Kelly Regan Barnhill

"Princess Violet is plain, reckless, and quite possibly too clever for her own good. Particularly when it comes to telling stories. One day she and her best friend, Demetrius, stumble upon a hidden room and find a peculiar book. A forbidden book. It tells a story of an evil being--called the Nybbas--imprisoned in their world. The story cannot be true--not really. But then the whispers start. Violet and Demetrius, along with an ancient, scarred dragon,...

A short story collection featuring elements of magic realism while touching on the themes of love, knowledge, grief, hope, and jealousy. Teeming with uncanny characters whose lives unfold in worlds at once strikingly human and eerily original, these stories demonstrate the strength and power -- known and unknown -- of the imagination.

""Mothers fly away like migrating birds. This is why farmers have daughters." A fifteen-year-old teenager is the backbone of her small Midwestern family, budgeting the household finances and raising her younger brother while her mother, a talented artist, weaves beautiful tapestries. For six years, it's been just the three of them-her mother has brought home guests at times, but none have ever stayed. Yet when her mother brings home a six-foot tall...

When a child goes missing from the Orphan House in the town of Stone-in-the-Glen, the mayor suggests the kindly Ogress is responsible, but the orphans do not believe that and try to make their deluded neighbors see the real villain among them.