For readers who have always wanted to enroll in a school for magic--be it Hogwarts with Harry Potter or Camp Halfblood with Percy Jackson! Wizard lovers will delight in pretending they’re learning magic from a cheat-sheet handbook from an elite school for sorcery. Welcome to the Apprentice Academy. Congratulations on your acceptance to one of the world’s finest institutions for sorcery. Your course of study here will be long and perilous, but this book of sorcery skills and fascinating tales from the world of magic will help you along the way—ideally with all your limbs and wits intact. Learn how to: · Read minds! · Prophesize! · Perform a love spell! · Choose an animal familiar! · Turn anything into gold! · Summon demons! · Find a lair! · And more! But most of all learn to cheat, or, rather, to weasel through without actually cheating. Please follow all instructions carefully, as one wrong move can transform your hands into forks or serpents, and then you will have a hard time turning the page. Inspired by folklore and mythology around the world, Apprentice Academy: Sorcerers is a rich, multicultural exploration and celebration of magic from not just Europe, but also from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas. Narrated by a witty and weaseling character who supplies cheat sheets to students, Apprentice Academy opens the door on an exciting new world of magic and myth, chivalry and royalty, with the second book in the series–Knights–scheduled for Spring 2024.

Seven heroes. Ten armies to defeat. Ten power sources to collect. An evil wizard, trying to take over the world. And an awesome battle ship. Let's do this.When the Sorcerer's Academy is attacked by rogue wizard, Randall, the Academy's leader, Lord Barrison, sends out seven gifted kids to stop him. Will they succeed, or will the Academy be over-run by the forces of evil?This fictional work of rising star author, 13-year-old Toby Miller, has been received with much critical acclaim.Here's what the critic* had to say:"Seriously, Toby, you want to do more writing?!?""Oh, OK, it's not that bad.""Are those two going to get together or what?""Jamie is so OP! What's that about? Hang on, underwear...""Ooooooo, that's intriguing."A final word from the author:"Thank you to all my fans, who will be rushing to buy this book. I promise to buy you both an ice cream."* The "critic" is the father of the author, whose comments can be ignored at will

"Kitchen Confidential" meets "Heat" in the first behind-the-scenes portrait of the world's best restaurant and the aspiring chefs who toil to make it so exceptional. Elected best restaurant in the world by Restaurant magazine an unprecedented five times, El Bulli is the laboratory of Ferran Adria, the maverick creator of molecular gastronomy. Behind each of the thirty or more courses that make up a meal at El Bulli is a small army of young cooks who do the work of executing Adria's vision in exchange for nothing more than the chance to learn at his hands. Granted unprecedented access to this guild system, Lisa Abend follows the thirty-five stagiaries of the 2009 season as they struggle to master the grueling hours, cutting-edge techniques, and interpersonal tensions that come with working at the most revered restaurant on earth.

A diverse new anthology that traces the meaning and magic of the sorcerer’s apprentice tale throughout history “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” might conjure up images of Mickey Mouse from the Disney film Fantasia, or of Harry Potter. As this anthology reveals, however, “sorcerer’s apprentice” tales—in which a young person rebels against, or complies with, an authority who holds the keys to magical powers—have been told through the centuries from classical times to today. This collection brings together more than fifty sorcerer’s apprentice stories by a plethora of writers, including Ovid, Sir Walter Scott, and the Brothers Grimm. In an extensive introduction, fairy-tale scholar Jack Zipes discusses the significance of the apprentice stories, the contradictions in popular retellings, and the importance of magic as a tool of resistance against figures who abuse their authority. Twenty specially commissioned black-and-white illustrations by noted artist Natalie Frank bring the stories to visual life.

Sometimes the simplest and most reasonable request brings astonishing results…