New Release Books by Gilbert Ford

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Celebrating the invention of vehicles, this collective biography tells the inspiring stories of the visionaries who changed the way we move across air, water, and land. Perfect for fans of Mistakes that Worked and Girls Think of Everything.

The Mysterious Messenger is a rich middle grade urban fantasy debut starring young psychic Maria de la Cruz, by the award-winning artist Gilbert Ford. Eleven-year-old Maria de la Cruz is trapped under the thumb of Madame Destine, her pseudo-psychic mother. Destine is a bona fide con artist who will stop at nothing to swindle her customers into believing she can communicate with the dead. But Maria, unlike her mother, has a big secret—she really can communicate with the dead, most frequently with a ghost named Edward who has been her only friend since she was a child. It’s not long before this clairvoyant young sleuth gets wrapped up in an epic journey that combines bookish mystery with the literary movement of the Beat poets and art and jazz history. Maria may have the power to unlock extraordinary secrets, but can she find the treasure Edward sends her clues about? More importantly, can she find true friendship? This smart, big-hearted debut novel is perfect for fans of Book Scavenger, Winterhouse, and The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street. Christy Ottaviano Books

In this unique and clever picture book, Gilbert Ford sheds a little light on everyone’s favorite sweet treat—the chocolate chip cookie—and reminds readers everywhere that just because a story is told doesn’t mean it’s true. Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! Mmmmm! Everyone loves chocolate chip cookies! But not everyone knows where they came from. Meet Ruth Wakefield, the talented chef and entrepreneur who started a restaurant, wrote a cookbook, and invented this delicious dessert. But just how did she do it, you ask? That’s where things get messy! So sit back and grab a cookie to read a story—or three—about how this round, crispy, chocolatey piece of perfection came to be. Which tale is true? Well, what do you think?

With magnificent dioramic illustrations, Gilbert Ford captures the joy, creativity, and determination behind the invention of an iconic, one-of-a-kind toy: the Slinky! One day, a spring fell from the desk of Richard James, an engineer and a dreamer. Its coils took a walk…and so did Richard’s imagination. He knew right away that he had stumbled onto something marvelous. With the help of his wife, Betty, Richard took this ordinary spring and turned it into a plaything. But it wasn’t just any old trinket—it was a Slinky, and it would become one of the most popular toys in American history.

After an initial qualitative characterization of the properties of explosions in the atmosphere and their blast and shock propagation effects, attention is given to the underlying quantitative principles of explosive energy release, including the scaling laws for explosions and internal blast effects from confined explosions. The dynamic loads that blast waves impose on representative structures are then characterized, with attention to resulting structural damage. A major feature of the present treatment is the use of the dimensionless Mach number in all shock equations ; a further simplification is furnished by first developing mathematical equations for shock in steady flow, and then applying these equations to explosive shock by simple transformation of coordinates.