't reveal even to herself. Diamond Willow is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.




The Willow Pattern Story


Book Description

Allan Drummond's classic tale unlocks the intriguing story that hides deep within one of the most distinctive and iconic china patterns ever created: the willow pattern.




Willows Under Trial


Book Description

Several plays have been composed into novels of short stories. This began the saga of Beneath the Willow. The first book in the series focused on several of the residents of the established settlements. After many years of hard work, the town began to flourish. When they initially settled, all residents were in one central location. They spread out as the town began to grow. Development of farms and pastureland advanced rapidly. The town of Willow Bend is filled with imaginary characters but implies a very realistic concept. It is the writers vision that the town was established in the 1870s. Horace Lee Crowley and seven hundred migrants braved the elements, traveling until they found what they later established as the Willows. It was divided into several settlements: Willow Bend, Willow Estates, Willow Grove, and Willow Creek. The people tilled the soil and made their own clothing. For a short length of time, everyone cooked on a huge open pit. They prayed, inspired, encouraged, and made unified efforts together to lighten the load of chores of one another. They suffered the hardship of floods, crop infestation, poor farming equipment, and loss of profits. Through it all, unity blended them together as a community. After many years of hard work, the town flourished. Disagreements were natural in personality differences but were short lived. They migrated from a sharecrop farm thirty miles away. They tread large bodies of water that sometimes rose above waistlines. Small children were placed upon mens shoulders or on one of the old mules. Women carried the bundles of food and what little clothing they owned. It was a rough going, but majority of the people endured it. They had small clippings of flowers, twigs from fruit trees, and roots from vegetables. The substance of their existence was on their backs, mules, and wooden trestles that the men fashioned. Scraps of wood and small trees made up the trestles. This was the beginning of the Willows. Once settled, many differences occurred, natural in personalities, but they were able to accomplish agreement with the help of the county judge. The drama was getting to that point. Thanks for reading. See what you would do in these cases.




The New Sylva


Book Description

"Beautiful, useful, inspirational" BBC Wildlife Book of the Month "A delight on every page" Evening Standard In 1664, the horticulturist and diarist John Evelyn wrote Sylva, the first comprehensive study of British trees. It was also the world's earliest forestry book, and the first book ever published by the Royal Society. Evelyn's elegant prose has a lot to tell us today, but the world has changed dramatically since his day. Now authors Gabriel Hemery and Sarah Simblet, taking inspiration from the original work, have masterfully created a contemporary version – The New Sylva. The result is a fabulous resource that describes all of the most important species of tree that populate our landscape. Silvologist Gabriel Hemery explains what trees really mean to us culturally, environmentally and economically in the first part of the book. These chapters are followed by forty-four detailed tree portrait sections that describe the history and the features of trees such as oak, elm, beech, hornbeam, willow, fir, pine, juniper, plane, apple and pear. The pages of The New Sylva are brought to life with truly breathtaking artwork from artist and co-author Sarah Simblet, who captures the delicacy, strength and beauty of the trees through the seasons in 200 exquisite drawings. With an interplay of black and red type on creamy paper, The New Sylva recalls all the charm of traditional bookmaking. And at a moment when it is vitally important for us to rediscover how to treasure our trees, the time for this visionary, beautiful book is now. This edition comes with illustrated endpapers and a ribbon marker.




The Witch of Willow Hall


Book Description

"Steeped in Gothic eeriness."--Nicola Cornick, USA Today bestselling author In Salem, they burned. Now, they will rise. New Oldbury, 1821 The house holds its breath, trying to outlast me… Something has awakened in Willow Hall. Eighteen-year-old Lydia Montrose can feel it. But she has no idea what it is. Rocked by rumor and scandal, Lydia, her parents, and her sisters, Catherine and Emeline, fled their sparkling life in Boston for the sleepy country estate. But bone-chilling noises in the night have Lydia convinced their idyllic new home wasn’t exactly vacant when they arrived. The Salem witch trials cast a long shadow over the Montrose family as the cloying heat of summer in Massachusetts mingles with something sinister in the air. The sprawling history of Willow Hall is no stranger to secrets, and its dark past soon calls to Lydia, igniting ancient magic she never knew she possessed. But with menacing forces unwilling to rest, threatening to tear her family apart, Lydia must learn to harness her newly discovered power or risk losing everyone she holds dear. Don't miss Hester Fox's next novel, THE BOOK OF THORNS, where two sisters who never knew the other existed meet on opposite sides during the Napoleonic Wars and must use the magic of flowers to solve the mystery of their mother’s death—while surviving the war raging around them... Look for these other gothic mysteries from Hester Fox: The Last Heir to Blackwood Library The Widow of Pale Harbor The Orphan of Cemetery Hill A Lullaby for Witches




Guide to the Willows of Shoshone National Forest


Book Description

Correct identification of willow species is an important part of land management. This guide describes the 29 willows that are known to occur on the Shoshone National Forest, Wyoming. Keys to pistillate catkins and leaf morphology are included with illustrations and plant descriptions.




Picking Willows


Book Description

PICKING WILLOWS, With Daisy and Lilly Baker, Maidu Basket Makers of Lake Almanor earned the iUniverse Editor's Choice recognition and stated that it is a compelling memoir and a valuable anthropological and cultural record. The seeds of a cross-cultural friendship were first sowed in 1955 when author Pat Lindgren-Kurtzs family first met indigenous Mountain Maidu basket makers Lilly Baker and her mother, Daisy. As the friendship grew, the contrasts in their backgrounds only enriched their experiences. In her heartfelt memoir, Lindgren-Kurtz not only retells the story of a lifelong friendship, but also details how two cultures intertwined while Daisy and Lilly create beautiful baskets to be cherished by many generations. As she shares charming anecdotes from her life living with the California Mountain Maidu people, picking willows, and observing their basket-making techniques, she offers an intriguing glimpse into the Maidu culture, their personal trials and tragedies, and the dramatic environmental changes affecting Maidu life from the Gold Rush to contemporary times. Lindgren-Kurtz details that Lilly and Daisy, as part of a large family of skilled basket-makers, persisted in sharing their culture and traditional art through hands-on demonstrations for thousands. Women basket makers from Daisys and Lillys Maidu family are recognized as some of the best artisans of Indian basketry in North America. A charming basket of untold California history, family memoir, and especially friendships among talented artists from two different cultures. Bruce Shelly, screenwriter and author