Books published by publisher Crushed Lime Media LLC

"Though the “Boots” came later and the “Puss” assumed various forms, this story is of ancient, probably Oriental, origin. A Magyar version has a fox for its central figure. The cat first appears (1554) in the Italian author Giovanni Francesco Straparola’s Piacevole Notte (“Pleasant Nights”); but it was the French author Charles Perrault who, in Maitre Chat (“Master Cat,” 1697), introduced the boots and the trick that ends the Ogre. To this day, “Carabas” is a name given in France to any impostor." Reginald Wright Kauffman, 1922

This gripping novel, set in 1970’s California, involves a girl’s love for her pet and the netherworld of fighting dogs for sport. A sport that sadly continues today.Cissie Rose finds a tiny puppy she names Spook on the highway. Unweaned, he needs Cissie’s help to survive, and she loves him instantly. Until Cissie does a report on Spook for school, the Roses have no idea that is is a purebred Staffordshire terrier, a breed with a centuries-old fighting heritage. But Spook’s potential for pit fighting is recognized immediately by Cissie’s no-good Uncle Cletus, and when the dog disappears after Cletus quarrels with the family, there is little doubt as to who is responsible. Getting Spook back becomes Cissie’s obsession, and by the time she succeeds both she and the Staffordshire have discovered the cruelties of dog fighting at first hand.Poignant and thought-provoking, this unusual story holds the reader riveted from its dramatic beginning all the way to its satisfying conclusion. It is another winner from a master storyteller.

This dramatic historical tale bold is set in the Southern California of the 1840’s when Mexican patrons ruled vast empires of land and people. It was a harsh and violent era of outlaws and vaqueros, of plains strewn with animal carcasses. The band of Mexicans who came to settle along the Santa Ana River bring along a young Indian boy who has been kidnapped as a child and sold for a barrel of whiskey. Fiercely loyal to the traditions of his Comanche ancestors, the boy, now call Jacinto, refuses to bend to the ways of his hated captors; he lives for the day he can steal a horse and escape. Instead his rebelliousness causes him to be watched with ever-increasing suspicion. How the Comanche redeems himself by helping to cast the bell of San Salvador and then sounds an alarm on it makes the story builds to rousing climax.Based on true events, this pioneer-adventure is an absorbing addition to Patricia Beatty's much-admired novels.

“Taken” at fifteen from an orphanage to help in the household of a snobbish, well-to-do family, scorned and resentful Veer is soon rescued and eventually adopted by an abolitionist couple from Philadelphia with a houseful of young Quaker boarders, among whom is John Greenleaf Whittier. Veer helps Whittier on his newspaper and falls in love with him, but the poet eventually returns to New England in poor health, and a rapidly recovering Vere finds work and schooling and possibly another attachment through the other boarders…" KIRKUS REVIEWS

You must know, my dear children, that there was once upon a time in Scotland an old blind man, with beard of silvery whiteness, named Ossian, who played exceedingly well upon the harp, and who went about the streets singing songs of his own composing. His father, whose name was Fingal, had been a great warrior; and therefore Ossian loved most of all to sing the exploits of his great warlike sire. When Ossian was dead, other bards continued to chant his poems, and so it has come to pass that his productions have come down to our time. Other verses, however, were added by these bards to those of Ossian; so that, as some sang the deeds of the great warrior in one way, and others in another, it became at length impossible to trace the real history of the great Fingal.At last an Englishman, named Macpherson, determined to extricate the truth from this mass of confusion. He went to Scotland, and there, collecting the different songs of the bards, so arranged them as to show their agreement one with another. From these he composed other poems, which the Emperor Napoleon I. was very fond of, and used often to read. It has been suspected, but never proved, that Macpherson drew a great part of these poems from his own imagination, and set them down as those of Ossian. But what matters it whose they be, if only they are beautiful and entertaining?It has been the same with Mr. Wind and Madam Rain as with the great Fingal. My grandmother used to tell the story of Madam Rain without mentioning Mr. Wind; my uncle knew the history of Mr. Wind, though he never spoke of Madam Rain. But my nurse, who was a native of Brittany, had heard the two stories, and she jumbled them together into one, more complete and more wonderful than either taken alone.Now I went myself to Brittany a long time ago, and, following the example of Macpherson, I collected all that was there related to me about Mr. Wind and Madam Rain, who are still frequent visitors in that part of the countryWell, as your mammas doubtless teach you to abhor deception, I will not say that I have added nothing to the unconnected recitals of the Breton peasants, because that would be telling an untruth; but I have added only what was necessary to link together the different events, and to supply passages that were entirely wanting.May this nursery tale, my dear children, amuse you still more than the history of the great Fingal did the Emperor Napoleon.PAUL DE MUSSET

"Nine traditional stories from the annals of British folk-lore, each one taken from a particular segment of history, ending at the fourteenth century, form a delightful aperitif to the great era of English literature to follow. Miss Picard retells popular legends and obscure ones, each preceded by a short history of its origin. The Celts are represented first with a Goidelic and Brythonic tale, then the story of a Roman Emperor and his British Empress, followed by such epic heroes as the great Viking, Ragnar Lodbrok, Beowulf, Hereward the Wake, the Anglo-Norman hero, Sir Bevis of Hampton. Two tales are set in the Forest of Inglewood, a domain not unlike Sherwood Forest. In all, this is a rich compendium from the pen of an astute and informed writer." KIRKUS REVIEW