Science Myths

Echo Alkaev's safe and carefully structured world falls apart when her father leaves for the city and mysteriously disappears. Believing he is lost forever, Echo is shocked to find him half-frozen in the winter forest six months later, guarded by a strange talking wolf - the same creature who attacked her as a child. The wolf presents Echo with an ultimatum: if she lives with him for one year, he will ensure her father makes it home safely. But there is more to the wolf than Echo realizes.

This is a selection of the myths and legends of Scotland, filled with local color, from Scottish journalist, folklorist, and writer Donald Alexander Mackenzie. These stories offer not only glimpses of ancient times and of old habits of thought and life but also of the country itself at different times of the year.

Straight out of the psych ward, Cora just wants her life to be normal. She doesn't want to see souls or the reapers collecting them. The guy she's loved from a distance for years moves away without saying good-bye. So yes, she's nursing a serious heartbreak. It's no wonder love is the last thing on her mind when Echo storms into her life. The chemistry between them is mind blowing. The connection defies logic. Even better, the souls leave her alone when he is around.

London has been destroyed in a blitz of bombs and disease. The only ones who have survived are children, among them Gwen Darling and her siblings, Joanna and Mikey. They spend their nights scavenging and their days avoiding the ruthless Marauders - the German army led by Captain Hanz Otto Oswald Kretschmer.

The Greek Gods are dead, but their legacy remains. Kairos, pirate lord of Histria, is concerned. A dungeon on his island turns out to be the last entrance to the Underworld, full of wealth and dangers; while beyond the sea the Poison King Mithridates builds up his forces. Enemies old and new prepare for a new war that will determine who shall replace the fallen Olympians. And Kairos is determined to be on the winning side.

Swept away into a court of magic and beauty, she discovers she is Tania, the lost princess of Faerie. Since Tania's mysterious disappearance 500 years before, Faerie has been sunk in darkness. With her return, Faerie comes alive again as a land of winged children and fantastic delights. But Tania can't forget Anita's world, or the boy she loved there. Torn between two loves and between two worlds, Tania slowly remembers why she disappeared, and realizes that she is the only one who can stop a sinister plan.

Bad Girls of Ancient Greece contains profiles of wayward wives, mad mothers, scandalous sisters and damsels, that quite frankly, caused others A LOT of stress in the ancient world. With the ever-growing popularity of mythological retellings, Lizzy Tiffin has written THE guide to all of the baddies of ancient Greece. This book stands as a reminder that us women really have been badasses since the start.

Smokescreen cuts through years of misunderstanding and misdirection to make an impassioned, evidence-based argument for a new era of forest management for the sake of the planet and the human race. Scientist and activist Chad T. Hanson explains how natural alarm over wildfire has been marshaled to advance corporate and political agendas, notably those of the logging industry. He also shows that, in contrast to the fear-driven narrative, contemporary research has demonstrated that forests in the US, North America, and around the world have a significant deficit of fire.

Bookworm Bellarose, egotistical Gerard, geeky Quinn, and mysterious Elayne are thrust into a fairy tale through a magical library. The problem? Most of these 18-year-olds’ memories have been wiped clean of life before they became characters in a familiar, but twisted story. Despite insulting banter and recent grievances, Bellarose must join forces with Gerard to break the curse the enchantress Aerowyn has placed on a hexed plantation. The stakes? Those they care about will be cursed forever. The unknown price? They will be stuck inside the warped fairy tales where they may become the villains.

In a small Japanese village, a maiden is sacrificed to a dragon so their town will not be destroyed. Kotoshi is next to be sacrificed, but she hopes to fight back! Instead of trying to eat her, the dragon asks for her help in return for her life. Will Kotoshi be able to help the dragon’s baby and end her tyranny on the town?

In this Welsh tale, Nel loves to knit stockings for her brothers as she walks her family’s land. One day, a fairy leaves her a gift—a golden chair! To keep the fairy from stealing it back, Nel must use her wit and knitting supplies to keep her chair safe while she and her family carry it home. Will Nel’s plan work? Or will the fairy steal the gift back?

In this Lithuanian folktale, the king wants to know why the sun is red! He sends his horseman on a quest to find a house made of amber, inside which the answer lies. Follow along with him on his adventure!

Kitsune are fox spirits that take on human form and play tricks on people. One such man fell in love with a kitsune disguised as a beautiful woman.

A pine tree is unhappy with its needles and wishes for different types of leaves instead. A fairy grants the tree its wishes, but the results are disappointing.

Eighteen-year-old Myla Lewis is a girl who loves two things: kicking ass and kicking ass. She's not your everyday quasi-demon, half-demon, and half-human, girl. For the past five years, Myla has lived for the days she gets to fight in Purgatory's arena. When souls want a trial by combat for their right to enter heaven or hell, they go up against her, and she has not lost a battle yet.

Did NASA really spend millions creating a pen that would write in space? Is chocolate poisonous to dogs? Does stress cause gray hair? These questions are a sample of the urban lore investigated in this audiobook, Fact or Fiction: Science Tackles 58 Popular Myths. Drawing from Scientific American’s “Fact or Fiction” and “Strange But True” columns, we’ve selected 58 of the most surprising, fascinating, useful, and just plain wacky topics confronted by our writers over the years.

It’s winter in the town of Eerie-on-Sea, where the mist is thick and the salt spray is rattling the windows of the Grand Nautilus Hotel. Inside, young Herbert Lemon, Lost and Founder for the hotel, has an unexpected visitor. It seems that Violet Parma, a fearless girl around his age, lost her parents at the hotel when she was a baby, and she’s sure that the nervous Herbert is the only person who can help her find them.

Eleven-year-old Josephine knows that no one is good enough for her daddy. That's why she makes a habit of scaring his new girlfriends away. She's desperate to make it onto her school's cricket team because she'll get to play her favorite sport and use the cricket matches to distract Daddy from dating. But when Coach Broomes announces that girls can't try out for the team, the frustrated Josephine cuts into a powerful silk cotton tree and accidentally summons a bigger problem into her life.

Twelve-year-old Mallie knows better than to dream. In Coal Top, you live the story you're given: Boys toil in the mines, and girls work as servants. But it wasn't always this way. Before the Dust came, the people of Coal Top could weave starlight into cloth. They'd wear these dreaming clothes to sleep and wake up with the courage to seek adventure. So when Mallie is chosen for a dangerous competition in which daring (and ideally, orphaned) children train flying horses, she jumps at the chance. Maybe she'll change her story. Maybe she'll even find the magic she needs to dream again.

Nnamdi's father was a good chief of police, perhaps the best Kalaria had ever had. He was determined to root out the criminals that had invaded the town. But then he was murdered, and most people believed the Chief of Chiefs, most powerful of the criminals, was responsible. Nnamdi has vowed to avenge his father, but he wonders what a 12-year-old boy can do. Until a mysterious nighttime meeting, the gift of a magical object that enables super powers, and a charge to use those powers for good changes his life forever.