National Network for Equitable Library Service

This definitive collection of short fiction explores enduring spiritual and science fiction themes such as space, time, reality, fantasy, God, and the fate of humankind.

Ellis Kimball is prepared for every way the world could end. What she doesn't expect is meeting Hannah Marks, the only girl who knows how it's going to happen. Despite Ellis's anxiety, the two girls become fast friends. But time is ticking down, and as Ellis tries to help Hannah decipher the details of her doomsday premonition, their search for answers only raises more questions. When does it happen? Who will believe them? How do you prepare for the end of the world when it feels like your life is just getting started?

Upon the death of their art-loving parents, two young Jewish adolescents are kidnapped by a family friend and taken to a brothel. There they are held captive by their shared shame and by the younger sister's forced addiction to morphine. Love and psychodrama gives them the courage to finally escape Vienna. Once in England, however, Hedy discovers her younger sister Susannah longs to be independent- and in Italy.

Davina McKie est une jolie jeune fille de dix-sept ans, brillante et musicienne talentueuse. Incapable de parler depuis son enfance, elle est couvée par ses belliqueux frères cadets, Will et Sandy, qui se sont juré de protéger leur soeur muette. Quand les garçons sont contraints de quitter la vallée, Jamie McKie conçoit le projet d'égayer l'été de sa fille en accompagnant Davina à l'île d'Arran. Ses cousines l'accueillent au presbytère, et la paroisse se réjouit de l'arrivée de cette violoniste talentueuse.

Dans le dernier livre de la série sur le chat du dalaï-lama, les lecteurs s'évadent dans le monde enchanteur et exotique du monastère du dalaï-lama dans l'Himalaya. Le chat de Sa Sainteté (CDSS) a une mission : celle de penser moins pour vivre encore davantage dans le moment présent. Il apprend vite l'expression appropriée: être dans la pleine conscience ou, un concept qu'il connaît mieux, le pouvoir du miaulement.

Christophe Martin occupe un poste de chef de projet dans une société d'informatique. Ces derniers mois, il a tellement travaillé qu'il est complètement épuisé. Un matin, au bureau, il s'effondre, en proie à de violentes convulsions. Le neurologue diagnostique un burnout et lui prescrit trois semaines de repos, obligatoirement loin de la ville. Avant de quitter Paris, une voyante lui propose de lire les lignes de sa main. D'abord réticent, il accepte et écoute défiler les prédictions de la voyante : une île... un voyage qui s'avèrera initiatique...

Rejoice! A new messiah has come, and her name is Julie. Born to Murray Katz, the solitary (and celibate) keeper of an abandoned lighthouse on the Jersey shore, our protagonist arrives on Earth boasting supernatural abilities evocative of her divine half-brother, Jesus. As a child, she revels in her talent for walking on water, resurrecting dead crabs, and treating fireflies as luminous alphabet blocks. But after she reaches adolescence, her life becomes as challenging and ambiguous as any mortal's.

"She's yours." Up until now, Rosanna Mast's hopes for the future have all revolved around handsome Henry Zook. But when a young Englisch girl places her newborn daughter in Rosanna's arms and utters those words, shock quickly turns to fierce, protective devotion. Between helping her midwife mamm and caring for her own siblings, Rosanna has plenty of experience with babies. And who wouldn't love a sweet-natured boppli like little Mollie? Yet to her dismay, Henry has no intention of ever taking on another man's child.

When Selah Ropp returns to Birch Creek, she is a different person than when she left. I know I haven't done much listening in the past, Lord, she prays. But I'm listening now. Her new friend, Cevilla Schlabach, urges her to let go of regrets and allow this to be a fresh start. Cevilla herself, though, hides a secret longing behind her weathered face. Levi Stoll and his family spent a year transforming a large English house into a small inn.

God is dead. Died and fell into the sea. That's what Raphael, a despondent angel with luminous white wings and a blinking halo, tells Anthony Van Horne on his fiftieth birthday. Soon, Van Horne is charged with captaining the supertanker Carpco Valparaiso (flying the colors of the Vatican) as it tows the two-mile-long corpse through the Atlantic toward the Arctic, in order to preserve Him from sharks and decomposition.