David de Vries

What does it mean when a fictional hero takes a journey? Shares a meal? Get drenched in a sudden rain shower? Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surface -- a symbol, maybe, that remains elusive, or an unexpected twist on a character - and there's that sneaking suspicion that the deeper meaning of a literary text keeps escaping you. In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster...

For eleven year-old Hugo Ballard, flying on the Hindenburg is a dream come true. Hugo, his parents, and his four-year-old sister Gertie, are making the thrilling four thousand mile journey across the Atlantic in a zeppelin as big as the Titanic. But as the zeppelin gets ready to land, a blast rocks the Hindenburg and fire consumes the ship. The entire disaster lasts a mere thirty-two seconds, but in those few seconds, Hugo finds himself separated...

Today is Family Fun Day at the library, and a magician named David puts on a show with his special trick--having the children pull books out of his tall hat, books that touch their deepest dreams and unlock their hopes for their future.

Bella, Gwen, and the Lost Boys have escaped to Alnwick Castle, but it is not the safe haven they hoped it would be for the "cure" for the Horologia virus has mutated into something even worse--so the Duchess Alyssa and Maddox Hadder set out searching for the virus's origin, an extinct poisonous apple, supposedly from a tree at the center of a labyrinth hidden deep within Germany and guarded by monsters.

Lost in the Black Forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and finds himself entwined in a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica--and decades later three children, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California find themselves caught up in the same thread of destiny in the darkest days of the twentieth century, struggling to keep their families intact, and tied together by the music of the same harmonica.

A major study of the collapse of the Soviet Union-showing how Gorbachev's misguided reforms led to its demise In 1945 the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four-million strong, five-thousand nuclear-tipped missiles, and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism....