There are two sides to every story. A little girl finds a strange beast in the woods and takes it home as a pet. She feeds it, shows it off to her friends and gives it a hat. But that night it escapes. Then the beast tells the story of being kidnapped by the girl, who forcefed it squirrel food, scared it with a group of beasts and wrapped it in wool. Can the two beasts resolve their differences? An eye-opening story that makes you look at things from a different perspective. 'Roberton's premise is as sublime as it is simple, with a subtle message. [...] Totally delightful.' - Kirkus Reviews

Perfect for the changing seasons, this wacky twist on The Ugly Duckling is a great read for Halloween and Thanksgiving. The Ugly Pumpkin has waited all through October for someone to take him home, but no one wants him. He doesn't look like other pumpkins. So the lonely Ugly Pumpkin leaves the patch in search of a place where he'll fit in. By the time Thanksgiving arrives, he discovers the truth about who he is--but it's not what he expected!

A little girl rescues a strange beast in the woods and carries him home. But the beast escapes! Two funny and charming tales about seeing both sides of the story.

Transformations in Stories and Arguments explores essential questions, such as "How does the development of a character build the reader's understanding? How do the actions of others change the world? How do words and images impact our thinking?" This unit, developed by Vanderbilt University's Programs for Talented Youth, is aligned to the Common Core State Standards and features accelerated content, creative products, differentiated tasks, engaging activities, and the use of in-depth analysis models to develop sophisticated skills in the language arts. Through the lens of transformation, students will examine narrative and persuasive elements essential to the analysis of short stories, advertisements, visual art, scientific argumentation, and their own writing. Students will discover transformations in themselves and their written work as they craft and revise narrative and persuasive pieces, realizing their own voice in the process. Ideal for gifted classrooms or gifted pull-out groups, the unit features stories by Dan Santat, Fiona Roberton, Jannell Cannon, Christopher Myers, Maurice Sendak, Daniel Manus Pinkwater, Jane Yolen, and Patricia Polacco; poetry by Carl Sandburg; sculptures by Arturo Di Modica and Kristen Visbal; a viewing of Pixar's short film Lou and a variety of commercials; and engaging short nonfiction readings. Winner of the 2015 NAGC Curriculum Studies Award Grades 2-4

Siew seeks to examine the events that will unfold within the three and a half years before the dawn of the kingdom of God on earth. He argues that John composed the textual unit of Rev 11:1--14:5 as a coherent and unified literary unit structured in a macro-chiasm. He pays special attention to the fusion of form and content and seeks to elucidate how the concentric and chiastic pattern informs the meaning of the literary units within 11:1--14:5, and proposes that the text of 11:1--14:5 is best analyzed using Hebraic literary conventions, devices, and compositional techniques such as chiasm, parallelism, parataxis, and structural parallelism. The macro-chiastic pattern provides the literary-structural framework for John to portray that the events of the last three and a half years unfold on earth as a result of what transpires in heaven. Specifically, the war in heaven between Michael and the dragon has earthly ramifications. The outcome of the heavenly war where Satan is defeated and thrown out of heaven to earth results in the war on earth between the two beasts of Rev 13 and the two witnesses of Rev 11. The narrative of the war in heaven (12:7-12) is seen as the pivot of the macro-chiastic structure. Siew pays close attention to the time-period of the three-and-a-half years as a temporal and structural marker which functions to unite the various units in 11:1--14:5 into a coherent and integral whole. The events of the last days will be centred in Jerusalem.

I have been told that Aunt Serapheema did not answer him for fully half a minute, but subjected him to what might be called a process of ocular transfixion. Compared to such a punishment, to be face to face with Russian bayonets would have been child’s play to poor father. “John! and Jim!” she said at last, slowly rising. “You may resume your horrid cigar, Harold. I did not expect to get much sense out of you, and I am therefore not disappointed. On this sheet of paper you will find the names wehave decided upon. You will note that—at the earnest request of your wife—the paternal name does find a place, butJim!” She transfixed him again, then went gliding to the door, which father opened and bowed her away. Then he almost ran to the window, and like the naughty old boy he must have been, I fear he relit that horrid cigar, singing lightly to himself as he hunted for the matches. Now one’s birth and baptism may seem very trivial matters to linger over, especially when one has a life-story like my brother’s and mine to tell. But events and adventures too will crowd each other fast enough ere long. For the brief present I am like some strong swimmer, who is about to commit himself to battle with the waves of a storm-tossed ocean, and who, before he takes the plunge, gazes once around and casts a longing, lingering look behind. Besides, one’s boyhood’s days or childhood’s hours are the happiest, without doubt, that ever fall to our lot here below, and we do not know this till they are for ever fled. Yes, I grant you that this stage of our existence is not exempt from grief and sorrow, and very real these look while they last, though they are easily chased away or kissed away as the case may be. Then there is stern education to come up day after day like a terrible task-master. As far as my brother and I were concerned, education assumed the corporeal form of Aunt Serapheema. My father’s study—properly dusted and disinfected in order to thoroughly exorcise the ghost of Colonel McReady’s cigars—became our schoolroom, the high-backed armchair our prim preceptor’s throne. Mind you, we always did think auntie somewhat prim, though it would be neither polite nor politic to tell her so. Auntie was not only fearfully and wonderfully made as regards angularity, but she was wonderfully clever as well. I tremble even yet when I think of how she used to come down upon us with dates—figuratively speaking, and how appallingly she used to hurl “ographies” and “ologies” at our poor little frightened faces. I always did think that dates—with the exception of the sticky eating sort—and “ologies” and “ographies” were sent into the world like thorns and thistles, just to prick and punish unfortunate boys.