The A-Team meets Endling in this middle-grade duology about four animals who decide to take fate into their own paws—by environmentalist, award-winning author, and Xploration Awesome Planet host Philippe Cousteau and TURBO Racers author Austin Aslan.
THE ENDANGEREDS #1
by Philippe Cousteau & Austin Aslan
HarperCollins Children’s, September 2020
Ages 8 -12
Humans had their chance to be in charge and look where that got us. Temperatures are rising, ice caps are melting, and innocent animals are in trouble. It is time for someone else to take over and fix this mess. It is time for . . . the Endangereds. One super-strong polar bear. One pangolin with a genius for engineering. One extremely sarcastic narwhal. And one orangutan with a dream. What more do you need to save the world? Together, these four unlikely heroes are determined to save endangered species across the globe. But when two of their endangered friends get kidnapped by a villain with a dastardly agenda, the team find themselves up to their snouts in trouble. Can the Endangereds save the day? Or will this villain put humans and animals alike on the extinction list?
Philippe Cousteau is a multi-Emmy-nominated TV host, author, speaker, and social entrepreneur. He has spoken at the United Nations, Harvard University, and across the world about environmental issues, and hosted numerous TV programs for Discovery, BBC, CNN, Travel Channel and more. Currently he is the host of the syndicated television show Xploration Awesome Planet and producer/narrator of a new Virtual Reality experience Drop in the Ocean.
Austin Aslan is the author of the TURBO Racers series and the Islands at the End of the World series. A National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, he can often be found camping in a tent on a punctured air mattress. In other lives, Austin drove ambulances way too fast, served as an ecotourism Peace Corps volunteer in a Honduran cloud forest, and managed a variety of campaigns.
Over the centuries, unbeknownst to all, a small clan of spies has worked ceaselessly to fight oppression. They are called the Tabula Rasa. They can pass unseen through enemy lines, eavesdrop on conversations, and « become » other people without being recognized. They are, essentially, faceless. Alice and Louise Winfield are sisters and spies in the Tabula Rasa. They’re growing up in war-time England, where the threat of Nazi occupation is ever near. But Louise wants to live an ordinary life, and she tires of spy missions. When she leaves the agency, Alice must face her most dangerous assignment yet, without her sister at her side. As Alice prepares for her new mission, she must head into Hitler’s inner sanctum in Germany to report on the Nazis. She fears the threat of discovery, but, worst of all, she fears losing her own sister. This novel is a mix of espionage and historical adventure. Lasky masterfully spins a tale filled with mystery, suspense and intrigue.
If you’re feeling brave, turn the page. A game of hide-and-seek goes on far too long… A look-alike doll makes itself right at home… A school talent-show act leaves the audience aghast… And a summer at camp takes a turn for the braaaains… This collection of all-new spooky stories is sure to keep readers up past their bedtimes—laughing, gasping, and looking over their shoulders to see what goes bump in the night. Anica Mrose Rissi’s collection of tales feels both classic and immediate, bone-chillingly scary and somehow incredibly funny at the same time.
For as long as sixteen-year-old Adele can remember the village of Oakvale has been surrounding by the dark woods—a forest filled with terrible monsters that light cannot penetrate. Like every person who grows up in Oakvale she has been told to steer clear of the woods unless absolutely necessary. But unlike her neighbors in Oakvale, Adele has a very good reason for going into the woods. Adele is one of a long line of guardians, women who are able to change into wolves and who are tasked with the job of protecting their village while never letting any of the villagers know of their existence. But when following her calling means abandoning the person she loves, the future she imagined for herself, and her values she must decide how far she is willing to go to keep her neighbors safe.
1860, Louisiana. After serving as mistress of Le Petit Cottage for more than six decades, Madame Sylvie Guilberthas decided, in spite of her family’s indifference, to sit for a portrait—a testament to all the hardships she has overcome, and the glory that her life ought to have had. But there are other important stories to be told on the Guilbert plantation. Like that of Thisbe, the young enslaved woman who must stand silent by her mistress, but who observes everything. Or Byron, the heir to the plantation, whose desires cannot possibly fit with his family duty. Stories that span generations, from the big house to out in the fields, of routine horrors, secrets buried as deep as the family fortune, and a tangled lineage of descendants and dependents who have never forgotten who they are.