The Book of Dead Days

The Book of Dead Days
Author: Marcus Sedgwick
Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2007-12-18
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0307433838

THE DAYS BETWEEN Christmas and New Year’s Eve are dead days, when spirits roam and magic shifts restlessly just beneath the surface of our lives. A magician called Valerian must save his own life within those few days or pay the price for the pact he made with evil so many years ago. But alchemy and sorcery are no match against the demonic power pursuing him. Helping him is his servant, Boy, a child with no name and no past. The quick-witted orphan girl, Willow, is with them as they dig in death fields at midnight, and as they are swept into the sprawling blackness of a subterranean city on a journey from which there is no escape. Praise for The Book of Dead Days: “Beautifully paced and sometimes blood-soaked. . . . A very tangible sense of evil.”—The Guardian “Subtle menace and power.”—The Independent “Packed with drama, mystery, and intrigue.”—The Bookseller

Days of the Dead

Days of the Dead
Author: Kathryn Lasky
Publisher: StarWalk Kids Media
Total Pages: 50
Release: 2012-10-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1623342066

Many cultures have celebrations that commemorate their ancestors. Mexico's celebration, los Días de Muertos, the Days of the Dead, can be like a carnival. Young people throng the streets dressed up in ghoulish costumes. They beg for calaveras - treats - like candy skulls made of sugar or chocolate, and everyone buys pan de muerto, a bread decorated with a patter of bones. This is also a time for families to reunite in remembrance of those who have died. People go to market to buy what is needed for the ofrenda, or offering, to the souls of the departed - special foods and other items. The next morning, everyone goes to the cemetery to visit the graves of loved ones who have died. All through the night, they pray and sing by candlelight in celebration of the Days of the Dead. Author Kathryn Lasky and photographer Christopher G. Knight capture the spirit of this vibrant holiday with vivid prose and brilliant, full-color photographs.

Days of the Dead

Days of the Dead
Author: Kersten Hamilton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2018-09-04
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1510728597

By the critically acclaimed author of Tyger Tyger, a warm, magical story of a girl’s struggle to keep a promise to her dead mother. Glorieta Magdalena Davis Espinosa is happy that Papi married Alice. She’s happy that he can smile again after years of mourning Mamá. But the urn containing Mamá’s ashes disappeared into a drawer the day Alice moved in. If everything about Glorieta’s life is going to change, then she wants one thing to go her way: She wants to hear stories about her mamá when the family gathers on the last night of los Días de los Muertos. And that can only happen if Tia Diosonita will allow Mamá to be buried with the Espinosas in holy ground. If she will allow people to speak Mamá’s name. With the help of her best friend, River, and her cousin Mateo, Glorieta sets out to convince Diosonita that Mamá is not burning in Hell. To do so, she’ll have to learn to let hate go—and to love the people who stand in her way. In prose that sparkles with magical undertones, author Kersten Hamilton weaves a tender story about grief, faith, and the redemptive power of love.

The Dead Days Omnibus

The Dead Days Omnibus
Author: Marcus Sedgwick
Publisher: Orion Children's Books
Total Pages: 500
Release: 2007
Genre: Children's stories, English
ISBN: 9781842556009

The days between 27 December and New Year's Eve are dead days, when spirits roam and magic shifts restlessly just beneath the surface of our everyday lives. There is a man, Valerian, whose time is running out, who must pay the price for the pact he made with evil so many years ago. His servant is Boy, a child with no name and no past; a child he treats with contempt, but who serves his master well and finds solace in the company of his only friend, Willow. Unknown to any of them it is Boy who holds the key to their destiny. But before that is revealed, Boy and Willow are held captive in the palace of the Emperor Frederick. Here they are plunged into a world of gilded finery and splendour. Beneath the golden veneer lies cruelty and madness. They are in terrible danger as they confront the whirlwind furies of the Emperor, the calculating ambitions of his confidante, Maxim, and follow a trail which will lead them to the murderous Phantom. THE BOOK OF DEAD DAYS and THE DARK FLIGHT DOWN are mesmerising stories of sorcery and desperate magic spanning dark cities, deadly courtrooms, and the threatening, frozen countryside. The truth about Valerian¿s past, Boy's identity and many other shattering secrets are laid bare as the Book of Dead Days is opened for the final time¿

The Gothic in Children's Literature

The Gothic in Children's Literature
Author: Anna Jackson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2013-10-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 113590281X

From creepy picture books to Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket, the Spiderwick Chronicles, and countless vampire series for young adult readers, fear has become a dominant mode of entertainment for young readers. The last two decades have seen an enormous growth in the critical study of two very different genres, the Gothic and children’s literature. The Gothic, concerned with the perverse and the forbidden, with adult sexuality and religious or metaphysical doubts and heresies, seems to represent everything that children’s literature, as a genre, was designed to keep out. Indeed, this does seem to be very much the way that children’s literature was marketed in the late eighteenth century, at exactly the same time that the Gothic was really taking off, written by the same women novelists who were responsible for the promotion of a safe and segregated children’s literature. This collection examines the early intersection of the Gothic and children’s literature and the contemporary manifestations of the gothic impulse, revealing that Gothic elements can, in fact, be traced in children’s literature for as long as children have been reading.

Witch Hill

Witch Hill
Author: Marcus Sedgwick
Publisher: Orion Children's Books
Total Pages: 120
Release: 2010-07-15
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1444002481

A present-day boy, a seventeenth-century girl, an ancient crone: for a single moment, their lives are fused by fire. A tense, brilliant and eerie novel, nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award. The fire was a family tragedy that Jamie can't forget, even in his dreams. And now there is something terrifying happening to him in Crownhill, the village where he's been sent to get over his problems. Something to do with an evil old witch who gets into his nightmares, and a frightened girl, the victim of a long-ago witch hunt, whose presence lingers on . . . As the dark secrets of Crownhill are revealed, Jamie has to confront his worst fears in order to free himself from the horrors of the past.

The Book is Dead

The Book is Dead
Author: Sherman Young
Publisher: UNSW Press
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2007
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780868408040

"... books are machines for reading"--P. 161.

Llewellyn's Little Book of the Day of the Dead

Llewellyn's Little Book of the Day of the Dead
Author: Jaime Gironés
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
Total Pages: 141
Release: 2021-09-08
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 0738762857

Celebrate the revered Mexican holiday of Día de los Muertos with this beautiful little book. Packed with activities, recipes, spells, and rituals, this pocket-sized guide is a must-have tool for honoring the sacred dead. Author Jaime Gironés shares authentic ways to respectfully enjoy this holiday, from creating an altar to baking pan de muerto (bread of the dead). Sharing his personal experiences and recommendations, Jaime guides you through the Day of the Dead's origins, history, and modern celebrations. Discover how to build an altar, set out your ancestors' favorite foods, and invite the spirits to a feast. Explore the significance of marigolds, sugar skulls, and monarch butterflies. You'll also learn how to say goodbye when celebrations are over. This book provides everything needed to honor the dead and share your love and abundance with them.

The Book of the Living Dead

The Book of the Living Dead
Author: John Richard Stephens
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2010-10-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101444010

From Poe to Lovecraft-a unique zombiethology of the literary undead. Corpses rise in a variety of frightening ways in this collection of classic stories by an impressive lineup of authors including: Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Washington Irving, H.P. Lovecraft, Guy de Maupassant, Mark Twain, Jack London, William Wyman Jacobs, Théophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, John H. Knox, Sir Hugh Clifford, Thomas Burke, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, F. Marion Crawford, F.G. Loring, William Butler Yeats, Douglas Hyde, E.F. Benson, Lafcadio Hearn, Perceval Landon, E. and H. Heron, Amy Lowell, G.W. Hutter, and Sir Walter Scott.