The most powerful force in the universe falls out of the sky and into the hands of a magicless thirteen-year-old girl. Lisa Robbie, a freckled, soon-to-be-eighth-grade girl from Keyport, New Jersey, happens upon a shooting star that isn’t merely space debris but is magic—the Agapéd Magic. This leads her to a whole new way of life where she learns she has the most powerful magic in all four galaxies, a power that the Guardians have waited 120 years for... and they are not too thrilled about it. The only person who sees her worthy enough to wield this magic is the 700-year-old brutish Wishing Star gardener, Gaius. Still, even he won't tell her the Agapéd’s true purpose—the purpose for Lisa’s life. Why don't they like me having this magic? What is so special about it? Why are they keeping me and this Agapéd Magic a secret? Curiosity takes Lisa down a path of nightmares as the Agapéd Magic begins to take a toll on her heart, and she must decide if this new way of life is worth all the pain and sorrow tagged along with it. . . . The Agapéd Wishing Stars is the beginning of the epic light-versus-darkness saga, a fantasy adventure perfect for those who enjoy constant tugging at their heartstrings and plenty of magical encounters.

Alternate cover edition: 9780439709101 From internationally acclaimed storyteller Cornelia Funke, this bestselling, magical epic is now out in paperback! One cruel night, Meggie's father reads aloud from a book called INKHEART-- and an evil ruler escapes the boundaries of fiction and lands in their living room. Suddenly, Meggie is smack in the middle of the kind of adventure she has only read about in books. Meggie must learn to harness the magic that has conjured this nightmare. For only she can change the course of the story that has changed her life forever. This is INKHEART--a timeless tale about books, about imagination, about life. Dare to read it aloud.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent. The text in this 372-page paperback edition is based on that first published in Great Britain by Collins Modern Classics (1998), and includes a note on the text by Douglas A. Anderson (2001).