Natasha Soudek

Lotte Reiniger (1899–1981) was a German film director and animator best known for The Adventures of Prince Achmed, which was released in 1926 and is the oldest surviving animated movie. (It came out a full eleven years before Disney's Snow White!) As a little kid, Reiniger loved reading fairytales and fell in love with puppetry. At school, she learned about paperschnitte, or papercuts, which helped her create her signature style of silhouettes....

"This Train races us through America's heartland, carrying secrets. There is treasure in the cargo car, along with an invisible puppeteer. There is a coder named Nora, Mugzy, the yippy dog, and Ross, the too-curious poet. On board, it's a countdown to murder... On this train there is a silver madman, a targeted banker, and crises of conscience. This train harbors the "perfect" couple's conspiracies, the chaos of being a teenager, and parenthood alongside...

"In Aspen, Colorado, in 1941, Rachel Brewster is a slalom skier at the National Downhill and Slalom Championships. Little Ray, as she is called, finishes nowhere near the podium, but she manages to get pregnant. Back home, in New England, Little Ray becomes a ski instructor. Her son, Adam, grows up in a family that defies conventions and evades questions concerning the eventful past. Years later, looking for answers, Adam will go to Aspen. In the...

A long-awaited collection of stories--twelve in all--by one of the most exciting writers at work today, the acclaimed author of Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? and Self-Help. Stories remarkable in their range, emotional force, and dark laughter, and in the sheer beauty and power of their language.

"September 1913. A young Pole suffering from tuberculosis arrives at Wilhelm Opitz's Guesthouse for Gentlemen in the village of Görbersdorf, a health resort in the Silesian mountains. Every evening the residents gather to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur and debate the great issues of the day: Monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women born inferior? War or peace? Meanwhile, disturbing things are happening in the guesthouse and the...

Midnight, June 13, 1942: Peter Burger stands on a foggy beach, ears primed as a submarine hull scrapes the sandy sea bottom. He has endured seventeen months in a Gestapo prison and seventeen days on a Nazi U-boat only to have landed on American shores with six boxes of explosives and no escape. After slipping into New York City, Peter finds himself at a massive military parade where he meets Grete Baum, a German-Jewish refugee grappling with loneliness...

In this retelling of a traditional Jewish folktale, Joseph's baby blanket is transformed into ever smaller items as he grows until there is nothing left--but then Joseph has an idea.

"Lotte Reiniger (1899-1981) was a German film director and animator best known for The Adventures of Prince Achmed, which was released in 1926 and is the oldest surviving animated movie. (It came out a full 11 years before Disney's Snow White!) As a little kid, Reiniger loved reading fairytales and fell in love with puppetry. At school, she learned about paperschnitte, or papercuts, which helped her create her signature style of silhouettes. She grew...

"The harrowing, little-known story of the ARA, an American effort to save the newly-formed Soviet Union from a disastrous famine"-- Provided by publisher.

"Holding on is all fourteen-year-old Stephanie Clare Smith can do when she's left home alone in New Orleans during the summer of 1973. As she seeks to ease her loneliness through her summer algebra class, the city itself, and her friendship with a streetcar operator, adults fail her again and again with devastating consequences. Dreamlike and beautifully paced, this lyrical debut memoir traces that harrowing summer and its repercussions throughout...