Russell Hoban

The first time Peter Diggs saw Amaryllis she was at a bus stop where the street sign said "Balsamic" although there was vinegary about the place. The bus was unthinkably tall, made of yellow, orange and pink rice paper. That was a dream, but this romance soon begins to intersect with reality.

The big hand of the clock is at 12.The little hand is at 7.It is seven o' clock.It is bedtime for Frances. It may be bedtime for Frances, but before Frances can sleep, she needs a glass of milk, a kiss from Father, one from Mother, her teddy bear, her doll, another kiss from Father, and another one from Mother. And then there are tigers and giants and ominous cracks in the ceiling to keep her up. Will Frances ever go to sleep?

Frances doesn't think her younger sister Gloria can be her friend. Gloria is too small to throw or catch a ball. Besides, Albert is Frances's friend. But when Albert has a no-girls baseball game, Frances sets out to prove to Albert a thing or two about friendship—and a thing or two about what girls can do. Along the way, Frances discovers that sisters can indeed be friends . . . maybe even best friends. Now reillustrated in lovely soft pastels by original artist Lillian Hoban, this satisfying story of friendship is sure to have the many fans of this irresponsible badger cheering once again.

The classic funny story about a stubborn little badger with very particular tastes in food. Frances is a fussy eater. In fact, the only thing she likes is bread and jam. She won't touch her squishy soft-boiled egg. She trades away her chicken-salad sandwich at lunch. She turns up her nose at boring veal cutlets. Unless her parents can come up with a plan, Frances just might go on eating bread and jam forever! Join the generations of families that have laughed along as Frances sings "Jam on biscuits, jam on bread, Jam is the thing I like most, Jam is sticky, jam is sweet, Jam is tasty, jam’s a treat—raspberry, strawberry, gooseberry, I’m very FOND…OF…JAM!"

Frances decides she likes to eat only bread and jam at every meal--until to her surprise--her parents grant her wish.

The turtles in London Zoo become the mutual obsession of two lonely strangers who dream of setting free the turtles and themselves. Detail by detail their diaries record a world in which thought leads to action and action brings William G. and Neaera H. to their own open sea.

Celebrate Christmas with the inspiration for the beloved Jim Henson film. In 1977, when Jim Henson debuted the now-classic film Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, few knew it was based on a story written and illustrated by Russell and Lillian Hoban, creators of Bread and Jam for Frances and other treasured children's books. With an enduring score by the great Paul Williams, the movie remains a holiday tradition in homes across North America. Here is the book that started it all, a beautiful gift edition that will thrill Muppets fans young and old. Inspired by the classic tale "The Gift of the Magi," the story begins in a poor country cottage, as Emmet Otter dreams of buying Ma a piano for Christmas, while Ma dreams of buying Emmet a guitar. When a village talent contest is announced, both imagine their dreams coming true. But what they don't imagine finding is their real reward — the power of love, family, and hope in hard times. It is a story that reaches into a reader's heart and reminds us all that fortune favors the brave. A Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the Year "[A] welcome reissue of the Hobans' 1971 story . . . Colorful illustrations of the close-knit animal community contain plenty of warmth." —The Horn Book

'Recalls Orwell's 1984 and Wells's The Time Machine ... a revelation' Guardian On 4 November 2052, Fremder Gorn is discovered drifting in deep space. He has no spacesuit, no helmet, no oxygen, but he is still the sole survivor from the mysteriously vanished ship Clever Daughter. How did he get here? To find out, Fremder must search through memory, dream and the unknowable fragments of his own mind. 'A wildly imaginative piece of science fiction' The Times 'Unputdownable, moving, ingenious ... it will remain in my head with troubling images and scenes for a long time' A. N. Wilson, Evening Standard

Kleinzeit. In German, that means "hero." Or "smalltime." It depends on whom you ask. On a day like any other, Kleinzeit gets fired. Hours later, he finds himself in hospital with a pair of adventurous pyjamas and a recurring geometrical pain. Here he falls instantly in love with a beautiful night nurse called Sister. And together they are pitched headlong into a wild and flickering world of mystery...

He climbs a ladder to reach another man's wife and gives himself up to her beauty, but then Pilgermann descends into a mob of peasants inspired by the Pope to shed the blood of Jews. Alone on the cobblestones, mutilated and unmanned, he cries out to Israel, to the Lord his God, to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He is answered instead by Jesus 'I'm the one you talk to from now on.' Every day is the Day of Reckoning and the judgement Christ brings is the start of straight action. Pilgermann hears a voice from within and becomes a pilgrim. Through time and war and Death itself, he makes his way along the road to Jerusalem, struggling to find God in the horror that surrounds him.

In the far distant future, the country laid waste by nuclear holocaust, twelve-year-old Riddley Walker tells his story in a language as fractured as the world in which he lives. As Riddley steps outside the confines of his small world, he finds himself caught up in intrigue and a frantic quest for power, desperately trying to make sense of things.

In a not-so-distant future when lions are extinct Jachin-Boaz, a middle-aged mapmaker, leaves home with a wonderful map that was to tell his son where to find everything. The angry son, Boaz-Jachin, goes to the ruins of a palace at Nineveh and performs a series of rituals before the wallcarving of a great lion dying on the spear of an ancient king. Called to life, the lion sets out on the father's tracks and the son follows.

"A tale of sweets and love . . . And each improbable episode more wonderful, and more romantic."--The New York Times Book Review. Black-and-white illustrations.

An inexplicable message flashed onto the screen of his Apple II computer at 3 a.m. heralds the beginning of a startling quest for frustrated author Herman Orff. Taking up the offer of a cure for writer's block leads him ‘to those places in your head that you can't get to on your own' - and plunges him into a semi-dreamland inhabited by a bizarre combination of characters from myth and the talking head of Orpheus; a lost love; the young girl of Vermeer's famous portrait - and a frequency of Medusas.

Born to swim thousands of miles in the ocean, the giant sea turtles are now trapped in a tank of golden-green water at London Zoo. But not for much longer. Two lonely people, a bookseller and a children's illustrator, have begun thinking turtle thoughts. As they come together to hatch a plan to release the turtles into the sea, their diaries reveal how they find their own lives changing in imperceptible and quite unintended ways.