The novel opens in 1943, seven years after the end of the previous book, The Shadow Dragons. It has been seven years since either of the three Caretakers has been in the Archipelago of Dreams and the Summer Country is embroiled in World War II. The Caretakers return and are faced with an issue: the Keep of Time has finally disintegrated and as a result, time has unravelled. Rose has a strange visitor in the night instructing her to find Samaranth''s apprentice, ask the dragon a riddle and save the Archipelago from the Echthroi, the primordial shadows. The Caretakers are trapped in the Archipelago because of the final destruction of the Keep of Time, and when John, Jack and Charles return to the Summer Country in 1943, the Nameless Isles are ripped apart from the Archipelago and Tamerlane House, along with all of its inhabitants, are transported to 1945 and are now attached to Oxford. The Caretakers Emeritis meet a distraught John and Jack and learn that Charles died two weeks earlier. John, Jack, Fred, the Tin Man (Roger Bacon), Laura Glue, Richard Burton, Harry Houdini, Arthur Conan Doyle and the mysterious End of Time, a friend of Burton''s, travel to Avalon and the Archipelago but discover that it is in ruins and that two thousand years have passed in the Archipelago of Dreams. At Paralon, they meet a little boy named Coal, the last of Arthur''s descendents, and the group of animals protecting him. From Aven, the daughter of H.G. Wells, they learn of what has happened over the last two thousand years. As the dark star Rao approaches, they go through a door from the Keep of Time; the same one that was given to Madoc. They find themselves in Dickensian London. With no Caretakers in London at the time, the Caretakers and company are alone in London with a cohort of animals and a six-year-old boy from the future. However, they meet a young man named Edmund McGee after he stole the ''Geographica'' from them. He leads them to his master, Benjamin Franklin. By persuading Mordred, or Madoc, to continue his apprenticeship to Samaranth and become a dragon himself, and by using Edmund McGee''s prodigious skill in cartography and chronology to navigate their way through time, the Caretakers begin the process of fixing Time.

The Dragon''s Apprentice

Twenty-one-year-old Lucilla Finch, the independently wealthy daughter of the rector of Dimchurch, Sussex, has been blind since infancy. Shortly after the narrator, Madame Pratolungo, arrives to serve as her paid companion, Lucilla falls in love with Oscar Dubourg, her shy and reclusive neighbour, also wealthy, who devotes himself to craftsmanship in precious metals. After being attacked and knocked unconscious by robbers, Oscar is nursed by Lucilla and falls in love with her, and the couple become engaged. Their plans are jeopardized by Oscar''s epilepsy, a result of the blow to his head. The only effective treatment, a silver compound, has the side-effect of turning his skin a permanent, dark blue-grey. Despite her blindness, Lucilla suffers a violent phobia of dark colours, including dark-complexioned people, and family and friends conceal Oscar''s condition from her. Meanwhile, Oscar''s twin brother, Nugent, returns from America, where he has dissipated his fortune pursuing a career as a painter. Oscar is devoted to his brother, who is as outgoing, confident and charming as Oscar is diffident and awkward. Knowing of Lucilla''s blindness, Nugent has arranged for her to be examined by a famous German oculist, Herr Grosse. Herr Grosse and an English oculist each examine Lucilla but disagree on her prognosis. Lucilla elects to be operated on by Herr Grosse, who believes he can cure her. After the operation, but before the bandages are taken off, Madame Pratolungo pressures Oscar into telling Lucilla of his disfigurement, but his nerve fails and, instead, he tells her it is Nugent who has been disfigured. Nugent is secretly infatuated with Lucilla and now manipulates her into believing that he is Oscar. As Lucilla gradually regains her sight, Herr Grosse forbids family and friends from undeceiving her, since the shock might imperil her recovery. Oscar goes abroad, resigning his fiancee to his brother in despair. Madame Pratolungo intervenes decisively with Nugent, appealing to his conscience and threatening him with exposure if he continues with his plan to marry Lucilla under Oscar''s name. He promises to go abroad to find his brother and return him home. Nugent soon returns to England and tracks Lucilla to the seaside, where, on Herr Grosse''s orders, she is staying with her aunt, away from her immediate family. He pressures her to marry as soon as possible, without her family''s knowledge, and works to poison her trust in Madame Pratolungo, who is away in Marseilles attending to her wayward father. Detecting but not understanding the change in her supposed fiance, Lucilla becomes distraught, over-strains her eyes and begins to lose her vision. In the novel''s denouement, Madame Pratolungo locates Oscar with the help of a French detective. His experiences have revealed an unexpected strength of character, and she conceives a new respect for him. The two of them race home to England to stop the marriage while there is still time. Held virtually prisoner at a Debourg cousin''s house, Lucilla is again totally blind. With the help of a kindly servant, she escapes to meet them, immediately recognizes the true Oscar, and is told the full story by Madame Pratolungo. A penitent Nugent returns to America, where he later dies on a polar expedition. Lucilla and Oscar settle in Dimchurch to raise a family, with Madame Pratolungo as her companion. Perfectly content in her blindness, she refuses Herr Grosse''s offers to attempt another operation.

Poor Miss Finch

The Art of Keeping Cool deals with the difficulties of childhood during WWII. in 1942, making sense of his family is especially difficult for thirteen-year-old Robert, whose father has been deployed in Europe with the Royal Canadian Air Force for more than six months. After Pearl Harbor, Robert and his family moved from their farm in Ohio to live with his father''s parents in Rhode Island. This living situation is strange to Robert, who has never met his grandparents or his cousin Elliot who also lives in Rhode Island. He finds it even more odd that neither his mother or his extended family ever discuss his father. Robert must search to find reason for the unexplainable family dynamic. With the help of Elliot and an exiled German painter named Abel Hoffman, Robert uncovers with the dark history of his father''s family. After a little time elliot starts going to abel hoffman''s house to sketch.One day when elliot didn''t go to abel''s Robert asks why.Elliot said abel was beat up by some people just because he was German. *Scott O''Dell Award for Historical Fiction, winner, 2001 *Riverbank Review Book of Distinction, winner, 2001 *ALA Notable Children''s Book *Horn Book Fanfare *Junior Library Guild Selection *Scholastic Book Club Selection

The Art of Keeping Cool

Taken by surprise, a small coastal town is overrun by an invading army with little resistance. The town is important because it is a port that serves a large coal mine. Colonel Lanser, the head of the invading battalion, along with his staff establishes his HQ in the house of the democratically elected and popular Mayor Orden. As the reality of occupation sinks in and the weather turns bleak, with the snows beginning earlier than usual, the "simple, peaceful people" of the town are angry and confused. Colonel Lanser, a veteran of many wars, tries to operate under a veil of civility and law, but in his heart he knows that "there are no peaceful people" amongst those whose freedom has been taken away by force. The veil is soon torn apart when Alexander Morden, an erstwhile alderman and "a free man," is ordered to work in the mine. He strikes out at Captain Loft with a pick axe, but Captain Bentick steps into its path and dies of it. After a summary trial, Morden is executed by a firing squad. This incident catalyzes the people of the town and they settle into "a slow, silent, waiting revenge." Sections of the railroad linking the port with the mine get damaged regularly, the machinery breaks down often, and the dynamo of the electricity generators gets short circuited. Whenever a soldier relaxes his guard, drinks or goes out with a woman, he gets killed. Mayor Orden stands by his people, and tries to explain to Col. Lanser that his goal – "to break man’s spirit permanently" – is impossible. The cold weather and the constant fear weighs heavy on the occupying force, many of whom wish the war to end so that they can return home. They realize the futility of the war and that "the flies have conquered the flypaper." Some members of the resistance escape to England and ask the English for explosives so that the townspeople can intensify their efforts. English planes parachute-drop small packages containing dynamite sticks and chocolates all around the town. In a state of panic, the army takes the Mayor and his friend Dr. Winter, the town doctor and historian, hostage and lets it be known that any action from resistance will lead to their execution. Mayor Orden knows that nothing can stop his people and that his death is imminent. He tells his wife that while he can be killed, the idea of Mayor (and freedom and democracy) is beyond the reach of any army. Before his execution, Mayor Orden reminds Dr. Winter of the dialogues of Socrates in the Apology, a part he played in the high school play, and tells him to make sure that the debt is repaid to the army, i.e., that the resistance is continued.

The Moon Is Down

Bruno Salvador, known as Salvo, is the orphaned, illegitimate son of an Irish Catholic missionary and a native Congolese woman. He is educated in England, and as a fluent speaker and aficionado of "disappearing indigenous languages of Eastern Congo", he finds a natural calling as a specialist interpreter, employed by London''s hospitals, law courts, city corporations, and British intelligence. Bruno has a passionate extramarital affair with a Congolese nurse, Hannah. En route from a rendezvous with Hannah to a party thrown for his journalist wife, he is offered an urgent job by his handler at the Ministry of Defence to serve as an interpreter at a conference between Congolese warlords and their putative Western backers, the nameless "Syndicate". He learns that their objective is to eject Kivu''s Rwandan occupiers and install a liberal, benevolent politician dubbed "the Mwangaza" as the head. Whisked to a nameless island in the North Sea, Salvo is set to his task. As well as interpreting at the conference, he must also decipher recordings from hidden microphones festooning the island. Unbeknownst to his employers, Salvo listens in while one of the Congolese delegates, who has shown signs of defecting from the agreement, is tortured. It becomes apparent that the Syndicate''s real objective is to plunder the coltan and other mineral wealth of Kivu, and the Mwangaza is no more than a puppet. At the end of the conference, Salvo pockets the tapes and his notes before returning to London. Bruno attempts, with Hannah''s help, to alert the authorities and the press and prevent the coup. Ultimately, the plot fails anyway, and Bruno is arrested and stripped of his British citizenship. At the end of the novel Salvo languishes in a holding facility for asylum seekers, awaiting his deportation to the Congo where he will be reunited with Hannah.

The Mission Song

In Part One, McLuhan discusses the differences between hot and cool media and the ways that one medium translates the content of another medium. Briefly, "the content of a medium is always another medium." In Part Two, McLuhan analyzes each medium (circa 1964) in a manner that exposes the form, rather than the content of each medium. In order, McLuhan covers The Spoken Word, The Written Word (as in a manuscript or incunabulum), Roads and Paper Routes, Numbers, Clothing, Housing, Money, Clocks, The Print (as in pictorial lithograph or woodcut), Comics, The Printed Word (as in Typography), Wheel, Bicycle and Airplane, The Photograph, The Press, Motorcar, Ads, Games, Telegraph, The Typewriter, The Telephone, The Phonograph, Movies, Radio, Television, Weapons, and Automation. Throughout Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, McLuhan uses historical quotes and anecdotes to probe the ways in which new forms of media change the perceptions of societies, with specific focus on the effects of each medium as opposed to the content that is transmitted by each medium. McLuhan identified two types of media: "hot" media and "cool" media. This terminology does not refer to the temperature or emotional intensity, nor some kind of classification, but to the degree of participation. Cool media are those that require high participation from users, due to their low definition (the receiver/user must fill in missing information). Since many senses may be used, they foster detachment. Conversely, hot media are low in audience participation due to their high resolution or definition. Film, for example, is defined as a hot medium, since in the context of a dark movie theater, the viewer is completely captivated, and one primary sense -- visual -- is filled in high definition. In contrast, television is a cool medium, since it many other things may be going on and the viewer has to integrate all of the sounds and sights in the context.

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

During an archaeological dig in Israel, American college student Stephen Cornelius Foxx discovers the remains of a man who seemingly died about two thousand years ago. Among the dead man''s belongings is a small linen bag that holds the user manual for a digital video camera. Foxx and his mentor, Professor Wilford-Smith, later find out that this particular model will not be released by its producer, Sony, for another three years. Soon they begin to speculate that the dead man may have been a time traveller from the future, who went back in time to film a significant event two millennia ago -- and of course, the most significant thing to film during that era was Jesus Christ. Media magnate John Kaun, the financier of the dig, initiates a search for the camera, which seems to be hidden at an unknown location. Stephen, however, wants to find it on his own, with help from fellow student Judith Menez and her brother, Yehoshuah. A race for the Jesus Video begins, and soon becomes more dangerous than anyone imagined, as the Roman Catholic Church is doing all in its power to keep the video from going public. Stephen and Judith eventually find the camera, which they discover has been guarded by a secret order of monks for centuries, but are unable to access its memory because the batteries are empty. As the military and the Vatican''s agents follow them, they flee into the desert, where they eventually succumb to the heat. The two young people are saved by John Kaun and Professor Wilford-Smith, who treat them and reactivate the camera. However, at that moment Father Scarfaro and other agents of the Church show up, take the camera, and destroy it. Scarfaro explains that if Jesus had lived today, he would only have been a troublemaker, as he was in his own time, and it would be the Church allegedly founded on his teachings who would try him. Three years pass. Stephen gets a call from a video company that gets him very excited; he goes to meet with Professor Wilford-Smith and finally learns the truth: Wilford-Smith discovered two strange video cassettes back in 1947, but had no means to watch the footage on them as the technology had not been invented yet. Once enough time had passed for him to realize what they were, he began looking for the camera. Now, he has gotten his hands on a new Sony video player that can play the footage. Just then, an armed commando unit enters Wilford-Smith''s home and demands the cassette. The professor has no problem with them taking it, as he has already distributed hundreds of copies all over the world. The video spreads, but reactions vary greatly: for some people, the humble man in the footage, and his message of love, are deeply touching, inspiring them to completely re-think their life and their values, while others only see a blurry video of a plain, uninteresting rabbi. Still, it sires a new sect of Christianity based on what its followers believe to be Christ''s original teachings. Another two and a half years later: Stephen and Judith, who are now in a committed relationship, manage a motel together. They meet with Peter Eisenhardt, an author who was also part of John Kaun''s team, and who, unlike them, still believes the video to be a fake. At this point, a young man named John enters in on the discussion. Before getting on his bus to the airport, he tells them that he will be going on a tourist trip to Israel -- and shows them his brand new Sony MR-01 digital video camera.

Jesus Video

We are told at the beginning of the novel that Ariane is a figment of his imagination, yet we learn her life story in intimate detail and the lines between reality and imagination are blurred throughout the story. Named for Ariadne, the heroine of Greek myth who helps Theseus escape the Minotaur, Ariane begins as the promiscuous beauty of the fictional town of Babbington, Long Island. We follow as she tries to escape her demeaning job at a clam shack and bad-girl reputation, going through several phases of personal examination and reinvention. Ariane is an energetic storyteller, and she relates her story to Leroy and the reader through a series of funny and poignant episodes that explore the power of personal fantasy. In one sequence, Leroy''s grandfather, with Ariane''s help, comforts his dying wife by pretending their home is a ship making the journey to the tropical destination of Rarotonga. Later, we learn that much of Ariane''s life has been a public exhibition in a very literal way. As Ariane weaves her story, Leroy acts as a foil and guide, often finishing her sentences and filling in details.

What a Piece of Work I Am

The story is set during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Japan has invaded China, and the Japanese attack the village where young Tien Pao and his family live. The family flees upriver in an abandoned sampan to the town of Hengyang. While the boy''s parents go to a nearby American airfield to seek work with his younger sister, Tien Pao spends the day taking care of the sampan as well as three ducklings and the family pig, named Glory of the Republic. During a rainstorm, while Tien Pao is asleep, the sampan breaks loose from its moorings. Tien Pao is swept down the river. After a night in the raging waters, the storm abates, and Tien Pao finds himself floating in the area where his village used to be. He releases the ducklings in the river and heads for higher ground with his pig. He must travel over high mountains and through dangerous Japanese occupied territory to reach Hengyang. As he journeys home, Tien Pao begins to starve and suffer from exhaustion. He witnesses terrifying scenes of violence. Once, he sees a plane strafe a Japanese military convoy, only to be shot down over the forest. Sitting on a big rock, Tien Pao watches the entire skirmish. He later comes upon the injured American pilot (whom he had met before during his stay at Hengyang river) and helps the man return to his unit. The American pilot is a member of the Flying Tigers, and the sixty men in the unit become the "sixty fathers" who care for Tien Pao. Tien Pao exhibits a strong will to continue to try to find his parents, an incredibly difficult task; with the help of the American pilot he finds an airfield similar to the one his parents once worked on. The pilot only wishes to show Tien Pao an airfield but Tien Pao finds his mother and is at last reunited with his family.

The House of Sixty Fathers

The story is narrated by Overton, godfather to the central character. The novel takes its beginnings in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in order to trace Ernest''s emergence from previous generations of the Pontifex family. John Pontifex was a carpenter; his son George rises in the world to become a publisher; George''s son Theobald, pressed by his father to become a minister, is manipulated into marrying Christina, the daughter of a clergyman; the main character Ernest Pontifex is the eldest son of Theobald and Christina. The author depicts an antagonistic relationship between Ernest and his hypocritical and domineering parents. His aunt Alethea is aware of this relationship, but dies before she can fulfill her aim of counteracting the parents'' malign influence on the boy. However, shortly before her death she secretly passes a small fortune into Overton''s keeping, with the agreement that once Ernest is twenty-eight, he can receive it. As Ernest develops into a young man, he travels a bumpy theological road, reflecting the divisions and controversies in the Church of England in the Victorian era. Easily influenced by others at university, he starts out as an Evangelical Christian, and soon becomes a clergyman. He then falls for the lures of the High Church (and is duped out of much of his own money by a fellow clergyman). He decides that the way to regenerate the Church of England is to live among the poor, but the results are, first, that his faith in the integrity of the Bible is severely damaged by a conversation with one of the poor he was hoping to redeem, and, second, that under the pressures of poverty and theological doubt, he attempts a sexual assault on a woman he had incorrectly believed to be of loose morals. This assault leads to a prison term. His parents disown him. His health deteriorates. As he recovers he learns how to tailor and decides to make this his profession once out of prison. He loses his Christian faith. He marries Ellen, a former housemaid of his parents, and they have two children and set up shop together in the second-hand clothing industry. However, in due course he discovers that Ellen is both a bigamist and an alcoholic. Overton at this point intervenes and pays Ellen off. He gives Ernest a job, and takes him on a trip to Continental Europe. In due course Ernest becomes 28, and receives his aunt Alethea''s gift. He returns to the family home until his parents die: his father''s influence over him wanes as Theobald''s own position as a clergyman is reduced in stature, though to the end Theobald finds small ways purposefully to annoy him. He becomes an author of controversial literature.

The Way of All Flesh

Flowers in the Mirror is set in the reign of the Empress Wu Zetian (Wu Tse-tien) who reigned from 684 to 705 in the Tang Dynasty. She took the throne from her own son, Emperor Zhongzong of Tang (Emperor Chung-tsung of Tang). Empress Wu lets the power she is given go to her head, and demands that all of the flowers on the earth be in bloom by the next morning. The flower-spirits fear her and follow her orders, but are then punished by the gods for doing so. Their punishment is to live on earth. Once their penance is complete, they will be allowed to go back to heaven again. Tang Ao is the father of the incarnation of the Fairy of a Hundred Flowers. The Empress suspects him of having had a part in plotting rebellion against her and so she takes away his high scholarly rank and leaves him with the lowest rank that one can obtain. Tang Ao responds to this by freeing himself from the coil of the mortal strife which binds the soul to the body and resolves to become an immortal by cultivating Tao. Then Tang Ao is told by a dream spirit that his destiny lies in foreign parts and so he decides to go overseas by junk, with his brother-in-law, Merchant Lin. Tang Ao finds twelve of the incarnated flower-spirits during his journey, and helps them all with the difficulties that they are having. Doing so enables him to become an immortal, and at the fair mountain of Little Penglai he disappears. During his journey, Tang Ao travels to the Country of Gentlemen, the Country of Women, the Country of Intestineless People, the Country of Sexless People, and the Country of Two-faced People, as well as many other countries. In the second half of the book Tang Ao’s daughter goes to Little Penglai to look for him after his disappearance. Also, the incarnated flower-spirits take part in the "Imperial Examinations for Women", and along with their husbands and brothers they rise up and overthrow Empress Wu’s rule, so restoring Emperor Tang Chung-tsung to the throne.

Flowers in the Mirror

Friedrich Fromhold Martens, born in Pärnu, Estonia on 27 August 1845, was a renowned expert in international law. He attended the University of St. Petersburg where he later became a professor. He was a polyglot, jurist, arbitrator, and a member of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He represented the Russian Government at many international conferences including the Hague Peace Conference in 1899. He was a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1902 and was mistakenly reported by some as the winner. During a train journey from his home town of Pärnu to St. Petersburg he recalls many events of his life. He remembers meeting his wife Kati for the first time at her father''s house. He describes the discovery of his "double", Georg Friedrich Martens, a man who lived an almost parallel life to Friedrich eighty-nine years previously. Georg was born in Hamburg, Germany, attended the University of Göttingen and also became a professor of international law. Some of the recollected events, for example the Great Flood of Hamburg in 1770 and a fire in a wooden suburb of Göttingen actually took place during Georg''s life and not his own. He describes the arrest of his nephew, Johannes. He remembers his meeting with the Imperial Chancellor, Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov, to discuss the publication of a compendium of treaties between Russia and other nations. He formulates his theory of "comparativist psychology". With some embarrassment he relates the story of his candidacy for the Nobel Peace Prize and the mistaken reports that he was the winner. He outlines his "doctrine of respect for human rights". He describes his affair with an art student, Yvette Arlon, a woman that later bore his child, married and fled to the Congo. Friedrich discusses politics with a fellow train passenger, an Estonian lady and socialist, Hella Wuolijoki. He wonders how differently he would have lived his life if given another chance. He recalls the embarrassing episode of the Treaty of Portsmouth; Friedrich was a member of the Russian delegation but his name was mistakenly omitted from the initial list of delegates and so the Japanese did not allow him to participate in most of the talks. He remembers Mr. Saebelmann, the son of the man who was rumored to have ousted Friedrich''s father from the parish clerk''s cottage. Mr. Saebelmann became a composer of some note but later died in Poltava. He describes the death of his double, Georg, in Frankfurt am Main, just before meeting his own demise at the stop-off at Valga.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Dragon's Apprentice

By James A. Owen

Poor Miss Finch

By Wilkie Collins

The Art of Keeping Cool

By Janet Taylor Lisle

The Moon Is Down

By John Steinbeck

The Mission Song

By John le Carré

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

By Marshall McLuhan

Jesus Video

By Andreas Eschbach

What a Piece of Work I Am

By Eric Kraft

The House of Sixty Fathers

By Meindert DeJong

The Way of All Flesh

By Samuel Butler

Flowers in the Mirror

By Li Ju-chen

Professor Martens' Departure

By Jaan Kross