Nicholas Day

A wise and tender story about the patience needed for a tree-and a friendship-to grow, from award-winning author Nicholas Day. All he wanted was a peach tree: Because when you eat a ripe peach, you get sticky and sweet, and if you don't wash up, you stay sticky and sweet. And you feel like summer. But when the tree arrives in the spring, it isn't a tree. It's a stick. Nice work, the boy tells his parents. You bought a stick. Even his friend Maya agrees. It's a stick. Though what happens when you plant a stick, and it grows leaves? What happens when your best friend moves away? What happens when everything that was once clear starts to change? Here is a story of growth, the enduring power of friendship, the persistence of rabbits--and a single, glorious, impossible peach.

A wise and tender story about the patience needed for a tree-and a friendship-to grow, from award-winning author Nicholas Day. All he wanted was a peach tree: Because when you eat a ripe peach, you get sticky and sweet, and if you don't wash up, you stay sticky and sweet. And you feel like summer. But when the tree arrives in the spring, it isn't a tree. It's a stick. Nice work, the boy tells his parents. You bought a stick. Even his friend Maya agrees. It's a stick. Though what happens when you plant a stick, and it grows leaves? What happens when your best friend moves away? What happens when everything that was once clear starts to change? Here is a story of growth, the enduring power of friendship, the persistence of rabbits--and a single, glorious, impossible peach.

Take a walk with Charles Darwin in this electrifying new picture book from Sibert Medalist Nicholas Day. How do you work through a complicated idea, solve a tricky problem, or make a big discovery? Charles Darwin had a lot of ways to do it. He paced in circles and hit rocks with a stick. He studied the bones of his dinner. He even rode around the world on a boat called The Beagle. These methods may sound unorthodox, but they led him to some pretty great thoughts--and discoveries about the origins of life as we know it. Sibert Medalist Nicholas Day's conversational text has all the charm of a true story told by your smartest, most interesting friend. With Hadley Hooper's engrossingly textured illustrations, How to Have a Thought is both an introduction to Darwin and an invitation to live with brilliant curiosity.

Discover how Mount Tambora's catastrophic eruption plunged the world into darkness, altering the global climate and inspiring the likes of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. This remarkable story of disaster and survival is brought to life in a thrilling new illustrated nonfiction title from the award-winning author of The Mona Lisa Vanishes. The world was upside-down. The wind was fire. The sky was ash. The rain was rock. A couple of hundred years ago, on a quiet Indonesian island, a volcano called Tambora erupted with a force and violence that changed history. It tore apart the island, and in the months and years that followed, its fallout tore apart the world. The sun refused to shine; the rain refused to stop. Everything that everyone assumed would always be there--a world that made sense, a climate that made sense--was suddenly gone. From this riot of thunder and lightning, a young woman named Mary Shelley conceived of a scientist and his cursed creature. From the nightmare of Tambora, she wrote a nightmare of a book: Frankenstein--a terrifying reminder of how much damage we humans might do, without even realizing it. This is the story of a volcano that changed the world and a creature that changed us. Once upon a time, everything was different. And no one knew if it would ever be the same. In this masterful work of middle-grade nonfiction, Nicholas Day, author of the Sibert Award-winning The Mona Lisa Vanishes, brings us a story taken from the archives but seemingly scripted for us today: a tale of climate change and human folly and hope--and what happens when the world suddenly goes wrong.

A "witty thriller" (The New York Times) for middle-grade readers about how the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre, how the robbery made the portrait the most famous artwork in the world--and how the painting by Leonardo da Vinci should never have existed at all. SIBERT MEDAL WINNER - BOSTON GLOBE--HORN BOOK AWARD WINNER - ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, NPR, The New York Public Library, The Chicago Public Library, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books On a hot August day in Paris, just over a century ago, a desperate guard burst into the office of the director of the Louvre and shouted, La Joconde, c'est partie The Mona Lisa, she's gone No one knew who was behind the heist. Was it an international gang of thieves? Was it an art-hungry American millionaire? Was it the young Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, who was about to remake the very art of painting? Travel back to an extraordinary period of revolutionary change: turn-of-the-century Paris. Walk its backstreets. Meet the infamous thieves--and detectives--of the era. And then slip back further in time and follow Leonardo da Vinci, painter of the Mona Lisa, through his dazzling, wondrously weird life. Discover the secret at the heart of the Mona Lisa--the most famous painting in the world should never have existed at all. Here is a middle-grade nonfiction, with black-and-white illustrations by Brett Helquist throughout, written at the pace of a thriller, shot through with stories of crime and celebrity, genius and beauty.

Discover how Mount Tambora's catastrophic eruption plunged the world into darkness, altering the global climate and inspiring the likes of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. This remarkable story of disaster and survival is brought to life in a thrilling new illustrated nonfiction title from the award-winning author of The Mona Lisa Vanishes. The world was upside-down. The wind was fire. The sky was ash. The rain was rock. A couple of hundred years ago, on a quiet Indonesian island, a volcano called Tambora erupted with a force and violence that changed history. It tore apart the island, and in the months and years that followed, its fallout tore apart the world. The sun refused to shine; the rain refused to stop. Everything that everyone assumed would always be there--a world that made sense, a climate that made sense--was suddenly gone. From this riot of thunder and lightning, a young woman named Mary Shelley conceived of a scientist and his cursed creature. From the nightmare of Tambora, she wrote a nightmare of a book: Frankenstein--a terrifying reminder of how much damage we humans might do, without even realizing it. This is the story of a volcano that changed the world and a creature that changed us. Once upon a time, everything was different. And no one knew if it would ever be the same. In this masterful work of middle-grade nonfiction, Nicholas Day, author of the Sibert Award-winning The Mona Lisa Vanishes, brings us a story taken from the archives but seemingly scripted for us today: a tale of climate change and human folly and hope--and what happens when the world suddenly goes wrong.

What does nothing sound like? An offbeat history of John Cage's 4'33", a musical composition of blank bars, illustrated by Caldecott Medalist Chris Raschka. One night in 1952, master pianist David Tudor took the stage in a barnlike concert hall called the Maverick. A packed audience waited with bated breath for him to start playing. Little did they know that the performance had already begun. A rain patters.A tree rustles.An audience stirs. David was performing John Cage's 4'33", whose purpose is to amplify the ambient sounds of whatever venue it inhabits. That shocking first performance earned 4'33" plenty of haters; and yet the piece endures, "performed" by the smallest garage bands and the grandest symphonies alike, year after year. Its fans hear what John Cage hoped we would hear: "Nothing" is never silent, and you don't need a creative genius, a concert hall, or even a piano to hear something worthwhile. All you have to do is stop and listen. Nicholas Day's text is reverent with a healthy drop of humor, warm and refined; two-time Caldecott Medalist Chris Raschka's childlike pencil-on-watercolor artwork is uninhibited and electrifying, with all the visionary spirit of the work it chronicles. Guaranteed to spark generative thought and lively debate among readers of all ages, Nothing is not to be missed. A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

A "witty thriller" (The New York Times) for middle-grade readers about how the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre, how the robbery made the portrait the most famous artwork in the world--and how the painting by Leonardo da Vinci should never have existed at all. SIBERT MEDAL WINNER - BOSTON GLOBE--HORN BOOK AWARD WINNER - ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, NPR, The New York Public Library, The Chicago Public Library, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books On a hot August day in Paris, just over a century ago, a desperate guard burst into the office of the director of the Louvre and shouted, La Joconde, c'est partie The Mona Lisa, she's gone No one knew who was behind the heist. Was it an international gang of thieves? Was it an art-hungry American millionaire? Was it the young Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, who was about to remake the very art of painting? Travel back to an extraordinary period of revolutionary change: turn-of-the-century Paris. Walk its backstreets. Meet the infamous thieves--and detectives--of the era. And then slip back further in time and follow Leonardo da Vinci, painter of the Mona Lisa, through his dazzling, wondrously weird life. Discover the secret at the heart of the Mona Lisa--the most famous painting in the world should never have existed at all. Here is a middle-grade nonfiction, with black-and-white illustrations by Brett Helquist throughout, written at the pace of a thriller, shot through with stories of crime and celebrity, genius and beauty.

A "witty thriller" (The New York Times) for middle-grade readers about how the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre, how the robbery made the portrait the most famous artwork in the world--and how the painting by Leonardo da Vinci should never have existed at all. SIBERT MEDAL WINNER - BOSTON GLOBE--HORN BOOK AWARD WINNER - ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, NPR, The New York Public Library, The Chicago Public Library, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books On a hot August day in Paris, just over a century ago, a desperate guard burst into the office of the director of the Louvre and shouted, La Joconde, c'est partie The Mona Lisa, she's gone No one knew who was behind the heist. Was it an international gang of thieves? Was it an art-hungry American millionaire? Was it the young Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, who was about to remake the very art of painting? Travel back to an extraordinary period of revolutionary change: turn-of-the-century Paris. Walk its backstreets. Meet the infamous thieves--and detectives--of the era. And then slip back further in time and follow Leonardo da Vinci, painter of the Mona Lisa, through his dazzling, wondrously weird life. Discover the secret at the heart of the Mona Lisa--the most famous painting in the world should never have existed at all. Here is a middle-grade nonfiction, with black-and-white illustrations by Brett Helquist throughout, written at the pace of a thriller, shot through with stories of crime and celebrity, genius and beauty.

"The brilliance of it all is breathtaking ... I have never read its equal."-Cemetery Dance, Sadie Hartmann"... a symphony of violence rendered with a poet's eloquent finesse and a madman's ecstasy..."-InkHeist, Shane Douglas Keene"The perfect blend of character, voice and setting ... is cause for celebration."-This Is Horror, Thomas Joyce"I loved it, but damned if I didn't need a drink afterwards."-Sci-Fi & Scary, Lilyn George"... visceral, unapologetic, and unforgettable ..."-Sara Tantlinger, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Devil's Dreamland"The best surrealism mythologizes our dreams and nightmares without wandering too far afield of the emotional and physical core of what makes us human. Grind Your Bones To Dust accomplishes this feat. Built on vengeance, it is a burly, wild, and terrifying narrative spoken in clear, unflinching poetry. There's a great deal of Cormack McCarthy in the book, in the way it situates itself in America. What is hate? Where does it come from? And hiding passionately beneath these two questions, the beating, wounded heart of a third: Can we ever escape?"-Joe Koch, author of The Wingspan of Severed Hands and ConvulsiveGrind Your Bones To Dust is a journey into Hell that is at once uncomfortably familiar, yet unlike anything you've ever encountered before: a surveyor finds himself pursued by flesh-eating donkeys in the furthest reaches of Oregon's desert; a mass-murderer leaves the sanctity of his mountain home to pursue a long-lost love; his guide is an otherworldly raven possessed by a 19th-century American humorist; in nearby Klamath Falls, two estranged childhood friends set off to find a missing father with the help of two aging cowboys; and, a prisoner in her own home sees a vision of death and knows there is no escape.

This is a story about love and death and spontaneous human combustion. This is a story about a man with a fire inside him.". . . burrowed into my heart . . . and took shape as a beautiful monster." -Michelle Garza, coauthor of Mayan Blue, Those Who Follow and Kingdom of Teeth "Beautiful, sad, on fire." -Laura Lee Bahr, author of Haunt, Angel Meat, and Long-form Religious Porn

"This is a story about love and death and spontaneous human combustion. This is a story about a man with a fire inside him."Nicholas Day is the author of GRIND YOUR BONES TO DUST, NECROSAURUS REX, and OCTOBER ANIMALS. His short fiction is frequently anthologized. He co-owns Rooster Republic Press with Don Noble, where they acquire and produce award-winning horror fiction and poetry.Currently, he resides in Northern Illinois with his family, and he is always working on new material. You can find more information about him and his work at nicholasdayonline.com

A dynamic new story about how babies make their way in the world--and how grown-ups have tried to make sense of these tiny inscrutable beings. As a new parent, Nicholas Day had some basic but confounding questions: Why does my son find the straitjacket of his swaddling blanket comforting and not terrifying? How can he never meet a developmental norm and still be OK? And when will he stop sucking my finger? So he went digging for answers. They were not what he expected. Drawing on a wealth of perspectives--scientific, historical, cross-cultural, personal--Baby Meets World is organized around the mundane activities that dominate the life of an infant: sucking, smiling, touching, toddling. From these everyday activities, Day weaves together an account that is anything but ordinary: a fresh, surprising story, both weird and wondrous, about our first experience of the world. Part hidden history of parenthood, part secret lives of babies, Baby Meets World steps back from the moment-to-moment chaos of babydom. It allows readers to see infancy anew in all its strangeness and splendor.