New Releases by Douglas Rees

An action-packed and hilarious picture book about a family of chickens with one member who is a little different from the rest. Edna the very first chicken is hatching her very first eggs! With long, sharp teeth and claws, one of her chicks, Sinclair, is an unusual chicken. But when Gorgosaurus threatens his family, Sinclair might just prove to be the best chicken ever. Heartfelt and humorous, this delightful picture book celebrates dinosaurs, chickens, the importance of family, and the joy of accepting who we are.

A fiercely funny picture book from author Douglas Rees and illustrator Isabel Muñoz about the fantastic friendship between a little girl and a creature out of legend. When Willa Cathcart Wilmerding, the bravest girl in the world, is told she must stop her nightly tradition of howling at the moon, she decides to run away. High in the mountains, she meets Buttercup the Bigfoot, a friend unlike any other! Willa and Buttercup do everything together. They leap up and down the mountains, soar over mighty crevasses, and make each other crowns of flowers—but their favorite thing to do is climb a high peak and HOWL at the moon. This playful story of friendship, freedom, and ferocity will have picture book readers eager for a Bigfoot friend of their very own.

Funny and smart with all the angst and sass of adolescence and a colorful cast of characters, this is a refreshing contemporary coming-of-age YA about one Greek-American girl's odyssey home. Sixteen-year-old Elektra Kamenides is well on her way to becoming a proper southern belle in the small Mississippi college town she calls home. That is, until her mother decides to uproot her and her kid sister Thalia and start over in California. They leave behind Elektra's father -- a professor and leading expert on Greek mythology, and Elektra can't understand why. For her, life is tragedy, and all signs point to her family being cursed. Their journey ends in Guadalupe Slough, a community of old Chicano families and oddball drifters sandwiched between San Josénd the southern shores of San Francisco Bay. The houseboat that her mother has bought, sight unseen, is really just an ancient trailer parked on a barge and sunk into a mudflat. What would Odysseus do? Elektra asks herself. Determined to get back to Mississippi at all costs, she'll beg, lie, and steal to get there. But things are not always what they seem, and home is wherever you decide to make it.

X-ray crystallography remains a popular technique for achieving atomic resolution of macromolecular interactions. Protein crystal structures offer a snapshot of how these complex molecules fold in three-dimensional space, often too difficult to simulate de novo with high accuracy, as well as where substrates, activators, inhibitors, regulators, and other regulatory partners bind them. While the physics of crystallography can be a steep learning curve, the methodology offers a powerful tool for analyzing protein crystals. This dissertation is a summation of three major projects I undertook in Dr. Geoffrey Chang's lab at UCSD. These projects differ highly in their focus areas, moving from environmental pollution to sugar-derived microbiome changes, and still further to cancer-linked non-canonical G protein signaling. All three of these projects were linked not by topic, but by their problems: all required a means of seeing a protein-ligand interaction at high resolution, one that had not yet been previously achieved. Each required its own solutions to difficult crystallographic situations, including low resolution, poor ligand occupancy, abnormal crystal packing, and subtle binding pocket changes, yet all benefitted from applying the crystallographic method to solve them. This dissertation began by exploring the hypothesis that persistent organic pollutants (POPs) dysregulate efflux transporters at the barriers between main circulation and the body's major organ systems. We identified a high number of POPs in yellowfin tuna, one of the most consumed fish species in the US, many of which inhibited xenobiotic efflux by P-glycoprotein, a well-characterized efflux transporter. We utilized five asymmetrically placed Br atoms around PBDE-100, a common POP, to place this ligand in the density of a P-gp co-crystal structure, the first known structure of an efflux transporter with a POP. This structure confirmed occupancy of this ligand in an area known to be bound by inhibitors, which corroborated biochemical characterization of this interaction. My work in crystallography continued with a collaboration with the Karsten Zengler lab at UCSD. In this work, metagenomics studies identified changes in the gut microbiome of mice in response to diets enriched with Neu5Ac or Neu5Gc, the two common mammalian sialidases with disparate presence in red meat. In particular, the first microbial sialidases with specificity for Neu5Gc were identified. I led the protein purification and structure determination efforts in this project. The structures for this project, including the first structure of any protein with a Neu5Gc-like ligand, indicated which residues likely play a role in Neu5Gc preference for these sialidases, paving the way for future work into engineering Neu5Gc-specific enzymes, which could play a role in reducing gut inflammation due to red meat-containing diets. Another sought-after collaboration with the Pradipta Ghosh lab at UCSD explored non-canonical signaling of G protein systems by Guanine nucleotide exchange modulators (GEMs). Previous work has shown that G proteins can be activated in signaling cascades independent of canonical GPCR signaling, but little was known about how G proteins interacted with GEMs. We serendipitously discovered a GDI-like motif that aided in crystallization of a complex between the alpha G protein subunit Gi with the C-terminus of GIV/Girdin, a well-characterized GEM. This structure represents the first of a Gi protein with a natural GEM. These projects, while rooted in highly diverse scientific fields, found commonality in their unique crystallographic challenges. A crystallographer, or protein chemist, could not have asked for a better means of not only learning the intricacies of this complex field, but also how to apply them in new ways to solve old and new structural problems.

Tyrannosaurus Rex wants breakfast. He stomps and he roars and he gnashes his teeth—and he scares all the other dinosaurs right out of the forest. Only Edna, the very first chicken, is unafraid. She won't let that bully T. rex push her around! But will Edna's mighty beak and terrible flapping wings be a match for T. rex's mighty claws and terrible jaws? This hilarious tale of bravery will have readers clucking in triumph! Jed Henry's charming illustrations accompany Douglas Rees' upROARious tale.

Volevo la parte di Giulietta Capuleti più di ogni altra cosa al mondo, e per riuscirci ho studiato come una matta... e invece al provino ho fatto un buco nell'acqua. Odio il professor Gillinger! Ah, ma ora mi sono presa una bella rivincita. Come? Grazie a un incantesimo che promette di ottenere tutto ciò che si desidera. Solo che devo aver sbagliato qualcosa, perché non solo non interpreto Giulietta, ma ho richiamato dal XVI secolo nientemeno che... Shakespeare! No, non William. Edmund, suo fratello. Lui è davvero dolcissimo con me e... ecco, forse è un tantino troppo focoso, ma che problema c'è? Okay, quando vede passare un'auto si mette a strepitare di demoni e negromanzia e se squilla un cellulare va fuori di testa. Però è così carino, e in lui c'è qualcosa che mi fa camminare a un metro da terra! Spero solo che l'atterraggio, se ci sarà, non sia troppo tragico...

Magical Mayhem is the first of many anthologies to come from new tween/teen publisher Ambush Books. Compiled from a wide assortment of emerging YA talent plus award-winning veteran authors, this anthology truly has something for everyone featuring short tales that will twist your brain and wrap around your soul. From the creepy jumble of Eldritch Black's 'Three Curses for Trixie Moon" to the gorgeous magical realism of Anna-Marie McLemore's "Lovesick," Magical Mayhem is the perfect bedtime companion for a cold autumn's night.

Ein Hilfeschrei aus der Südsee erreicht den Furchtbar-Fiesen-Teufelsbraten-Bob: Seine alte Crew ist in Gefahr! Sofort setzt der Pirat die Segel und ist kurz darauf wie vom Erdboden verschluckt. Sein Neffe Jonathan und der sprechende Pinguin Käpt n Jack sind sich sicher: Nun steckt Bob in Schwierigkeiten! Kurz entschlossen kapern sie das Luftschiff von Rektor Purvis und nehmen Kurs auf ein neues Abenteuer.

My name is Kestrel. Kestrel Murphy. Never call me Susan. Who ever heard of a witch named Susan?

I wanted the role of Juliet more than anything. I studied hard. I gave a great reading for it—even with Bobby checking me out the whole time. I deserved the part. I didn't get it. So I decided to level the playing field, though I actually might have leveled the whole play. You see, since there aren't any Success in Getting to Be Juliet in Your High School Play spells, I thought I'd cast the next best—a Fame spell. Good idea, right? Yeah. Instead of bringing me a little fame, it brought me someone a little famous. Shakespeare. Well, Edmund Shakespeare. William's younger brother. Good thing he's sweet and enthusiastic about helping me with the play...and—ahem—maybe a little bit hot. But he's from the past. Way past. Cars amaze him—cars! And cell phones? Ugh. Still, there's something about him that's making my eyes go star-crossed....

When Cody's Goth cousin Turk moves into his house, enrolls at Vlad Dracul, and decides to turn an abandoned nineteenth-century mill into an art center, the vampire (Jenti) students are not pleased, and Cody's hopes for a great sophomore year are blighted.

When Santa Claus gets sick on Christmas Eve, can his daughter, Jeannette, find a way to save Christmas for everyone?

A badly spelled message in a bottle addressed to Uncle Pirate appears at Wilson’s front door, and Mom starts baking bad news pie—this can’t be good. Uncle Pirate’s formerly mutinous crew is marooned on an island! Though Uncle Pirate is loyal to his new crew at Very Elementary, he cannot desert his old shipmates and sets off to find them. But when he doesn’t return, it’s Uncle Pirate who needs rescuing! Wilson, Captain Jack the penguin, Ms. Quern the school secretary, and sneaky Principal Purvis set off in a blimp to save the day in this rollicking read that’s ideal for adventurous young readers.

Une histoire de vampires modernes : pas de cris, pas de fuites éperdues dans la nuit, pas de crocs menaçants. La cohabitation humains/vampires ne génère pas la peur, mais la réflexion sur la différence. Avec une histoire d'amour en toile de fond.

Hired to paint a family portrait of four beautiful but mysterious daughters in late nineteenth-century Paris, artist John Singer Sargent enters a world populated by an emotionally unstable mother, a strange spirit, and a malevolent doll.

A Junior Library Guild Selection "A haunting, deeply affecting book. Set on the island of Tahiti, this story of artist Paul Gauguin and the young man he immortalized in his paintings reads like a tropical breeze—easy and relaxed at first feel, but hinting at dangerous storms brewing ahead. Highly recommended."—Brent Hartinger, author ofThe Order of the Poison OakandThe Last Chance Texaco This second book in the new Art Encounters series centers on Paul Gauguin's paintingLandscape with Peacocks, orMatamoe, and recreates the world the artist found in Tahiti when he painted the picture in 1892. This action-packed South Sea adventure is about a young sailor, Joe Sloan, and his mission to avenge the death of his friend, Robert. Joe searches for Robert's girlfriend, a Tahitian girl named Tehane, to deliver the sad news personally. He doesn't have to go far before fate reunites him with his friend's killer, the Marquesan warrior, Gun, and his evil master, a man known as the White Wolf. As Joe navigates the unknown territory of Tahiti and its people, he finds an unlikely ally in French artist Paul Gauguin. In the course of the story, readers are introduced to Gauguin and his work, the artist's relationships with the Tahitian natives, and his artistic temperament. Paul Gauguin in Tahiti Paul Gauguin spent his life searching for paradise, a propensity that must have been set during his vagabond youth spent sailing around the world. He became a painter relatively late in life, with encouragement from Pissarro, Ceacute;zanne, and other impressionists. Ever the outsider, Gauguin left France and sailed for Tahiti in 1891 to escape debt and ruin, as well as "everything that is artificial and conventional." But to his deep disappointment, Tahiti was not the tropical paradise he had imagined. It had been thoroughly westernized. Nonetheless, he settled in Papeete and created some of his finest paintings. He had not found the simplicity of primitive life, so he painted it in such works asLandscape with Peacocks,orMatamoe. Except for one visit to France, he remained in the South Pacific for the rest of his life. • For readers 12 and up • The second book in the new Art Encounters series • Gauguin is frequently studied in elementary school because of the importance of his art to the post-impressionist period • The story is based around Gauguin's paintingLandscape with Peacocks, orMatamoe(Pushkin Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia)

When Death shows up to take her away, Grandy Thaxter finds so much work for him to do that he decides to come back when she is not so busy.

Etrange. Le nouveau lycée de Cody est étrange. Son principal mesure plus de 2 mètres et ne se déplace jamais sans son loup. Les étudiants sont immenses, eux aussi, très peu bavards, et portent des lunettes de soleil en plein hiver. Et puis, il y a ces canines qui dépassent... Etrange, non ?

In 1859, young Theodore Worth joins John Brown at Harper's Ferry, and the young Quaker begins to see that the attack on the arsenal is foolhardy. His relationships with family, with the compelling but quixotic John Brown, and with pre-Civil War history will fascinate young readers.