Books published by Houghton Mifflin

Alice Moore is eight years old and has just been left in the care of her autocratic grandmother at Ballydavid, a lovely old house in the south of Ireland. It is 1915, the First World War has just entered its second year, and, in Ireland, Nation-alists are edging toward revolution. Often lonely and homesick, living in a rigid old-fashioned household where propriety is all-important, Alice pieces together the world around her from overheard conversations, servants' gossip, and her own quiet observations. She soon realizes that her family's privilege is maintained at great cost to others. With the war always in the background, blood is spilled closer to home, and tensions mount. Divided in her loyalties and affections, Alice must choose between her heritage of privilege, her growing moral conscience, and the demands of the future.

The wizard has big summer plans: to garden, to fish, and to nap. The only thing better would be if he had someone nice to share the days with. But the only people who show up want him to rescue yet another princess, lift the usual vile curse, confront a fearsome ghost, deal with a pack of magical hooligans, harvest a crop of golden cucumbers, and on and on. . . . A wizard's work is never done!

Ben and Teetoncey take to the sea--he, to find his brother, and she, to escape a forced return to England. But can they survive storms, harsh ship life, and a relentless pursuer?

In 1898, twelve-year-old Ben rescues a near-drowned girl from a shipwreck off the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Although the girl, named Teetoncey, becomes part of his family, she will not utter a single word.

Now recovered from the shipwreck that killed her parents, Teetoncey reveals a secret: Two chests full of silver went down with her ship. Can Tee, Ben, and his friends dredge up the treasure without arousing suspicions?

Growing up is hard to do . . . especially if, like Ron, you've been cursed (blessed?) and changed into a half wolf/half human. But though he may look strange, there is nothing weird about his loyalty to his newfound friends, or in his attempts to stay true to himself in the deadly, shifting world of Bordertown.

A contemplative selection of twelve short stories from the celebrated author Donald Hall, Willow Temple focuses on the effects of divorce, adultery, and neglect. Hall's stories are reminiscent of those of Alice Munro and William Maxwell in their mastery of form and their ability to trace the emotional fault lines connecting generations. "From Willow Temple" is the indelible story of a child's witness of her mother's adultery and the loss that underlies it. Three stories present David Bardo at crucial junctures of his life, beginning as a child drawn to his parents' "cozy adult coven of drunks" and growing into a young man whose intense first affair undergirds a lifelong taste for ardor and betrayal. In this superbly perceptive collection, Hall gives memorable accounts of the passionate weight of lives.

With Kingdom of the Instant, Rodney Jones delivers a collection of poems that address both transcendent and profane aspects of the American South, art and politics, poverty and privilege. Always engaging, Jones "shows the intensity of his loving regard for every aspect of life, from the grit of the earth to the silk of the skin and all that churns in the mind" (Donna Seaman, Booklist).

"The Sparkling-Eyed Boy is so full of color and light and life." -- Brad Land, author of GoatThe theme of summer love, in Amy Benson's hands, grows up: The Sparkling-Eyed Boy searches out the fault lines of adult nostalgia and desire. The achingly intense adolescent summer days that Amy Benson and the sparkling-eyed boy spend together on the remote shores of the St. Mary's River of Michigan's Upper Peninsula are at the complex emotional center of The Sparkling-Eyed Boy. For her, summers meant returning from her home in Detroit to a three-month idyll on much-loved family land, owned for generations, and to a heady culture of teasing, testing local boys. For him, this land is the place he was born, where he'll later find work, marry, and stay: and she was the one he had loved. "Can you pinpoint that moment? When you made a choice before you even knew that choosing was possible, or the terrifying nature of choices?" The Sparkling-Eyed Boy, with its heart-stoppingly erotic -- and yet wholly imagined -- scenes of illicit love, its searching riffs on love as possession, love as pain, reads like a friend's deepest secrets, shared.“The Sparkling-Eyed Boy is so full of color and light and life. This is truth of the most profound sort; truth revealed in the artful and lyrical sensibility of Benson’s words and memory. She is dancing with us: not leading, but simply asking us to watch her move and take what we will. Benson shows us here what the memoir can and should do — destroy and resurrect itself over and over. Benson is doing exactly that.” — Brad Land, author of Goat “The great pleasure and triumph of this memoir is Amy Benson’s ability to make the familiar new again as she explores the country of first love. Over and over I found myself surprised by the unexpected twists and turns, peaks and abysses, of her journey. And also by her lovely, fiercely intelligent prose.” — Margot Livesey, author of Criminals

The Matter of Desire is the story of Pedro, a Bolivian-American political scientist who teaches at a university in upstate New York. Having become entangled in an erotically charged romance with Ashley, a beautiful red-headed graduate student, he returns to Bolivia to seek answers to his own life by investigating the mysteries of his father's past. Trapped between two cultures, Pedro ultimately finds himself in an existential dilemma of tragic dimensions. The Matter of Desire combines elements of the political thriller and the family mystery with a torrid illicit love affair and brilliantly elucidates the complex relationship between Latin America and the United States.

From two-time Pulitzer Prize?winning historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., comes one of the most important and influential investigations of the American presidency. The Imperial Presidency traces the growth of presidential power over two centuries, from George Washington to George W. Bush, examining how it has both served and harmed the Constitution and what Americans can do about it in years to come. The book that gave the phrase ?imperial presidency? to the language, this is a work of ?substantial scholarship written with lucidity, charm, and wit? (The New Yorker).

Crazy Woman Creek is a collection of prose and poetry about real women in the West and their connection to a larger whole. Long troubled by the misguided images of skinny cowgirls on prancing palominos, the editors embarked on a mission to set the record straight. They wanted these western women to reveal the realities of their lives in their own words. In Crazy Woman Creek, 153 women west of the Mississippi write of the ways they shape and sustain their communities. Whether these groups are organized, imposed, or spontaneous, this collection shows that where women gather, anything is possible. Readers will encounter Buddhists in Nebraska, Hutterites in South Dakota, rodeo moms rather than soccer moms. A woman chooses horse work over housework; neighbors pull together to fight a raging wildfire; a woman rides a donkey across Colorado to raise money after the tragedy at Columbine. Women recall harmony found at a drugstore, at a powwow, in a sewing circle. Lively, heartfelt, urgent, enduring, Crazy Woman Creek celebrates community — connections built or strengthened by women that unveil a new West.

Ten-year-old Hayley launches a campaign to make grouchy Mr. Wood appreciate his dog, Booford, whom he never walks or plays with. She gets Booford what he needs; she also gets an unexpected friend -- Mr. Wood.

Perhaps more than anyone else, politicians are what they say — and how they say it. In Presidential Voices, Metcalf examines both how the presidents have spoken to the American public and how the American public has wanted its presidents to speak. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, Metcalf shows what contemporaries have said about the chief speakers in the White House. He explores the distinctive words that our presidents favored (and in many cases coined), along with the regional accents that livened the Oval Office. In addition, he uncovers the hidden influence of speechwriters and the changing media on how presidents present themselves to voters. He concludes his survey of presidential speech with entertaining linguistic portraits of all forty-three presidents. From Silent Cal to the Great Communicator, Presidential Voices sheds new and original light on the ways in which our commanders in chief have commanded the language. After reading this book, you will never again take what our president says for granted.

Orrie and Jack don't know much about sailing. One day they are basking on a beach in the Canary Islands where their mum has taken them on holiday. Two days later they board a small yacht, along with their little brother, their mother, and her new boyfriend, Skip, to sail across the Atlantic on a lark. Then Skip, the owner of Good Company, falls overboard. Something is wrong with their mother. She won't leave her cabin. Orrie and Jack are used to taking care of her, but now it is up to them to navigate the thirty-six-foot boat to Antigua safely. Lost at Sea, written in the alternating voices of two very smart, funny, and real kids, tells the story of a family working through their problems. It is also an intense and gripping adventure at sea that will have readers on the edge of their seats to the very last page.

Have you ever aspired to gain linguistic immortality by making up a word? Many people — such famous writers as Jonathan Swift, Lewis Carroll, and Dr. Seuss, along with many lesser-knowns — have coined new words that have endured. But most of the new words people put forward fail to find favor. Why are some new words adopted, while others are ignored? Allan Metcalf explores this question in his fascinating look at new-word creation. In surveying past coinages and proposed new words, Metcalf discerns lessons for linguistic longevity. He shows us, for instance, why the humorist Gelett Burgess succeeded in contributing the words blurb and bromide to the language but failed to win anyone over to bleesh or diabob. Metcalf examines terms invented to describe political causes and social phenomena (silent majority, Gen-X), terms coined in books (edge city, Catch-22), brand names and words derived from them (aspirin, Ping-Pong), and words that derive from misunderstandings (cherry, kudo). He develops a scale for predicting the success of newly coined words and uses it to foretell which emerging words will outlast the twenty-first century. In this highly original work, Metcalf shows us how to spin syllabic straw into linguistic gold.

Test of Time is a captivating time-travel adventure that incorporates vocabulary words from the SAT and ACT, boldfacing them throughout the novel and providing definitions in a handy back-of-the book glossary. The result is a fun and effective study method for the thousands of diligent students who take these tests each year. For Orlando Garcia Ortiz and his friends at prestigious Hadleyburg University, it's finals week. That same week, but many, many years before, a famously eccentric writer in Hartford, Connecticut, is putting the finishing touches on a manuscript about a rebellious boy named Huck. Suddenly, a bizarre thing happens: The manuscript disappears and in its place appears a strange contraption-a college student's laptop that has traveled through time. It's a mysterious set of circumstances, but our intrepid heroes at Hadleyburg, joined by Mark Twain, endeavor to retrieve their valued possessions and return to their proper places in time.

Essential information and how-to advice from the best in the businessCatering Like a Pro is a must-have resource for anyone thinking about starting a catering business. Packed with recipes and exciting new ideas for creating theme events and dramatic experiences, it explains the catering industry from the bottom up. This revised and expanded edition covers everything necessary to get started, including real-world advice on contracts, hiring help, managing events, and sample forms and invoices. A handy list of resources--from equipment and ingredients to legal and business directories--helps make it easy to get up and running smoothly. Interviews with some of the best star caterers in the business offer inspiration and valuable tips for those new to the game.Francine Halvorsen (New York, NY) is a professional culinary writer, consultant and artist who has traveled and lived all over the world. She considers herself lucky to be invited to share meals at some of the best tables everywhere. A graduate of Columbia University, she is the author of Catering Like a Pro, The Food and Cooking of China and Eating Around the World in Your Neighborhood.

On the morning of October 2, 1978, the World Champion NewYork Yankees found themselves tied for first place with the Boston Red Sox. That day these rousing ball clubs would meet at Fenway Park. Both had won ninety-nine games. Only one would win one hundred. The Yankees should have been reaching for their golf clubs-they had feuded until they were fourteen games out of first place. Then their fortunes turned, and they capped one of the most thrilling comebacks in baseball history by defeating the Red Sox that October afternoon in a game that many still remember as the greatest ever played. Transporting us into the midst of this unforgettable team, Roger Kahn weaves the first in-depth account of the legendary season of '78 and reaffirms his standing as our nation's master storyteller of baseball.

The universe comes down to earth in K. C. Cole's Mind Over Matter, a fresh and witty exploration of physics, cosmology, mathematics, astronomy, and more. Like no other science writer, Cole demystifies scientific concepts and humanizes the people who study them. Beginning with a discussion of how "the mind creates reality as well as muddles it," she then peeks into the stories behind science's great minds and into their playful side, and concludes by illuminating the relationship between science and society. Cole's remarkable work brings science to the reader's doorstep, revealing the universe to be elegant, intriguing, and relevant to politics, art, and every dimension of human life.

Carolyn Haywood's stories about her irrepressible character Betsy have never been out of print, and now, thanks to dynamic new covers, the Betsy books will find their way onto the bookshelves of modern young readers--and into the hearts of a whole new generation. Third grade begins with disappointment--Betsy's beloved teacher, Miss Grey, won't be teachng anymore. But the new year is packed with fun and surprises, including one great piece of news that Betsy declares is about "the wonderfullest thing that ever happened."

Jon Jeffers is the loneliest nine-year-old on earth. It's 1935, and he's stuck on a tiny rocky island off the coast of San Francisco with his mother and his lighthouse-keeper father. Jon longs for something more. If only he had a way to escape this forsaken pile of rocks, he could have some real adventures.Then one morning the irritable ghost of an ancient magician appears on the beach and offers-amazingly-to teach Jon to fly. Jon agrees, and at first flying seems to be the answer to his wildest dreams. But then he flies into some serious trouble. . . .From the acclaimed author of The Cay, here is a sweet, funny, and outrageous tale of a boy who gets his dearest wish-and then wishes he hadn't.

"A daily guide that should be on everyone's nightstand or kitchen table."-Marianne Smith Edge, MS, RD, LD, FADA, President, American Dietetic AssociationAs a health-conscious reader, you already know all about the benefits of healthy eating and active living. But some days it's harder than others to put that knowledge to good use. Smart eating and an active lifestyle should be easy and enjoyable, not a chore! Let 365 Days of Healthy Eating from the American Dietetic Association show you an easier way to start living a healthier lifestyle, one day at a time.Bestselling author and nutrition expert Roberta Larson Duyff provides easy-to-implement hints, tips, and strategies for:* Having a smart eating mindset* Making easy everyday food choices that benefit your health* Buying right-for-you foods and supplements* Preparing food for good nutrition, health, and great flavor-with easy-to-fix recipes that are as good for you as they are great-tasting* Getting more health and phytonutrient benefits from foods you enjoy365 Days of Healthy Eating from the American Dietetic Association is brimming with sensible, personal, and practical tips that can help you build lifelong healthy eating and fitness habits, one easy step at a time.

A stirring, brilliantly crafted collection, Linda Gregerson's third volume of poetry examines mortality in all its beauty and horror. Fluently rendered in Gregerson's distinctive three-line stanzas, these poems explore subjects from autism to genealogy to ecology. Their occasions are diverse -- a barn fire, a wounded deer, a child's determined struggle with a bicycle -- but their instinct is always to wrest from the impure world a vernacular of praise.

Erica Funkhouser's poetry finds in the natural world a leaping-off point for all types of human inquiry: physical, intellectual, and spiritual. Her fourth collection, Pursuit, gives us poems devoted to the details of living, poems that illustrate how a domestic moment may turn suddenly erotic or how a wave of grief may open inexplicably into triumph. Whether driven by elemental need or sublime desire, the inhabitants of these thought-provoking poems engage in seeking of every kind.

From the moment she sees Noelle, the beautiful ballerina doll in the toy store window, Ilyana knows that Noelle is the Christmas present she wants more than anything in the world. But Noelle has a dream of her own: to be a real ballerina, performing on stage for adoring fans. When the Imperial Ballet Company chooses Noelle to be the doll that Clara, the little girl in The Nutcracker, finds under the Christmas tree, it seems that Noelle’s dream is the one that will come true. Then, an unexpected setback makes Noelle realize that maybe, for a doll, being loved by one little girl is the best dream of all.

What does a ten-year-old girl do when her mother’s best friend moves into her room — beauty products, sheepdog, pantyhose, and all? Angel springs into action, looking for a man to marry Alyce and take her away, out of Angel’s hair, house, and family. But along the way, Angel learns that more changes are in store, and she can handle them much better than she thought.

The guru of the Guerrilla Marketing series, with over a million copies in print, teaches entrepreneurs how to market aggressively without spending one cent.Levinson, the authority on big-business marketing on a small-business budget, takes this concept one step further by offering scores of marketing ideas that are completely free. He proves that aggressive marketing doesn't have to be expensive if you use creative and unconventional means.* Hold a giveaway contest. You'll attract customers and acquire names for your mailing list.* Give free talks, consultations, and demonstrations. You'll establish yourself as an expert and publicize your business at the same time.* Post on websites, bulletin boards, and other online communities. They offer countless opportunities for spreading your business message.* Feed your clients. Sending cookies or offering free refreshments in your store can set you apart from the competition.Levinson offers dozens of other tips -- some straightforward, many surprising -- in a unique, indispensable guide that proves you don't have to pay top dollar to improve your bottom line.

Did you ever wonder . . .. . . who was the best all-around athlete of the twentieth century? (page 174) . . . how to deal with a crush? (page 126) . . . what important event happened on your birthdate? (pages 3 - 41) . . . if a woman has ever been a presidential candidate? (page 225) . . . how the bikini got its name? (page 116) . . . who were some great girl characters in literature? (page 75) . . . what were some of the best girl friendships of all time? (page 100) . . . when schools began to admit women?(page 211) . . . who the Olympian goddesses were and what they ruled? (page 87) . . . who was the model for the Statue of Liberty? (page 68)Girlwonder answers all of these questions and more. A captivating collection of all things girl-related, this fun-filled and fact-packed guide highlights the great achievements, activities, and interests of women and girls around the world. It includes brilliant quotes from famous women, a calendar of girl-focused historical events, and the accomplishments of the best women in sports, science, politics, and the arts. It also features entertaining entries on fashion, friendship, love, romance, and body and mind.Girlwonder celebrates the truly amazing, fascinating, wonderful world of girls.