Books with author Mary Hall

Eleven- to fourteen-year-olds bring unrivaled energy to the work of making theater. They demand dramatic material that speaks directly to them--that captures their every daybutgigantically important struggles with school, parents, and friends; that explores their painful wrestlings with the hard knocks and hard choices of adolescence; and that ignites their desire to imaginatively explore other places and times. This collection of scenes and monologues offers exciting monologues and multiple-actor scenes that are outstanding short audition pieces.

My aunt is dead…Julie Ann is no stranger to death, having endured the death of her parents, but that didn’t prepare her for finding that her beloved Aunt Cynth is now a ghost. Cynth, a famous mystery writer, was murdered by one of her own story lines—a poisoned potato. She stayed behind to help solve her own murder, but this has added its own set of challenges as they must keep Cynth’s death a secret. Julie Ann and her aunt have a crew of unusual suspects to sift through to find the determined killer who keeps trying to murder Cynth and pin it on Julie Ann. Can the two of them solve the murder and keep Julie Ann from being the next victim?

They came for ghosts, but found something much more evil...It’s the summer after graduation, and eighteen-year-old Will wants one last blast with his friends. When they convince him to sneak onto the grounds of an abandoned chemical plant, he thinks the worst they’ll find is a few rusty nails. But when the sun sets, something else emerges from the nearby cemetery. Corpses brought to life by the chemical spill that shut the plant down set out to consume the living, regenerating — and getting stronger — with each kill. Now, trapped within the thick woods surrounding the plant, Will and his friends must escape the living dead…or become part of them.The Revenants is a novella from STATE OF EMERGENCY author Mary Hallberg that fans of zombies and supernatural horror alike will enjoy.

Where did icons come from? Why do we have icons in the Orthodox Church? Why are they painted so differently from other pictures? What do the parts of an icon symbolize? Answering these and many other questions, Story of Icons is an excellent introduction to the meaning of icons and the part they play in worship. The book tells the story of the origins of icons, from the catacombs to the iconoclastic conflict and the triumph of icons that ended in the Sunday of Orthodoxy. The author explains why icons are painted as they are. The second half of the book is devoted to explaining the icons for the feast days of Christ and the Virgin Mary, teaching how to "read" the icons for the story that each tells. Designed for younger readers (ages 8-13).

A viral plague. The bloodthirsty undead. Can a teenage zombie movie fan lead her friends to safety when her only knowledge of the outbreak comes from Romero movies? 17-year-old Dallas Langdon has always loved zombie movies. But when she catches a real live (erm, undead) musician eating a man’s intestines backstage after a show, she knows her movies have become a reality. Now, armed with nothing but a giant pizza cutter and a few pairs of safety scissors, Dallas must lead her friends to safety in the mountains...before they develop a taste for human flesh themselves. Fans of the zombie action of Jonathan Mayberry’s ROT & RUIN as well as the self aware humor of Zombieland and Scream will enjoy this book. Buy your copy today!

On the eve of World War II, a young American girl went to Ruthenia in the heart of central Europe hoping to get married and return with her husband to New Jersey. But cataclysmic events intervened and, although she never gave up her American citizenship, it was sixty years before she returned home. This is her dramatic story. It describes daily life for a family struggling to survive in a region taken over by the Soviet Union and suddenly subjected to nationalization, collectivization, religious persecution, re-education, and political terror.

Charlie is just a tiny little lamb when the farmer finds him in a snowstorm and brings him home. Tess is the farmer's sheepdog, and she takes charge of raising Charlie, teaching him to play fetch and even sharing her doghouse. Sometimes Charlie acts so much like a dog that the farmer and his family wonder if he knows he's a sheep. Eventually, Charlie shows them he can be a little of both.

[Young Adult Fiction (Ages 12-17)]After fourteen-year-old Clarence lost his mother to a stray bullet four years ago, his father has since abdicated all pretense of parenthood and allowed his buddy to press Clarence into service as a drug runner. In his wanderings through his frightening urban neighborhood, Clarence encounters Mona, a huge Great Dane with whom he develops a deep bond. After witnessing a horrific dogfighting event, Clarence vows to live up to his mother's expectations, finding help from the kindly Bangladeshi immigrant who runs the local convenience store, from his plucky English teacher, and from his imagined interactions with Mona the dog. A novel about hope and self-reliance in the face of grave danger, Wirewalker is a masterfully written debut.