The Mildenhall Treasure

The Mildenhall Treasure
By Roald Dahl
Illustrated by Ralph Steadman

Since I love all stories by Roald Dahl, I was curious when I found this on our library's shelves; I had never heard of it before. This true, short story is amazingly and beautifully illustrated, so it's really a picture book--and quite a great one!
Inspired by a news story from a newspaper he read in 1945, Roald Dahl interviewed an English farmer named Gordon Butcher who had accidentally uncovered a Roman treasure while working in the fields one day. Little did Mr. Butcher know he had stumbled upon an incredible, rare fortune, buried for over a thousand years...and then he was cheated out of it by a greedy neighboring farmer who knew what the treasure was really worth.

Here is an account of the of the same story and photos of the treasure from the British Museum, where it is kept to this day:
https://blog.britishmuseum.org/2012/03/29/roald-dahl-and-the-mildenhall-treasure/

Bad Girls

Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murderesses, Thieves & Other Female Villains
By Jane Yolen and Heidi E.Y. Stemple
Illustrated by Rebecca Guay

I really enjoyed reading these short, lively accounts of real women (girls, in some cases) who made history--infamously--for different reasons and all in different ways.
The mother/daughter team of Jane Yolen and Heidi Stemple present some of their own research process in the form of a brief, fun comic strip at the end of each chapter.
Each chapter is about a different "villainous" woman, and in the end, the reader is left to decide whether or not these women deserve their titles of "Sirens, Jezebels, murderesses, thieves...and villains."

Includes brief biographies of: Delilah, Jezebel, Cleopatra, Salome, Anne Boleyn, Bloody Mary, Elisabeth Báthory, Moll Cutpurse, Tituba, Anne Bonney & Mary Read, Catherine the Great, Mata Hari...and many others!

The Beast of Cretacea
By Todd Strasser

Maybe you've never read the classic Moby-Dick...I haven't (yet!)...but this sci-fi retelling of Herman Melville's epic adventure on a whaling ship may make you want to check it out!
Set in the future, when Earth is covered by a Shroud of thick pollution, food and all other resources are scarce.  Humans struggle to survive--at least most of them do.
Ishmael, age 17, has no other choice than to be transported to another galaxy to harvest resources from a different Earth-like planet--that way he can make money to get his parents off of Earth and somewhere safer.
Little does Ishmael know that by joining the crew of the mighty Pequod, dangerous adventures lie ahead: a giant, lethal underwater beast the captain of the Pequod is obsessed with hunting down, savage pirates, gentle islanders etching out an alternative way of life on land, new friends--and new enemies.
All of this for a boy who has never eaten solid food, taken a shower, nor seen the ocean...
A page-turner!