When Skyler C. Gull finds a pair of sandals at the beach, he tries them on. Things get really silly as he walks around in his fancy footwear. But where did the sandals come from?

Supported by her faithful friend Simon, a gull named Samantha goes through a series of distinctive pairs of shoes, trying to make herself different from all the other gulls.

#1 Wall Street Journal bestseller! Flight of the Rondone is a true rags to riches tale the New York Times stated is “meant for television.” The protagonist, a high school dropout, is nicknamed in Italian U Carneveil (Walking Circus) for his entertaining and eccentric nature. Patrick Girondi starts his career shining shoes, stealing car parts, and escaping life-threatening situations while outwitting the Chicago police. He claws up to being a famous success story on the Oprah Show. His fortunes quickly change when his eldest son, Santino, is diagnosed with a fatal blood disease. Girondi hunts for a cure in a drama that has boundless implications in the world of gene therapy. As Girondi writes, “I’d been strangled, shot at, skated more than twenty arrests, made it through 3 FBI witch-hunts and went from the docks to trading and big money. I would see my son cured. How hard could it be?” After decades of struggle, he delivered the world’s first commercial batch of vector with the potential to cure Sickle Cell Disease and Thalassemia. But again, the success of the cure—and the fate of his son—is imperiled, in a world of lab jackets, mysterious deaths, and cut-throat Wall Street banksters. This is a story of love, beating the odds, or as Girondi calls it, pure luck. It is a gritty and realistic tale told with little regard for empire or etiquette.

Providing an introduction to the principal literacy theories, while maintaining a focus on the practical application of literacy skills to everyday teaching, this book is divided into three parts: Reading; Writing; and Children's Literature.

From the creators of GOSSIP GIRL comes a fresh, edgy take on teenage romance. Three interconnected stories explore the different stages of love over the course of one summer on the seashore.It's summer. It's hot. And it's time to hook up.Cousins Ella, Beth, and Jamie are at their family's beach house, and they're gearing up for the wildest time of their lives. Sassy Ella is majorly crushing on a cute older boy -- who just happens to be her sister's new boyfriend. Meanwhile, practical Beth is surprised when she finds herself falling for her best friend George. And shy, creative Jamie gets her heart broken when her summer love abandons her. Three girls, too many boys, and some seriously stormy romances...it all adds up to one unforgettable summer.

How our collective intelligence has helped us to evolve and prosper Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals? This book shows that the secret of our success lies not in our innate intelligence, but in our collective brains—on the ability of human groups to socially interconnect and learn from one another over generations. Drawing insights from lost European explorers, clever chimpanzees, mobile hunter-gatherers, neuroscientific findings, ancient bones, and the human genome, Joseph Henrich demonstrates how our collective brains have propelled our species' genetic evolution and shaped our biology. Our early capacities for learning from others produced many cultural innovations, such as fire, cooking, water containers, plant knowledge, and projectile weapons, which in turn drove the expansion of our brains and altered our physiology, anatomy, and psychology in crucial ways. Later on, some collective brains generated and recombined powerful concepts, such as the lever, wheel, screw, and writing, while also creating the institutions that continue to alter our motivations and perceptions. Henrich shows how our genetics and biology are inextricably interwoven with cultural evolution, and how culture-gene interactions launched our species on an extraordinary evolutionary trajectory. Tracking clues from our ancient past to the present, The Secret of Our Success explores how the evolution of both our cultural and social natures produce a collective intelligence that explains both our species' immense success and the origins of human uniqueness.

From Ann Cleeves—New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows—comes The Seagull. "I loved The Seagull — quite simply it reminds me why Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers! -Louise Penny A visit to her local prison brings DI Vera Stanhope face to face with an old enemy: former detective superintendent, and now inmate, John Brace. Brace was convicted of corruption and involvement in the death of a gamekeeper – and Vera played a key part in his downfall. Now, Brace promises Vera information about the disappearance of Robbie Marshall, a notorious wheeler-dealer who disappeared in the mid-nineties, if she will look out for his daughter and grandchildren. He tells her that Marshall is dead, and that his body is buried close to St Mary’s Island in Whitley Bay. However, when a search team investigates, officers find not one skeleton, but two. This cold case case takes Vera back in time, and very close to home, as Brace and Marshall, along with a mysterious stranger known only as ‘the Prof’, were close friends of Hector, her father. Together, they were the 'Gang of Four’, regulars at a glamorous nightclub called The Seagull. Hector had been one of the last people to see Marshall alive. As the past begins to collide dangerously with the present, Vera confronts her prejudices and unwanted memories to dig out the truth . . . The Seagull is a searing novel by Sunday Times bestselling author Ann Cleeves, about corruption deep in the heart of a community, and fragile, and fracturing, family relationships. "Definitely one of the best crime novels of 2017."—Reviewing the Evidence