Calling All Demigods!

We have Olympic fever at Spellbound, but it has nothing to do with winter sports. We’re talking about Percy Jackson and the Olympians!
 
To celebrate the release of the Percy Jackson movie, Spellbound is hosting a Percy Jackson party on Saturday February 20th at 3:00. We will of course be concentrating on the books, but the party takes place a week after the movie’s release so that we can look forward to some spirited book versus movie analysis. (We know it’s going to happen anyway, so why not gather together over some blue food and have at it?!)

Come dressed as your favorite Olympian (or Titan or demigod…) and enter our costume contest.
 
Demonstrate your knowledge of Greek mythology and the world of Percy Jackson.
 
Receive free gifts, such as trading cards featuring favorite characters.
 
Partake of tantalizing refreshments. (Grover reminds us that tin cans are full of minerals.)
 
Enter a drawing to win a free copy of The Red Pyramid, Book One of Rick Riordan’s new series, The Kane Chronicles, which hits bookstore shelves in May!

New Release:

 Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Ultimate Guide
[With Trading Cards]
by Rick Riordan
$12.99

A fully illustrated, in-depth guide to gods, monsters, and all things Percy Jackson, this novelty companion to the bestselling series comes complete with trading cards, full-color diagrams, and maps.

Author Joseph D’Agnese will be reading and signing Blockhead at Spellbound on Saturday, April 10th at 3:00. If you can’t make it to the event, you can still order signed copies by calling us at 828-232-2228 or clicking below. There will also be a fun, free presentation illustrating Fibonacci’s work predicting patterns in nature. Great for elementary age students (and teachers)!

Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci
by Joseph D’Agnese, ill by John O’Brien,Jr.
suggested for ages 6 to 9
$16.99
Available March 30 2010

Pre-order here:

As a young boy in medieval Italy, Leonardo Fibonacci thought about numbers day and night. He was such a daydreamer that people called him a blockhead. When Leonardo grew up, he realized that many things in nature, from the number of petals on a flower to the spiral of a nautilus shell, seem to follow a certain pattern. He had discovered what came to be known as the Fibonacci sequence!

“D’Agnese’s introduction to medieval Europe’s greatest mathematician offers both a coherent biographical account—spun, with some invented details, from very sketchy historical records—and the clearest explanation to date for younger readers of the numerical sequence that is found throughout nature and still bears his name.”—Booklist

Author Michael Buckley, of Sisters Grimm fame, describes his new series NERDS. (Long-time customers may recall meeting Michael at Spellbound a few years ago when he was promoting Sisters Grimm #3: Problem Child!)

NERDS has been chosen one of the Best Books for Children  2009 by the Association of Booksellers for Children. NERDS, Book One is available now for $14.95. Suggested for ages 8-12.

To order books from the ABC Best Books for Children Catalog, please indicate the number of copies of each book you would like to order. For example:
1 Curious Garden
2 My First ABC
1 BabyMouse: Dragonslayer
etc.

We will contact you within one business day to confirm your order and to take your payment.

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Horrid Henry Great Underpants Challenge
Horrid Henry was mortified. He had overslept and realized once he got to school that he was wearing the frilly, pink, lacy underpants decorated with glittery hearts and bows that Great Aunt Greta sent for his birthday! What could be worse than wearing girls’ underpants to school?

See if you can come up with a pair of underpants even weirder, uglier, or wilder than Horrid Henry’s during the Great Underpants Disaster event at Spellbound October 10th!!

 Horrid Henry will be here from 2 to 4pm. We’ll read from his latest book, Horrid Henry’s Underpants, and have a contest to see who can decorate the worst pair of underpants. Suggested for ages 6 to 10.

Please note: Oktoberfest will be going on along Wall Street on this day, so parking may take longer than usual.

Contest winner is entered in a national drawing for a school visit from Horrid Henry!

Discover the series boys and girls around the world love to read!
Horrid Henry is a publishing phenomenon—the world’s most mischievous child has spawned a bestselling book series with sales fast approaching 12 million copies in the UK alone, a TV show, and the love of children around the world. Horrid Henry has been translated into 25 languages and has received incredible praise from the press, librarians, book sellers, parents, and most importantly, kids!

About Horrid Henry:
Horrid Henry lives in a normal house, in a normal town with his parents (Mom and Dad) and his little brother Perfect Peter. Peter is perfect. He eats his veggies, cleans his plate, loves reading, hates TV, loves tattle-telling on his brother, and pretty much anything else that a perfect child would do.  Horrid Henry, on the other hand, loves any and every opportunity to create mischief for anyone who might cross his path.

The series chronicles the adventures of Horrid Henry, his little brother Perfect Peter, his neighbor Moody Margaret, his school pals Rude Ralph, Lazy Linda, Aerobic Al, Brainy Brian, their teacher Miss Battle-Axe and a host of other comic foils for this young terror.

These are laugh-out loud funny books which parents will love reading to kids and which kids will love reading themselves.

Author Edith Hemingway presents her new novel Road to Tater Hill. Set in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina in 1963, Hemingway’s graceful debut novel tells the story of a wise and resourceful girl who struggles through grief and finds solace in surprising places.

ROAD TO TATER HILL is a middle grade novel, set in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina during the summer of 1963.  Eleven-year-old Annie Winters struggles with grief after the death of her newborn sister and is isolated by her mother’s deepening depression.  Left much on her own, Annie finds comfort in holding an oblong stone she calls her “rock baby” and secretly befriends the mysterious Miss Eliza McGee, a reclusive mountain woman living in an abandoned house that folks say once belonged to a murderer.  As their friendship grows, Miss Eliza helps Annie come to terms with her loss while Annie draws Miss Eliza back into the mountain community, but only after a crisis reveals their unlikely alliance.

“Drawing on the author’s childhood roots, the heart of this first novel is the sense of place, described in lyrical words: the soaring mountains and the valley rippling outward in waves and waves of fading blue, like one of Grandma’s patchwork quilts.  True to Annie’s view-point, the particulars tell a universal drama of childhood grief, complete in all its sadness anger, loneliness, and healing.”  –Booklist

Road to Tater Hill
Published September 2009
Suggested for ages 9 to 12
$16.99

In a distant kingdom a growing darkness falls over the land. One is called to defend . . . to bring hope . . . to slay the Mighty Dragon. Could it be . . . Babymouse? Find out when Babymouse leads her fellow Mathletes in the quest of a lifetime. $5.99.

Kate Thompson is the author of one of my favorite YA novels of the last few years, The New Policeman. Now she’s brought her substantial gift for atmospheric and almost lyrical storytelling to a middle grade novel featuring a rascally but loveable street urchin, a legendary highwayman, and the outlaw’s equally legendary horse Black Bess. As the young narrator’s story unfolds we are irresistibly caught up in his tale of how he came to be in possession of this fine mare and his ensuing adventure… but is he telling the truth? By the end of the story, most readers won’t care–they’ll just want to go back and read it again!

The publisher recommendation for this book is for ages 10 and up, but many kids 8 and up will be able to read it on their own, and it would make a great read-aloud for those not quite ready to tackle it alone. The ample illustrations help to plunge the reader into the world of our young unnamed narrator and are well worth poring over by themselves. Duddle’s style is jaunty and whimsical but still rich with detail, showing a wonderful depth of expression on the faces of Thompson’s characters. Coming in at well under 200 pages, this gem is a reminder that good things still come in small packages.

Horrid Henry lives in a normal house, in a normal town with his parents (Mom and Dad) and his little brother Perfect Peter. Peter is perfect. He eats his veggies, cleans his plate, loves reading, hates TV, loves tattle-telling on his brother, and pretty much anything else that a perfect child would do. Horrid Henry, on the other hand, loves any and every opportunity to create mischief for anyone who might cross his path. This series chronicles the adventures of Horrid Henry, his little brother Perfect Peter, his neighbor Moody Margaret, his school pals Rude Ralph, Lazy Linda, Aerobic Al, Brainy Brian, their teacher Miss Battle-Axe and a host of other comic foils for this young terror.

These are laugh-out loud funny books which parents will love reading to kids and which kids will love reading themselves. Reviewed in April’s School Library Journal: “Short, easy-to-read chapters will appeal to early readers, who will laugh at Henry’s exaggerated antics and relate to his rambunctious personality.” First four books in series available now. More to come. $4.99 each.

The third and newest entry in The 39 Clues, a groundbreaking, multi-platform series that combines reading, online gaming, and card collecting.

The series centers around the Cahills—the most powerful family the world has ever known. But the source of the family’s power has been lost. Grace Cahill, the last matriarch of the Cahills, changed her will minutes before she died, leaving her descendants an impossible decision: receive a million dollars or a clue. The first Cahill to assemble all 39 clues hidden around the world will discover what makes the family so powerful—a reward beyond measure. It’s Cahill versus Cahill in a race to the finish, with readers hot on the heels of the main characters, fourteen-year-old Amy Cahill and her eleven-year-old brother, Dan.

After researching the life of Ben Franklin, then traveling to Vienna to follow Mozart’s trail, in The Sword Thief Amy and Dan seem to be tracking the life of one of the most powerful fighters the world has ever known. Where will their search take them next?