One night The Great Freddie, a young ventriloquist, is possessed by a dybbuk.A what?A Jewish spirit. A scrappy demon who glows as if spray-painted by moonlight.The dybbuk is revealed to be the ghost of a twelve-year-old boy named Avrom Amos, a victim of the Nazis during World War II. In a plucky scheme to seek revenge, he commandeers The Great Freddie's stage act and entraps the entertainer in the postwar ashes of Germany. Behind the footlights, the dybbuk lights up the terrible fate of a million and a half Jewish children, including Avrom himself.What tricks does the dybbuk have up his ghostly sleeve? Prepare to be astonished. . . .
A cabin boy on a pirate ship finds himself in San Diego in 1846 as war breaks out between the United States and Mexico. A swashbuckling pirate ship cuts through the early morning fog. Crouching like a tiger about to spring, her figurehead is a huge and ferocious rat with crooked teeth and gouged-out eyes. When the daring Giant Rat of Sumatra drops anchor in San Diego, twelve-year-old cabin boy Shipwreck only wants to begin his long journey home to Boston. Instead he encounters: snarling mutineers barefoot bandits hairbreadth escapes duels cunning barkeeps simmering revenge secret identities scrappy orphans betrayals lost loves old enemies new villains heroic last stands and razzle-dazzle treasure so well hidden that only someone as quick and clever as Shipwreck could keep up with it. Plucked from the sea by the most notorious pirate in the Pacific, Shipwreck discovers his adventure is only beginning.
