The Wordsmith's Tale


Book Description

Written with great verve and wit, and bringing to the page the sights, smells and sounds of a tumultuous, often brutal period in English history, this is a timeless tale - still relevant, a thousand years on - of how love, laughter and language are the best defences, when hardship and oppression bear down on you.




Tales From a Wordsmith


Book Description

Tales From a Wordsmith is a collection of seven short stories that will take you to a new fantasy realm. Reminisce with Matilda and The Wordsmith as they tell cautionary tales and relive their adventures doing what they do best, telling stories. Travel to an island always buzzing with activity or meet the Queen who bargained with The Fates. In this small collection you will be provoked and each story will leave you feeling something different. Delve into these pages and be a part of the travels, the conflicts and the creatures as told by The Wordsmith and Matilda.




The List


Book Description

Fahrenheit 451 meets The Giver in an award winning dystopian story about the dangers of censorship and how far we will go in the pursuit of freedom. What if you were only allowed to speak 500 words? The city of Ark is the last safe place on Earth: the polar ice caps have melted and flooded everything, leaving few survivors. To make sure humans do not make the same mistakes, Ark's leader John Noa decrees everyone in Ark must speak List, a language of only 500 words. Language is to blame for mankind's destruction, John Noa says, as politicians and governments hid the disastrous effects of global warming and environmental damage until it was too late. Everyone must speak List ... except Letta. As apprentice to the Wordsmith, Letta can read all the words that have ever existed. Forbidden words like freedom, music, and even pineapple tell her about a world she's never known. One day her master disappears. John Noa tells Letta she is the new Wordsmith, and must shorten List to fewer and fewer words. Then Letta meets a teenage boy who somehow knows all the words that have been banned. Letta's faced with a dangerous choice: sit idly by and watch language slowly slip away or follow a stranger on a path to freedom . . . or banishment. Letta chooses to fight for the very thing that keeps us human: language itself. The List: The perfect tool to discuss censorship and freedom of speech with young readers A gripping, fast-moving story that will appeal to 5th grade readers and above, especially 10 year old girls that will love the strong character of Letta A discussion starter on the importance of language and the power of expression, and what it means for society A 2018 Notable Children's Books Selection A 2018-19 Maine Student Book Award Winner A 2018 Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the Year (Ages 12-14) A Junior Library Guild Selection




Wordsmiths and Warriors


Book Description

Wordsmiths and Warriors explores the heritage of English through the places in Britain that shaped it. It unites the warriors, whose invasions transformed the language, with the poets, scholars, reformers, and others who helped create its character. The book relates a real journey. David and Hilary Crystal drove thousands of miles to produce this fascinating combination of English-language history and travelogue, from locations in south-east Kent to the Scottish lowlands, and from south-west Wales to the East Anglian coast. David provides the descriptions and linguistic associations, Hilary the full-colour photographs. They include a guide for anyone wanting to follow in their footsteps but arrange the book to reflect the chronology of the language. This starts with the Anglo-Saxon arrivals in Kent and in the places that show the earliest evidence of English. It ends in London with the latest apps for grammar. In between are intimate encounters with the places associated with such writers as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth; the biblical Wycliffe and Tyndale; the dictionary compilers Cawdrey, Johnson, and Murray; dialect writers, elocutionists, and grammarians, and a host of other personalities. Among the book's many joys are the diverse places that allow warriors such as Byrhtnoth and King Alfred to share pages with wordsmiths like Robert Burns and Tim Bobbin, and the unexpected discoveries that enliven every stage of the authors' epic journey.




My Epic Life - Daily Word Workout


Book Description

With 180 pages of hilarious illustrations, brain teasers, life inspiration, math, technology and much, much more, Daily Word Workout builds kids' vocabulary while introducing them to concepts that extend way beyond language. Make every day epic with a daily word workout that will prepare kids for anything that the world can throw at them! With 180 pages of hilarious illustrations, brain teasers, life inspiration, and much, much more, Daily Word Workout builds kids' vocabulary while introducing them to concepts that extend way beyond language. From basic mathematics to science and technology via valuable life lessons about inclusivity, tolerance, and respect, this indispensable daily wonder is designed to introduce young minds to big ideas at the breakfast table. And all through the magic of words! Why walk when you can stroll, saunter, or swagger? Don't cry when you can weep, wail, or whimper! Daily Word Workout is packed with synonyms, antonyms, and mind-blowing vocabulary that shows kids the epic scope and flexibility of language. Whether it's labelling emotions, communicating clearly, building character, or telling tall tales, there's a word here for everything. Plus, count in twos with some cookie-crazed tiger cubs! Start telling time with a tooth-brushing dog! Shapes, sizes, left and right - whatever kids need to know, our colourful cast of word-hungry animals have it covered. They'll laugh. They'll learn. Epic just became a way of life.




Storyteller's Word a Day


Book Description

Every day, flip the page and discover a new, hilariously illustrated word that will take your child's storytelling to the next level. Storyteller's Word a Day is packed with discerning data and insight on how to get the most out of every word. Set it on the breakfast table, talk about it together, tell stories, and create a daily word-learning habit that will take kids' storytelling to another planet. Hardcover with spiral binding for easy viewing by kids and parents.




The Wordsmiths and the Warguild


Book Description

Togura Poulaan, a questing hero whether he liked it or not, is precipitated into a series of adventures in a world which includes dragons, sea serpents, war, wild tribes and the wizard Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, lord of the island of Drum. A fast-paced fantasy novel published in the USA as two volumes, THE QUESTING HERO and THE HERO'S RETURN.




Tales of Crime & Violence - Vol1


Book Description

Tales of Crime & Violence are a collection of three books of my short, and not so short stories. The ideas and inspiration are many and as varied as each of the individual tales themselves. Although all the stories in these books are about committing crime, or being involved in acts of violence, the real story is of the people involved, why and how they came to be in this position, whether they were forced or coerced, willing participants or victims themselves. Are they committing the crime, or are they simply the victims... sometimes it is not so easy to tell.




The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap


Book Description

An inspiring true story about losing your place, finding your purpose, and building a community one book at a time. Wendy Welch and her husband had always dreamed of owning a bookstore, so when they left their high-octane jobs for a simpler life in an Appalachian coal town, they seized an unexpected opportunity to pursue thier dream. The only problems? A declining U.S. economy, a small town with no industry, and the advent of the e-book. They also had no idea how to run a bookstore. Against all odds, but with optimism, the help of their Virginian mountain community, and an abiding love for books, they succeeded in establishing more than a thriving business - they built a community. The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap is the little bookstore that could: how two people, two cats, two dogs, and thirty-eight thousand books helped a small town find its heart. It is a story about people and books, and how together they create community.




Trouble the Saints


Book Description

WINNER OF THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD “Juju assassins, alternate history, a gritty New York crime story...in a word: awesome.” —N.K. Jemisin, New York Times bestselling author of The Fifth Season The dangerous magic of The Night Circus meets the powerful historical exploration of The Underground Railroad in Alaya Dawn Johnson's timely and unsettling novel, set against the darkly glamorous backdrop of New York City, where an assassin falls in love and tries to change her fate at the dawn of World War II. Amid the whir of city life, a young woman from Harlem is drawn into the glittering underworld of Manhattan, where she’s hired to use her knives to strike fear among its most dangerous denizens. Ten years later, Phyllis LeBlanc has given up everything—not just her own past, and Dev, the man she loved, but even her own dreams. Still, the ghosts from her past are always by her side—and history has appeared on her doorstep to threaten the people she keeps in her heart. And so Phyllis will have to make a harrowing choice, before it’s too late—is there ever enough blood in the world to wash clean generations of injustice? Trouble the Saints is a dazzling, daring novel—a magical love story, a compelling exposure of racial fault lines—and an altogether brilliant and deeply American saga. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.