Books with author Charlie

Book Three of the Astral Planes SeriesCarbo, the giant red-headed giant teen from Texas has gone missing and so has Quark, whose power over the dimension of shadow is direly needed to restore the world of Shoresh.Zimmie the witch and Tweetie the dragon find themselves in a very strange world in search of their missing sister and friend. The mysterious monolithic structures on a world far above the plane of Earth may hold the keys to unlocking the lost nature of the worlds and the universe itself.An ancient evil beast threatens to unlock the secrets of the universe and upset the fragile balance of the planes.It will take more than one ancient flying saucer to save the inhabitants of Shoresh when fire fills the sky.Can the wizard Zarl help them save the worlds?

An alternative view of the North West of England that delves into its stranger past. I Hate the Lake District offers a different vision of the rural environment from those found in much contemporary nature writing. Based on the author's trips around North West England, the book engages with nuclear power and nuclear war, slavery, imperialism, ghosts, love, God, cockroaches, and the sheer violence and contingency of “nature” itself―of which the human presence is merely a part. Each chapter starts with an account of a visit to a place in this remote part of England, the deep north, but digresses and wanders through multifarious themes and subjects. Among the sites Gere visits are the defunct nuclear power station at Sellafield, home of all British nuclear waste; Lake Coniston, where Donald Campbell died trying to break the water speed record; Hadrian's Wall, furthermost reach of the Roman Empire; the mysterious and deathly Morecambe Bay; sites of slavery in the North West; places where UFOs have been sighted, avant-garde artists created work, and Islamic terrorists trained; shantytowns where the navvies who built the railways lived with their families; and even the remains of Blobbyland in Morecambe. In I Hate the Lake District, Gere challenges the bourgeois pastoralism of popular nature writing and reveals the landscape of North West England as profoundly unnatural and strange.

“I remain just one thing, and one thing only — and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.” – Charlie Chaplin Only a select few actors become international stars in their time, but none had as unique a career as Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin was the first true film star, and he managed to do so even when films were still silent. He has been honored with too many awards to count, and the fact that his name remains instantly recognizable nearly a century after his first film is a testament to his influence. Even today, Chaplin’s films are arguably more recognizable than those of perhaps any other actor or director; everyone is familiar with the famous “Tramp” costume and persona, and even the casual film enthusiast has likely seen films such as City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936). Chaplin is known for the singular blend of pathos and humor evinced by his films, and it is not uncommon for audiences to laugh and cry at alternate points of a Chaplin film, a trait that continues to endear audiences even to this day. For this reason, in his review of Stephen Weissman’s biography of Chaplin, Martin Sieff noted, “It is doubtful any individual has every given more entertainment, pleasure, and relief to so many human beings when they needed it most.” As Sieff’s comment suggests, Chaplin’s career coincided with the two World Wars and the Great Depression, but while Chaplin the actor was popular, Chaplin the person became controversial in the final decades of his life. In fact, there is a wide discrepancy between the almost uniformly enthusiastic praise of Chaplin today and the subversive identity he cultivated toward the latter part of his career. Although accusations of being a communist sympathizer and Chaplin’s confrontation with the House Committee on Un-American Activities have mostly become a footnote in the storied career of a man best remembered as an acting pioneer, it forced Chaplin to spend the last 15 years of his career working as an artist in exile, and the shifting viewpoints of Chaplin were instrumental in forcing people to evaluate the way in which they viewed celebrities, as well as what it means to be entertained. Indeed, it is impossible to substantiate the belief that Chaplin’s later films are poorer in quality than his earlier ones, yet the public largely rejected his later directorial efforts. In the end, it must be acknowledged that, more than any other figure who had come before him, the public was aware of Chaplin’s personal life in ways that were often upsetting and inconsistent with the persona effected through his films. Due to the way Chaplin was vilified, relatively little is known about the final chapter of Chaplin’s life, and one of the prevailing tensions concerning Chaplin is the way in which he is incredibly famous on the one hand but also a particularly mysterious and even unknown figure on the other hand. After Chaplin’s body was stolen from his grave, Kenneth Schuyler Lynn pointed out that “the image of his empty gravesite came to symbolize his historic elusiveness, as a person no less than as a performer.”

Is Murray psychic? He talks to the dead and comforts them in their lonely graves, even as they provide solace for him―they are his best friends. When he hears a new voice in the cemetery, he's sure it's Nikki, the cheerleader who has been missing for months. But who will believe him? He's a loser. Can he even believe in himself? Along comes Pearl, daughter of the cemetery caretaker, who befriends Murray and tries to enter his world. Together they may prove the astonishing possibility that Nikki is closer than anyone thinks.

In this standalone follow-up to an Edgar winner's acclaimed debut novel, Murray Kiefer is a boy who lives in a cemetery and can talk with those buried beneath the tombstones. He'd rather no one knew, but word got out once he helped solve a fellow student's murder. Now people think he's nuts, or want to use his ability for their own ends, or don't care that he might not want to get tangled in another police investigation all over again. But there's been a brutal killing--maybe more than one--and Murray may be able to help unravel the crime, although not without risking his own life, and those of the only friends he has.

Something happened to Charlie when he was just eight years old. He went on a journey - and he's been trying to get back for over four hundred years!Yikes! Charlie has been whisked into outer space. Get ready for alien encounters and a totally cosmic adventure. Will Charlie EVER get safely back home?GADGETS, INVENTIONS, MONSTROUS CREATURES, EVIL VILLAINS... No adventure is too BIG for Charlie Small!

An introduction for young readers to some of the greatest paintings of all time. Here are twenty world-famous artworks featured in easy-to-follow chronological order, including: Jan Van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Portrait, Paolo Uccello’s The Battle of San Romano, Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Children’s Games, Jan Vermeer’s The Artist’s Studio, John Constable’s The Hay Wain, Winslow Homer’s Breezing Up (A Fair Wind), Auguste Renoir’s La Loge, Berthe Morisot’s Summer’s Day, Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Paul Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire, and Paul Gauguin’s Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? All of the works are remarkable paintings with remarkable histories that have been chosen specifically to appeal to a young audience. The illustrations include a portrait or self-portrait of each artist, as well as a reproduction of their masterpiece, along with carefully selected details and other paintings by the same artist for comparison. The entertaining and informative texts give an account of the artists at work, and extended picture captions offer further information. Each section is accompanied by a “Why Don’t You?” box suggesting a practical art project; a “Did You Know?” box with extra information; and a “Want to See More?” feature box with useful Web sites. 120 color illustrations

The Pullman Hilton is a fast moving winter's tale of mystery that centers on the escapades of seven youngsters as they seek adventure and encounter the unknown during a Depression-era Christmas. "The Maple Avenue Gang," as the seven are called, seeks to divert their attention from the prospect of few presents under the tree Christmas morning. Six ten-year old boys and one precocious eleven-year old girl consider several forays before settling on exploring a Pullman train car graveyard. They come face to face with both honorable and wicked hoboes and a mysterious figure who comes and goes-is he a ghost or spirit-good or evil?

Fourteen-year-old Angel wakes up one morning at her desert trailer home to discover her mother has been murdered by a lowlife named Scotty, who has vanished. Angel has no water, no weapon, but she knows that Scotty, an expert tracker and hunter, will surface soon in order to eliminate her as a witness. She has to run, to disappear, if she is to survive and tell the world what happened. Her flight takes her through a harsh landscape to places she never expected to be, forcing her to trust others for the first time and strengthening her in ways she doesn't even anticipate . . . until it's time to take a stand.

Frotwoot had always thought that the hardest part about bringing his girlfriend home to meet his parents would be dealing with the fact that she's a goblin. But as it TURNS OUT, it was actually getting caught up in a coup to overthrow a corrupt government of wizards and witches who'd been enslaving the people of Seelie for countless generations, and were now thinking of setting their sights of Earth.Huh. Who knew?