Harpercollins

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The essential companion for anyone celebrating Halloween – Simpsons style! Now Simpsons fans can trick or treat along with their favourite family with this compendium of tips and features, including how to monster–proof your room, how to tell if your babysitter is a witch, and how all the citizens of Springfield celebrate Halloween. Plus, they'll enjoy three complete issues of Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror comics.

Creative Team

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Jenny isn’t your average babysitter. She has a secret superpower—she can understand baby talk. (A pretty lame superpower for a middle schooler, if you ask her.)Rosie isn’t your average baby—she’s the most brilliant (and devious) detective since Sherlock Holmes.Jenny would rather do anything besides babysit. But the money she raised for her dance team has been stolen—and Rosie is sure she can crack the case.This itty-bitty investigator and her babysitting backup have no time to lose—there’s a mystery to solve before nap time! And with all the humorous antics and endless fun of Katie the Catsitter, plus the feel-good middle grade heart of Click, the journey is sure to have plenty of surprises along the way.

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With her trademark black hair and spunky attitude, Emily the Strange is a follower of no one but herself. In her first adventure, Emily finds herself in the small, sinister town of Blackrock with no memory of how she got there, who she is, or even of her own name. Armed with only a blank notebook and a slingshot, but befriended by four black cats, can she puzzle out Blackrock’s hidden secret and how it connects to her own amnesia?Internationally known, and instantly recognizable, thirteen-year-old Emily is a mad scientist, a cat lover, and a rock guitarist whose unequivocal message is that your greatest strength lies in being yourself. Told in Emily’s inimitable first-person narrative, this quirky and irresistible tale is part mystery, part adventure, and wholly strange.

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A fury of feelings.A boy lost in hurt.A father always there for him.When a young boy is asked to clean his room, fear, sadness, shame, confusion, and anger overwhelm him, transforming his house into an unfamiliar maze where monsters lurk. To find his way, he’ll need to engage his five senses. Thankfully, his father is there to guide him.Beautifully illustrated and masterfully written as a cyclical poetic form called a pantoum, Drawn Inward explores the complexities of anxiety and how—through the love and support of those around us—we can find the strength to move forward with hope, clarity, and peace.

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Summer break. Second chances. MIDDLE SCHOOL.Celia is bored. It’s the summer before eighth grade and hanging out with Grace and Lindsay is getting old. So she makes a plan to get her old besties, Jaime and Maya, back. And Celia knows just the person to help reunite them…Grace is anxious. She loves Cee, but lately Grace is starting to feel more like Cee’s lackey than her friend. Still, without Cee’s popularity to hang on to, Grace would be a nobody—and there’s nothing worse than that.Celia is determined to get their friend group back together by any means necessary, but Grace isn’t sure she wants to be friends with Celia anymore…even though that means the unthinkable: starting the school year completely alone.

Creative Team

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Lately, Toby has had a bad attitude. In art class, her mood goes from bad to worse when she’s given the assignment to paint something important to her. But before she can finish, she throws it out, snaps at her teacher, and is sent straight to detention. While in detention, Toby’s art teacher storms in makes a big accusation: she says Toby threw out not just her painting, but all of her classmates’ paintings, too…They were found just outside the art classroom in a trash can, and now Toby is in big trouble.Toby knows she hasn’t been the easiest person to be around lately, but she would never vandalize her classmates’ stuff—she’s been framed! Can Toby get to the bottom of this mystery before the end of the school day, or will she find herself stuck in detention for the foreseeable future?

Creative Team

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As long as he remembers to stay smart and keep his eyes open, Mateo knows that he can survive the trek across the Sonoran Desert that will take him from Mexico to the United States. That is until he’s caught by the Border Patrol only moments after sneaking across the fence in the dead of night.Escaping their clutches comes at a price, and lost in the desert without a guide or water, Mateo is ill-prepared for the unforgiving heat that is sure to arrive come sunrise. With the odds stacked against him, his one chance at survival may be putting his trust in something, or rather someone, that he isn’t even sure exists.If you’d asked him if ghosts were real before he found himself face-to-face with one, Mateo wouldn’t have even considered it. But now, confronted with the nearly undeniable presence of Guillermo, he’s having second thoughts. Having spent his afterlife guiding migrants to safety, Guillermo knows things about the Sonoran Desert far beyond what could be explained by a mere hallucination. But even as Mateo forms an uneasy partnership with Guillermo, survival is still uncertain.The Sonoran Desert, with its hostile temperatures and inhabitants, is teeming with danger as the Border Patrol, rogue militias, and animals prowl its deadly terrain. As his journey stretches on, Mateo will have to decide exactly what and who he’s willing to sacrifice to find home.

Creative Team

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As video games are played, memories are left in the grooves of their controllers. Atari joysticks still remember being pushed to the limit from afternoons spent playing Frogger, GameCube controllers echo with the clatter of intense Super Smash Bros bouts, each gesture with a Wii Remote is a story to be shared, and every haptic rumble inside of the DualSense is a reminder of the bond between player, hardware, and game.From Joysticks to Haptics revisits all the key points in history that shaped video game controllers. Head back to the very early era of console gaming, when dials and keypads were king, then read stories of standardisation, as innovations like D-Pads and analogue sticks became the model that every hardware maker followed, and revel in the weird and wonderful. This comprehensive collection features insightful retrospectives and personal essays, facts and stats, plus stunning photography of rare and retro favourites in a journey through the most iconic and inventive corners of video game history.

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Deep in the heart of the planet Irpa stands the Salty Pig’s Tonics & Tinctures, home of the wise Pig Wizard and his adopted granddaughter, Bea. Keepers of the Endless Flame, they live a quiet and peaceful life, crafting medicines and potions for the people of their once-prosperous world.All that changes when Bea meets Cad, a member of the Galdurians, a race thought to be long-extinct. Cad believes that if anyone can help him find his missing people, it’s the Pig Wizard. But when the two arrive home, the Pig Wizard is nowhere to be found—all that’s left is the Jar of Endless Flame and a mysterious note. Fearing for the Pig Wizard’s safety, Bea and Cad set out across Irpa to find him.Meanwhile, a dangerous being grows more powerful each day, and will stop at nothing to rid the world of whatever light it has left.Will these two unexpected friends find the beloved Pig Wizard and prevent eternal darkness from blanketing their world? Or has Irpa finally seen its last sunrise? With a gorgeous foiled case, stenciled edges, and exclusive bonus content, this deluxe edition is perfect for middle grade readers who love captivating journeys and sweeping worlds like Star Wars and Amulet.

Creative Team

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Kirah was born from an improbable interracial relationship that, in central Florida’s infamous Asurupa County, defied all the odds. But her idyllic childhood was shattered by an urban legend come to life. The “Gatorman” was a nightmare on the lips of kids and grown-ups alike all the way back to Jim Crow: a monster with the body of a man, the head of an alligator—and a taste for Black children. That’s who crawled into Kirah’s window when Kirah was just five years old. According to the police, it was Kirah’s own father who put on that gator mask and tried to kill her.Twenty years later, Kirah works hard to build a life unburdened by the traumatic events of her childhood. Just when it seems like she’s managed to find her stride, her dad, fresh out of prison, crashes back into her world with a chilling message: “He’s coming for you.”Finally forced to face the hideous family history she’s been avoiding, Kirah sets off to discover where, and who, she truly came from. And the more she learns, the more disturbing the whole picture becomes. Turns out there’s a lot more to the Gatorman than Kirah thought, and even worse: he isn’t through with her just yet.A clever hybrid of swamp noir, slasher horror, and social satire—and brought to life by Camilla Sucre’s vivid illustrations—Mama Came Callin’ is a story about family and legacies, both the ones we inherit and the ones we can’t escape.

Creative Team

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The Joker’s at it again! With dastardly plans to ruin the most wonderful time of the year in Gotham, it’s up to YOU to help Lil Batman save Christmas! Use your stickers to finish the story and put a stop to the Joker’s evil plans.

Creative Team

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Luis Menendez wants to be free from his immigrant Cuban-American parents’ expectations. Instead, he’s spending the summer delivering food for his family's faltering restaurant, sweating under the hot sun and the crushing weight of a future he didn’t choose.At least, there’s Yara. Confident, assertive, and basically the girl of Luis's dream, she might be the only person who understands him — if only he had any free time to spend with her.Amid the chaos, Luis starts carving out his own path. But when trying to be the son his parents need clashes with the life he wants, he’s forced to face the question he’s most afraid of answering: Is family loyalty worth sacrificing his own happiness?

Creative Team

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Ready to bring your Tamagotchi world to life? Through play, self-expression, and creativity, explore this one-of-a-kind sticker & activity book! What will your Tamagotchi’s room look like? Do they have a store? What do they like to cook? Plug out and plug in to this analog-aesthetic world of your very own design, where limitations do not exist. Based on the expanded world and characters from the iconic handheld game, this format is perfect for kids (and nostalgic adults!) who love to get creative.

Creative Team

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Verity “Very” Nelson can do it all.She’s student body president, debate club whiz, and first chair clarinetist. She can even do more push-ups than anyone at her school. You could say she’s pretty much the best at everything…Well, almost everything. Everything except math.And it’s not like she doesn’t try. Math just doesn’t make sense in her brain. But it better start soon, or else she can kiss her presidency—and her campaign promises—goodbye. Soon she finds herself enrolled in a remedial math class, where, despite her best efforts, failure persists. All seems lost until a teacher helps her discover the truth: Verity has dyscalculia, a learning disability that causes her to mix up numbers.Armed with a new perspective, can Verity pass math, keep her presidency, and make good on her word to the student body she loves so much? Or will her presidency—and perfect reputation—all come crashing down?

Creative Team

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Verity “Very” Nelson is poised to have the perfect summer.That is, until her mom breaks the news—they’re going to Wisconsin to help get her grandma’s house ready for sale. Very’s devastated to be missing an activist workshop and lake trip with her best friends, but her mom says it’s important for them to spend time with Grandma, who just moved into assisted living care.As she’s settling in, Very happens upon a shuttered pool. Her cousin Maya explains that funding has dried up for the former gathering place, and now, the only place to swim is the exclusive, expensive country club.Very knows a great cause when she sees it. She and her friends spring into action and rally the community around the public pool—but an unlikely source shares a devastating tip that threatens its future forever. Can Very finish what she started, or will she leave the town worse off than when she arrived?