Family Life Science

Strato Nyman couldn’t be more of an odd-one-out. He’s the only black kid in Hedgecombe-upon-Dray, he knows more about particle physics than his teacher, and he’s constantly picked on by the school bully. One day, Strato picks up a dusty book in a mysterious bookshop and learns how to become invisible. He discovers that people aren’t always what they seem...and realises standing out isn’t so bad after all.

Meredith and Mallory Brynn, two identical mirror twins born on either side of midnight, are finally coming to terms with their special gifts: Meredith to see into the past, Mallory to see into the future. But they never expect that their powers will reveal danger so close to home.

It's the tale of a little boy who likes to be on his own, but that's about to change when he makes an unlikely friendship with a magical fridge. The fridge's door is adorned with brightly coloured magnetic letters, and with a whoosh and a whizz, the letters form words that might just give Jack some good advice. His world is turned upside down, getting him into all sorts of trouble when his mum and dad announce they are splitting up. Could a magical fridge possibly help solve Jack's problems?

The close-knit villages of the Dearne Valley were home to four generations of the Hollingworth family. Spanning Richard Benson's great-grandmother Winnie's 92 years in the valley, and drawing on years of historical research, interviews and anecdotes, The Valley lets us into generations of carousing and banter as the family's attempts to build a better and fairer world for themselves meet sometimes with triumph, sometimes with bitter defeat.

On the same day Faye’s brother comes home with a black eye, a package arrives from a relative they’ve never met. It’s a slab of clay: some weird kind of bar mitzvah present? The strange gift turns out to be an invitation to learn a craft that’s been in their family for centuries. And it’s not pottery. Faye and Shiloh are driven to New York City by their grandfather for a spring break filled with magical instruction. But at night they find themselves transported to a strange parallel world, where groups of innocent people are facing appalling hatred and violence.

Astrid Llewelyn has always scoffed at her eccentric mother's stories about killer unicorns. But when one attacks her boyfriend - ruining any chance of him taking her to prom - Astrid finds herself headed to Rome to train as a unicorn hunter at the ancient Cloisters the hunters have used for centuries. However, all is not what it seems at the Cloisters. Outside, unicorns wait to attack.

When Astrid Xu stumbles upon a magic Chinese scroll, she can't help but wonder if it holds the key to helping her mom's depression. What Astrid doesn't expect is to be transported along with her little sister, Marilla, to Zhen -- a realm where the Chinese legends of old are real! But all is not well in Zhen. An ancient evil known as Chaos is wreaking havoc throughout the land, and Astrid is the only one who can stop it.

Are you fed up with parents nagging you about the mess in your bedroom? Are you sick and tired of being reminded that your feet smell and your armpits pong? Does it bug you when they keep telling you to have a shower or get off your phone? If you are going through those frustrating teenage years, this audiobook is all you need. Having to deal with so much pressure, anxiety, and stress can often feel overwhelming and no one seems to have the answers that you are looking for.

Edinburgh is a city filled with magical creatures. No one can see them...except Ramya Knox. As she is pulled into her family's world of secrets and spells, Ramya sets out to discover the truth about the Hidden Folk with only three words of warning from her grandfather: beware the sirens. Plunged into an adventure that will change everything, Ramya is about to learn that there is more to her powers than she ever imagined.

On top of battling the normal teenage angst that everyone goes through, Joanie is also reeling from her parents' bitter divorce and having to cope with her mother's new boyfriend and father's new family. Alone in a new town and without friends, she turns to passing the time by indulging in her longtime hobby of making toy models of soldiers and is both amazed and shocked when one of them comes to life.

Sheils is very pleased with her perfectly controlled life (controlling others while she's at it). She's smart, powerful, the student body chair, and she even has a loving boyfriend. What more could a girl ask for? But everything changes when the first-ever interspecies transfer student, a pterodactyl named Pyke, enrolls at her school. There's something about him - something primal - that causes the students to lose control whenever he's around.

Author Kathleen Van Cleve delivers a promising debut with this magical novel. Eleven-year-old Polly Peabody lives on a farm like no other. It rains every Monday at 1:00 p.m., the crops taste like chocolate, the bugs can communicate, and Polly’s best friend is a rhubarb plant named Harry. But when the weekly downpours stop, and Polly’s brother grows ill, she must figure out how to make it rain again—or her family’s future could be destroyed.

On Wilde Island, Rosalind and her mother live their lives in exile, awaiting the time they can reclaim their rightful place on the throne. And there is reason to hope - a 600-year-old prophesy has decreed that they will do just that. But little do they know, their destinies hinge on Rosalind's amazing, shameful secret. Beneath her gold gloves, the fourth finger of her left hand is in truth a dragon's claw.

Mia has settled into her life with the Della Torres - Milan's premier demon-catching family, accompanying them to exorcisms and even learning some way to be useful in the family trade. Then Bernardo comes into her life, handsome, well-mannered, someone who makes her forget her impossible crush on Emilio, her cousin. But always lurking in the background is the demon who possessed Mia once before, and who has not given up on possessing her again - this time for good.

Mia’s ordinary life is disrupted for good in the most horrifying way possible when she is possessed by a hungry and powerful demon - and saved only by the arrival of relatives from Italy, the country her grandfather fled many decades ago. Now her cousins, the charming and gorgeous Emilio, and stern, elderly Giuliano, say the only way to keep Mia safe is for her to come back with them to Milan - to live, to learn Italian, to fall in and out of love, and to master the family trade: fighting all demons with the ancient lore of bell, book, and candle.

Sixteen-year-old Cody Forester is a werewolf. He lives in Loxahatchee, Florida, where his horrified parents banished him. He works hard at keeping his superpowers secret, yet the circle of people who know about him is expanding.

A dark, fantastical, multi-enerational tale about a family whose patriarch is consumed by the hunt for the mythical, elusive Sasquatch he encountered in his youth. Eli Roebuck was nine years old when his mother walked off into the woods with "Mr. Krantz", a large, strange, hairy man who may or may not have been a sasquatch. What Eli knows for certain is that his mother went willingly, leaving her only son behind.

Karen DeSonne is used to pretending to be something she's not. All her life, she's passed as a normal all-American teenager; with her friends, with her family, and at school. Passing cost her the love of her life. And now that Karen's dead, she's still passing - this time, as alive. Meanwhile, Karen's dead friends have been fingered in a high-profile murder, causing a new round of anti-zombie regulations that have forced nearly all of Oakvale's undead into hiding.

Tamsin Greene comes from a long line of witches, and she was supposed to be one of the most Talented among them. But Tamsin's magic never showed up. Now 17, Tamsin attends boarding school in Manhattan, far from her family. But when a handsome young professor mistakes her for her very Talented sister, Tamsin agrees to find a lost family heirloom for him. The search—and the stranger—will prove to be more sinister than they first appeared, ultimately sending Tamsin on a treasure hunt through time that will unlock the secret of her true identity, unearth the sins of her family, and unleash a power so vengeful that it could destroy them all.

In the past thirty years, polygamy has become a flashpoint of conflict as Western governments attempt to regulate certain cultural and religious practices that challenge seemingly central principles of family and justice. In Forbidden Intimacies, Melanie Heath comparatively investigates the regulation of polygamy in the United States, Canada, France, and Mayotte.