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Overview

Fire ants. Fraud. Footie pajamas.

Twins Edgar and Ellen live alone — their parents disappeared years ago, and who can blame them? — in the quaint, little town of Nod's Limbs, in a grim, gray house overlooking the cemetery and the junkyard. They spend their days avoiding Heimertz, the mysterious accordion-playing caretaker; pestering Pet, a hairy, one-eyed creature of indeterminate species and gender; and wreaking havoc on the hapless citizens of Nod's Limbs.

But wreaking havoc can incur expenses, so the twins come up with a unique fund-raising scheme: They'll nab the pets of Nod's Limbs and transform them into exotic animals they can sell for big bucks. Not a bad plan, if one of the purloined pets wasn't a lethargic python with a raging appetite....

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781416914099
Publisher: Aladdin
Publication date: 01/01/2006
Series: Edgar & Ellen , #1
Pages: 144
Sales rank: 620,555
Product dimensions: 5.00(w) x 7.75(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile: 1070L (what's this?)
Age Range: 8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Charles Ogden is an avid camper and fisherman. He collects insects and has traveled in pursuit of various specimens to the North Pole, the Souh Pole, and Poland. Mr. Ogden and his insect collection make their home in a cool, dry, preservation-friendly environment, far removed from prying eyes.

Rick Carton has been drawing longer than he's been walking. In his Chicago studio he has a cherished collection of every pencil ever worn down to a nub during his lengthy artistic career. He has never formally studed art; instead, the art community has diligently studied him. They are yet to release their findings.

Read an Excerpt

Rare Beasts


By Charles Ogden

Aladdin

Copyright © 2005 Charles Ogden
All right reserved.

ISBN: 1416914099

It Begins. . .

The warm night air had a weight to it and hung over the town like a dirty wet dishcloth. It was very late, well past midnight, and the only sounds were the steady chirping of crickets and the occasional hooting of owls.

Down by the river, two shadowy figures danced across the roof of a covered bridge. Flailing their arms and legs about to keep their balance on the steep pitch, they formed whirling silhouettes against the night sky.

"Watch out, Sister, you're getting it all over me!"

"Well, if you had remembered a flashlight, I'd be able to see what I was doing, Brother."

"Oh, you can see as well as me. You're doing it on purpose."

"Oops!" said Ellen as she dragged her brush across Edgar's face.

"You'll be sorry you did that," he muttered, red paint dripping from the tip of his chin.

"Hush, I'm almost done."

Ellen finished the last letter, and stood back to make sure she had spelled everything properly.

"You forgot the exclamation point!" said Edgar as he dumped what was left in the paint can over his sister's head.

Edgar and Ellen tackled each other and tumbled off the roof, splashing into the water below. Standing in the waist-high river, soaking wet, with red paint flowing as if they were bleeding from terrible wounds, the twins admired their work.

"I like it, Brother."

"It's certainly better than it was before, Sister."

They cackled over the sounds of crickets and owls and crept home.

Copyright ©2003 by Star Farm Productions, LLC.

Chapter 1: Welcome to Nod's Limbs, Friend

For the most part, Nod's Limbs was a lovely place to live. It wasn't a big town, but it wasn't small either. It was, quite simply, an upstanding community of historic landmarks and charming shopping malls. The Running River cut through the center of town, although it really should have been called the Walking Stream or the Crawling Trickle since it wasn't very wide and didn't flow very fast. Seven covered bridges allowed people and cars to cross the river, and the townspeople were very proud of their covered bridges. It's rare to see one covered bridge in a town these days, and Nod's Limbs had seven. They looked like big red barns spanning the river, identical except for what was painted on their roofs.

Each had two words painted in big white block letters, one word on each side. If you were traveling the length of Florence Boulevard, each bridge added another word to a message, and the message was different depending on which direction you were traveling. From east to west, the roofs read WELCOME FRIEND TO NOD'S LIMBS STAY AWHILE. From west to east they said COME BACK SOON FRIEND AND TAKE CARE. However, since you could enter Nod's Limbs from the west as easily as from the east, and leave in either direction as well, sometimes these messages made sense and sometimes they didn't. But though you might be wished WELCOME as you left and greeted with COME BACK SOON as you entered, the residents of Nod's Limbs didn't mind because they thought it looked quaint.

But no matter how respectable a town is, when it's large enough, it usually develops what the locals call the "right side of town" and the "wrong side of town."

The "right side of town" is where the honest, hardworking citizens live. The streets are clean, the lawns are manicured, and people walk around with smiles on their faces and a kind word for their neighbors. On the "wrong side of town," however, people don't look each other in the eye when passing in the street. It's where the disreputable people live, such as those who would deface public property -- those who would take the sweet greetings of their town and alter them to say mean things like WELCOME FIENDS TO SMELLY NOD'S LIMBS DON'T FEED THE ANIMALS and DON'T COME BACK HERE EVER EVER EVER. The streets here are covered in trash and dirt, and the houses are dark, dilapidated, and terribly unpleasant.

Nod's Limbs was large enough to have a "right side" and a "wrong side," and you might think that both "sides" of the town would be about the same size. Not so in Nod's Limbs.

"An honest day's work for an honest day's pay" was the credo of most of the town's citizens, and because of this dedication, just about the whole of Nod's Limbs could be considered the "right side."

All, that is, except for one small block on the far end of town.

Copyright ©2003 by Star Farm Productions, LLC.

Continues...


Excerpted from Rare Beasts by Charles Ogden Copyright © 2005 by Charles Ogden. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

LO A MAD EXPERIENCE AWAITS...

It Begins. . .

1. Welcome to Nod's Limbs, Friend

2. The Wrong Side

3. The Twins

4. Hide-and-Seek

5. A Need for Something New

6. Possibilities

7. Pet

8. Today's Program

9. Aha!

10. Heimertz

11. Lurking and Slinking

12. Down in the Basement

13. A Little Night Music

14. The Exotic Animal Emporium

15. Missing!

16. Open for Business

17. Relocation

18. Dairy Deliveries

19. On the Road

20. Handle with Care

21. Rare Beast Expertise

22. Lucky Engine Number 7

23. The Search Party

24. Fuel to the Fire

25. Edgar and Ellen Face Off

26. Snakes Will Be Snakes

27. An Attention Getter

28. No One Likes a Bath

29. Close of Business

30. The End of the Broadcast Day

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