Books with author J. P. Johnston

Dragons. In modern day North America. How can sixteen-year-old Owen fight back when he can barely pass algebra? It takes a village to train a dragon slayer, and Owen needs all the help he can get.Owen is destined by birth to carry on his family's legacy as a noble dragon slayer. Siobhan, his classmate and new friend, agrees to be Owen's bard, slated to tell his stories for posterity. Together they embark on an epic quest to protect their rural Canadian town from dragons who hunger for fossil fuels. For in this wildly creative alternate version of our world, dragons feed on carbon emissions, and they'll take down any human who stands in their way.Owen and Siobhan have homework to do, instruments to practice, and college to think of, but their most important job is to keep the residents of Trondheim, Ontario, from getting caught in the dragons' cross fire. Literally. Fans of M.T. Anderson and readers who love contemporary fantasy, alternate history, and old Norse ballads will devour this clever, award-winning tale of friendship and adventure.Los Angeles Times Book Prize FinalistKirkus Prize for Young People's Literature FinalistKirkus Reviews Best Teen Book of the YearPublishers Weekly Best Book of the YearWilliam C. Morris Debut Award FinalistYALSA Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults

"I love this book so very much."—Robin LaFevers, New York Times bestselling author of the His Fair Assassin trilogyRomantic high fantasy from the bestselling author of Star Wars: Ahsoka and Exit, Pursued by a Bear.It's been a year since the mysterious godsgem cured Cadrium's king and ushered in what promised to be a new golden age. The heroes who brought home the gem are renowned in story and song, but for two fellows on the quest, peace and prosperity don't come easily.Apprentice Knight Kalanthe Ironheart wasn't meant for heroism so early in life, and while she has no intention of giving up the notoriety she's earned, reputation doesn't pay her bills. Kalanthe may be forced to betray not her kingdom or her friends, but her own heart as she seeks a stable future for herself and those she loves.Olsa Rhetsdaughter was never meant for heroism at all. Beggar and thief, she lived hand to mouth on the streets until fortune--or fate--pulled her into Kalanthe's orbit. And now she's reluctant to leave it. Even more alarmingly, her fame has made her profession difficult, and a choice between poverty and the noose isn't much of a choice at all.Both girls think their paths are laid out, but the godsgem isn't quite done with them and that new golden age isn't a sure thing yet.In a tale both sweepingly epic and intensely personal, Kalanthe and Olsa fight to maintain their newfound independence and to find their way back to each other.

Excerpt from Diary Notes of a Visit to Walt Whitman and Some of His Friends, in 1890: With a Series of Original PhotographsThe following Notes, extracted from a Diary record of a visit to America, in July, 1890, were written at the time, mainly for a small group of friends, referred to as The Eagle Street College, and without any idea of publication.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Listen! For I sing of Owen Thorskard: valiant of heart, hopeless at algebra, last in a long line of legendary dragon slayers. Though he had few years and was not built for football, he stood between the town of Trondheim and creatures that threatened its survival. There have always been dragons. As far back as history is told, men and women have fought them, loyally defending their villages. Dragon slaying was a proud tradition. But dragons and humans have one thing in common: an insatiable appetite for fossil fuels. From the moment Henry Ford hired his first dragon slayer, no small town was safe. Dragon slayers flocked to cities, leaving more remote areas unprotected. Such was Trondheim's fate until Owen Thorskard arrived. At sixteen, with dragons advancing and his grades plummeting, Owen faced impossible odds—armed only with a sword, his legacy, and the classmate who agreed to be his bard. Listen! I am Siobhan McQuaid. I alone know the story of Owen, the story that changes everything. Listen!

Inside Tim Johnston's Irish Girl, readers will find spellbinding stories of loss, absence, and the devastating effects of chance—of what happens when the unthinkable bad luck of other people, of other towns, becomes our bad luck, our town. Taut, lucid, and engrossing, provocative and dark—and often darkly funny—these stories have much to offer the lover of literary fiction as well as the reader who just loves a great story. “It’s dark in here, but brilliant. Tim Johnston is as wise as he is original, and his stories are impossible to forget.”—David Sedaris "This is white-knuckle prose; it means what it says and it says what it means. Not that I count words, but when an image can be etched in fewer than ten, I sit up and take notice. When an image is limned in fewer than five words, I pretty near shiver. The stories in Irish Girl provide more shiver per page than most stories provide in twenty."—Janet Peery, judge and author of The River Beyond the World

School's out in Big River, Iowa, and Tex Donleavy, a kid who keeps his nose in the books and his deformed right hand deep in his pocket, is looking forward to a blissful summer in the company of Linda Volesky, the vivacious beauty who happens to be his father's girlfriend. Instead, Tex gets dumped on his mother's doorstep, where Farley Dickerson, the big oaf she's just married, and his two kids have made themselves at home. Nobody's more surprised than Tex, then, when he discovers he likes his new stepfather, that he actually wants to spend the summer at Mom's, and that he - Tex Donleavy - is going to play ball on Farley's Little League team. And then there's the plucky and brooding Jack, Farley's daughter, who becomes Tex's closest ally, as well as his greatest source of confusion. In all, it's shaping up to be a summer full of surprises - though nothing can prepare Tex for the biggest surprise of all, a secret so terrible that it will change the lives of every member of his family.Through his careful, lyrical prose, Tim Johnston expertly balances the pain of inching toward maturity with sly humor, making his fiction debut an auspicious occasion.

"Color by Accident" is designed to be used as a workbook and reference manual for the adventuresome. Beginning and experienced dyers will find "Color By Accident" to be an inspiring guide for creating one-of-a-kind fabrics not available commercially. It includes Five Variations on a versatile method and 54 tested recipes. NOT required are expensive equipment, dangerous chemicals or specialized studio space. Other books teach how to repeat a method and reproduce colors. This book points the way to exploring new color combinations and to achieving fabric that will be unique and visually complex. But be warned! As one of Ann's contemporaries reports, this process can be addictive.

"The Storyteller Queen lives, and her name is E. K. Johnston." -Rachel Hartman, New York Times best-selling author of Seraphina The world is made safe by a woman...but it is a very big world.It has been generations since the Storyteller Queen drove the demon out of her husband and saved her country from fire and blood. Her family has prospered beyond the borders of their village, and two new kingdoms have sprouted on either side of the mountains where the demons are kept prisoner by bright iron, and by the creatures the Storyteller Queen made to keep them contained.But the prison is crumbling. Through years of careful manipulation, a demon has regained her power. She has made one kingdom strong and brought the other to its knees, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. When a princess is born, the demon is ready with the final blow: a curse that will cost the princess her very soul, or force her to destroy her own people to save her life.The threads of magic are tightly spun, binding princess and exiled spinners into a desperate plot to break the curse before the demon can become a queen of men. But the web of power is dangerously tangled--and they may not see the true pattern until it is unspooled.