New Release Books by Betty MacDonald

In Onions in the Stew, Betty MacDonald, author of the beloved classic, The Egg and I, is in unbuttonedly frolicsome form as she describes how, with husband and daughters, she set to work making a life on Vashon Island, a then rough-and-tumble island in Puget Sound, just a ferry-ride from Seattle.

“The best thing about the Depression was the way it reunited our family and gave my sister Mary a real opportunity to prove that anybody can do anything, especially Betty.” After surviving both the failed chicken farm - and marriage - immortalized in The Egg and I, Betty MacDonald returns to live with her mother and desperately searches to find a job to support her two young daughters. With the help of her older sister Mary, Anybody Can Do Anything recounts her failed, and often hilarious, attempts to find work during the Great Depression.

“Getting tuberculosis in the middle of your life is like starting downtown to do a lot of urgent errands and being hit by a bus. When you regain consciousness you remember nothing about the urgent errands. You can’t even remember where you were going.” Thus begins Betty MacDonald’s memoir of her year in a sanatorium just outside Seattle battling the “White Plague.” MacDonald uses her offbeat humor to make the most of her time in the TB sanatorium—making all of us laugh in the process.

“A work of real comic genius. . . . A wonderful, funny, warm, honest book, and, to use a much overused word, a classic.” –Michael Korda, author of Country Matters When Betty MacDonald married a marine and moved to a small chicken farm on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, she was largely unprepared for the rigors of life in the wild. With no running water, no electricity, a house in need of constant repair, and days that ran from four in the morning to nine at night, the MacDonalds had barely a moment to put their feet up and relax. And then came the children. Yet through every trial and pitfall—through chaos and catastrophe—this indomitable family somehow, mercifully, never lost its sense of humor. A beloved literary treasure for more than half a century, Betty MacDonald''s The Egg and I is a heartwarming and uproarious account of adventure and survival on an American frontier.

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is back with a brand-new bundle of wonderfully magical cures for any bad habit—from watching too much TV, to picky eating, to fear of trying new things. And while Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is working her magic, the children are working some of their own, planning a boisterous birthday bash for everyone''s favorite problem solver!

Seven families are helped out by Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle''s magic cures when they are faced with thought-you-saiders, tattletales, bad table manners, interrupters, heedless breakers, never-want-to-go-to-schoolers, and wadde-I-doers.

The incomparable Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle loves children good or bad and never scolds but has positive cures for Answer-Backers, Never-Want-to-Go-to-Bedders, and other boys and girls with strange habits. ‘[Now] in paperback . . . for a new generation of children to enjoy.’ —San Francisco Examiner Chronicle.

''Big snowflakes fluttered slowly through the air like white feathers and made all of Heavenly Valley smooth and white and quiet and beautiful'' So here we are on Christmas Eve, locked up in rotten Mrs Monday''s boarding house with no presents and no Christmas dinner, while all the other children have gone home for the holidays. I''m Nancy, by the way, and this is my sister Plum. Luckily, we''re both pretty good at making up stories about the adventures and pretty dresses that we''d like to have, and that helps us put up with Mrs Monday and her awful niece Marybelle. But one day, we''re going to escape, and maybe we''ll find a nice home and a family all of our own. Wouldn''t that be just wonderful? Includes exclusive material: In ‘The Backstory’ you can take the quiz and find out why Nancy and Plum is Jacqueline Wilson''s favourite children''s book! Vintage Children’s Classics is a twenty-first century classics list aimed at 8-12 year olds and the adults in their lives. Discover timeless favourites from The Jungle Book and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to modern classics such as The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Ms. Piggle-Wiggle''s left her upside-down town house and has moved to a farm in the country. With the help of her cows and pigs and horses, she''s still curing girls and boys of their bad habits. So whatever the problem-from pet forgetter-itis to fraidycat-ness-the parents all exclaim, "Better call Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle!"

The incomparable Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle loves children good or bad and never scolds but has positive cures for Answer-Backers, Never-Want-to-Go-to-Bedders, and other boys and girls with strange habits. ‘[Now] in paperback . . . for a new generation of children to enjoy.’ —San Francisco Examiner Chronicle.