2/13/11

This Sunday's round-up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction postings from around the blogs

Welcome to another round-up of posts about fantasy and science fiction books for children! Every Sunday I gather here the posts about "middle grade" sci fi/fantasy books that I found during the week, to share them with like-minded folks in a celebration of the books and their authors (makes rude face at Martin Amis). If I missed your mg sff post, please let me know!

The big mg sff news of the month comes tomorrow when the CYBILS WINNERS are announced! Which of these fine books will win? Which do you think will?

The Reviews:

The 13 Treasures, by Michelle Harrison, at Ex Libris

The Adventures of Sir Gawain the True, by Gerald Morris, at Pink Me

Bubble in the Bathtup, by Jo Nesbo, at Back to Books

Dandelion Fire, by N.D. Wilson, at The O.W.L. (audio book review)

The Emerald Atlas, by John Stephens, at Kidliterate

Fantasy: An Artist's Realm, by Ben Boos, at Madigan Reads

Half-Minute Horrors, by Susan Rich, at Reading Tween

House of Dolls, by Francesca Lia Block, at A Chair, A Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy

How to Slay a Dragon, by Bill Allen, at Reading Vacation

The Magician's Elephant, by Kate DiCamillo, at Book Nut

The Midnight Curse, by L.M. Falcone, at Jean Little Library

Reckless, by Cornelia Funke, at Red House Books

The Snowstorm, by Beryl Netherclift, at Charlotte's Library

A Tale Dark and Grimm, by Adam Gidwitz, at books4yourkids

Time Riders, by Alex Scarrow, at Ms. Yingling Reads

A True Princess, by Diane Zahler, at GreenBeanTeenQueen and There's a Book

The Underneath, by Kathi Appelt, at Middle Grade Ninja

When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead, has reached the UK (couldn'd resist, sorry), and was shortlisted for the Waterson's Children Book Prize. Here's a review from Bookwitch.

The Wide Awake Princess, by E.D. Baker, at Kidliterate

Zita the Spacegirl, by Ben Hatke, at 100 Scope Notes, Charlotte's Library, Pickled Bananas, and Triple Take.

Interviews:

Kathi Appelt (The Underneath, Keeper) at Middle Grade Ninja; Diane Zahler (A True Princess) at The Cazzy Files and at Mother Daughter Book Club.

And Ellen Renner (Castle of Shadows) is this week's Fairy Tale Reflector at Seven Miles of Steel Thistles.

Other things of great interest:

Missed this one last week-- Zetta Elliott has compiled a list of speculative fiction for kids by US based authors of African descent, and here are the thoughts of Haitan-American writer Ibi Aanu Zoboi on the subject

GeekDad has turned his attention to Stories about Girls, including lots of fantasy books. Here's the link to part 4, because that has links to the earlier parts.

Here's the Guardian's obituary for Brian Jacques.

(I don't usually publicize other peoples' giveaways, but I make exceptions when I feel like it. So if you want to win all three Nathanial Fludd, Beastologist, books, visit First Page Panda)

And finally:

I am a huge fan of Wallace and Grommit. So although the adventures of a lamb headed off to preschool doesn't, in itself, make me squee, knowing that it's made by the same folks makes me pleasantly anticipatory. Timmy Time: Timmy Steals the Show, will be making its US debut later this month.

2/11/11

The Other Side of Dark, by Sarah Smith

In one of the odd congruities that happens from time to time, life and fiction intersected for me today. At work a visiting archaeologist talked about how she worked alongside the descendants of the men and women on board the last slaver to reach Alabama (in 1860!), excavating the past of the place where they had made new lives for themselves (you can read more about that project here). I didn't know that the slave trade had continued to so late a date.

On the way home my mind was full of horror of the slave trade, the memories that accrue to places, and the importance of telling the stories of these memories. And I couldn't have chosen a better book from my pile to continue this line of thought--The Other Side of Dark, by Sarah Smith (2010, Atheneum, YA, 309 pages)-- though I couldn't remember when I reached for it why I'd gotten it from the library, or what it was about.

Katie has been seeing ghosts since her mother's death the year before, obsessively drawing the darkness of what she sees, almost without her own volition. One day in the park she meets a boy named George, a friendly kid with down's syndrome, living with his grandfather in the old house that belongs to the park. But to her horror she relizes he is dead, his grandfather gone for over a hundred years, and the old house is a condemned wreck.

Law is interested in the house too--he loves old buildings, and how they hold the lives of the people who once lived in them. His mother is leading a crusade to save this particular old house--Pinebank, once the family estate of one of Boston's great merchant families, great public benefactors (and a real place, recently demolished; shown at right). But old Mr. Perkins, George's grandfather, was guilty of unspeakable evil (literally unspeakable--it was excised from history). Because of that, Law's father, professor of Harvard, descendant of slaves, and angry spokesman for reparations, wants to see Pinebank raized to the ground, and so he brings into the light of day the dark secret of the Perkins family....

Down in the cellar of the condemned house is a chest that George promised his grandfather he would protect; a promise that cost him his life. Katie and Law think it might hold treasure that would save the house from demolition, but instead, their search for the chest takes them into a nightmare of unquiet ghosts, and into a story of a crime against humanity whose repercussions have spanned the centuries. And the ghosts know that Katie can hear them...and insist that she listen, spilling out into her drawings and threatening her sanity.

And in the meantime Katie (white) and Law (biracial) are falling hard for each other, trying, with all the angst of teenagers in tricky circumstances, to make sense of their identities and feelings.

It's an immensely powerful, eye-opening story that packs both emotional and educational punches; for that I recommend it.

But I do have a slight feeling of reservation about the story telling. One the one hand, there is the very heavy, extraordinarily heavy even, and utterly disturbing weight of the past and the reverberations of slavery in present day America. On the other, there's the story of two kids getting to know each other, figuring out a mystery, interacting with ghosts....narrated by each one in turn. It's a tricky balancing act, and I was so invested in the story after the first hundred or so pages that I became sad when the balance went off kilter for me.

It began to seem like this second story of Law (pressured by unbearable parental expectations and struggling to find his own identity) and Katie (still profoundly grieving for her mother, and now wondering if she is going insane) was being flattened by the weight of the author's intent focus on the telling of the Big Story. Law, in particular, progressively became a less believable person. He is wracked with introspection, to the point that it felt almost as though things were occurring to him for the very first time so that they could be included in the story (although that being said, being a teenager is the time when you do start really questioning and wondering, so it might be that I just wasn't feeling charitable toward him). I wondered what this rich kid was doing at a public school, and (this is very, very minor, but it bugged me) it jarred that his parents, who'd already given him his own car, gave him a wii for Christmas. I didn't quite see the point of Katie's backstory either, and no-one from the supporting teenage cast ever became three-dimensional.

So the end of the book saw me caring considerably about the very-well researched historical elements of the book (and doing lots of googling, and being appalled, but not surprised, by gaps in what's available on line), and it saw me more educated (always good), but by the end I wasn't quite as invested in Law and Katie as people as I would have liked to be.

That being said, The Paperback Princess wrote -- "Katy and Law are just wonderful characters, 3 dimensional, flawed, scared, real." So maybe it was me.

Other reviews can be found at Eusinian Mysteries, Mark Bernstein, and The Reculsive Bibliophile.

2/9/11

Zita the Spacegirl, a graphic novel by Ben Hatke

Zita the Spacegirl, by Ben Hatke (2011 in paperback form, First Second Books), came home with us from the bookstore on Monday. By close of play that evening, my ten year old son had read it three times through. On Tuesday he read it twice more. I have only read it once myself, but that was enough to fall hard for it.

Zita and her friend Joseph find an enigmatic device deep in a mysterious crater. There's a red button on it, and Zita, being an adventurous type (unlike the more cautious Joseph) presses it....and a portal opens, out of which comes a monstrous tentacled being that grab her friend! Zita blames herself, so she presses the button again, leaps through, and finds herself on a very alien planet, full of all manner of strange alien beings.

Daunted, but undeterred, Zita sets out to find Joseph, meeting friends, enemies, and things in between...but will her rag-tag bunch of companions (a giant rodent, a know-it-all battle bot, a squeaky robot, and the alien Strong-Strong), a bit of magic courtesy of the enigmatic Piper, and the courage of her convictions be enough to save Joesph from the aliens who captured him, and bring the two kids back home to Earth?

Here's a group shot from Zita's website (Strong-Strong is the big brown one; I dunno why their white cards aren't labeled).
It's fun, fast, and inspiring, scary enough to grip the reader while not being the stuff of nightmares. Hatke's illustrations (which you can preview in the trailer) are charming (except for the scary creatures, which aren't). Zita is my favorite heroine of the year to date (not only is she cute as a button, she is fiercely caring), and if you want your boy to read a book with a strong girl front and center, here's the book you're looking for.

Zita's been around for a while; I'm so glad she got her own book and a chance to make new friends! And I'm glad that there seems to be another book on its way...

Zita the Spacegirl: Trailer from Ben Hatke on Vimeo.

2/8/11

Happy belated blog birthday to me, and a link to the first post I wrote that I think is worth reading

I started blogging on the first of February, 2007....if you can call it blogging. Re-reading my early posts, I am not all that impressed. But as I relaxed and became more used to writing book reviews, things improved. And now I am addicted, and no longer am anxious about having enough readers (although I am rather addicted to having more readers, in a computer game addiction kind of way--every level beaten just leads to another level. Comments are gold pieces, and links back to my blog remind me of the mangos that one would occasionally receive in the 1980s computer game Doom--"My, that was a yummy mango," the computer would say).

Regardless of my personal issues, I looked back through my early posts to find the first review I wrote that I think is worth reading, so here, in honor of my four years of blogging, are my thoughts on Rules, by Cynthia Lord.

The Snowstorm, by Beryl Netherclift, for Timeslip Tuesday


Some books seem tailor-made for me. For instance, The Snowstorm, by Beryl Netherclift (1967, aka The Snow Ghosts) includes:

Three siblings (two girls and a boy), whose parents go abroad, leaving them with an eccentric aunt they've never met...

Who happens to live in an old house deep in the English countryside...

A house where a mysterious snow globe opens the way between past and present, and allows them to befriend a boy from the 19th century...

Who helps them (rather indirectly) find the lost treasures that will save the old house from falling into ruin...

And then, as a piece de resistance, the children are trapped alone in the house for several days by a fierce snowstorm, and must deal with domestic details of food and firewood on their own.

Added bonus features: a secret passage, a remarkable dog, tasty-sounding food, selling domestic produce to raise money, and rummaging in trunks in an old attic.

Sadly, the execution was not quite as delightful as the plot. Although it came close to being a perfect book, the dialogue was at times stilted ("Let us go in the garden out of the way" p 115) and the author much too concerned about overusing "said," with the result that the children are constantly conceding, reflecting, affirming, apologizing, denying, beaming etc etc and as a result much of the dialogue felt a tad forced, and not at all relaxed. It was bad enough so that it bothered me while I was reading, which is pretty bad; mostly I'm reading so fast I don't notice much if people are scowling or grinning when they say something. The servile gardener likewise jars a bit on one's modern sensibilities (surely by the 1960s such things were already dated?)

More to the point, I didn't understand at all why, when the modern kids traveled back to the past and met Michael, their distant cousin, they didn't pepper him with questions--it took until page 120, when they'd met Michael quite a few times, before they even asked what year he was from. Time Travel Fail, if you ask me. And he showed no curiosity whatsoever about modern times, except a little with regard the decrepitude of his ancestral house. I think Netherclift let me down here--a bit more excitement about the time traveling on the part of the participants would have ramped up the excitement considerably.

Still, you can't have everything in this imperfect world, and The Snowstorm is one I'd happily add to my permanent collection. "But I do not think that I will hurry to seek out her other two books," sighed Charlotte, ruefully. "Her style was simply not to my taste."

I wasn't able to find any useful information about Netherclift on line, besides the fact that she has two other books that no one seems to have reviewed anywhere....has anyone else read anything of hers, or know who she is?

2/7/11

Goodbye, Brian Jacques


Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall books, has died at the age of 71. Here's the BBC article. I myself have never been a Redwall fan, but despite that, Jacques certainly was a huge part of my mental conception of the realm of fantasy literature for kids, and it seems sad and hard to believe that someone so There now isn't.




The next Redwall book, The Rogue Crew, will be released this May. Here's the summary from Penguin, via the Redwall Wiki:
"Redwall Abbey has never seen a creature more evil or more hideous than Razzid Wearat. Captain of the Greenshroud, a ship with wheels that can sail through water as well as the forest, this beast is a terror of both land and sea, traveling Mossflower Country, killing nearly everything—and everyone— in his path. And his goal? To conquer Redwall Abbey. From Salamandastron to the High North Coast, the brave hares of the Long Patrol team up with the fearless sea otters of the Rogue Crew to form a pack so tough, so rough, only they can defend the abbey and defeat Razzid Wearat once and for all."

2/6/11

This Sunday's Middle Grade Science Fiction/Fantasy Round-Up

Welcome to another week's round-up of the blog posts I found that pertain to middle grade fantasy and science fiction! Let me know, please, if I missed yours.

The Reviews:


Athena: the Grey-Eyed Goddess, by George O'Conner, at Library Chicken

Fever Crumb, by Philip Reeve, at By Singing Light

Fused, by Kari Lee Townsend, at Writers' Ally

The Hotel Under the Sand, by Kage Baker, at Fantasy Literature

Kat, Incorrigible, by Stephanie Burgis, at My Love Affair With Books

Middleworld, by J & P Voelkel, at Maltby Reads

Scumble, by Ingrid Law, at Books & Other Thoughts

Season of Secrets, by Sally Nicholls, at Fuse #8 and My Brain on Books

The Search for WondLa, by Tony DiTerlizzi, at A Year of Reading and at Great Kid Books

The Shifter (Healing Wars Book 1) at books4yourkids

Small Persons With Wings, by Ellen Booraem, at Eva's Book Addiction

A Tale Dark and Grimm, by Adam Gidwitz, at Bookish Blather

The Time Travelers, by Linda Buckley-Archer, at Teacher Girl's Book Blog

True Princess, by Diane Zahler, at The Brain Lair, Jean Little Library, Galley Smith, Write for a Reader, and The Compulsive Reader (full tour schedule here)

The Witch's Guide to Cooking With Children, by Keith McGowan at Becky's Book Reviews

The Weaver, by Kai Strand, at The Story of a Writer

Zita the Space Girl, by Ben Hatke, at Kids Lit.

Two mice books at Book Aunt (Bless This Mouse, by Lois Lowry, and Young Fredle, by Cynthia Voigt)

Two Grimm books at Random Musings of a Bibliophile (A Tale Dark and Grimm, and The Grimm Legacy)

It was a Fantasitical Middle Grade Monday last week over at From the Mixed Up Files--Shannon Messenger shares some of her favorite mg fantasy books, and offers three chances to win one!

Author Interviews and Guest Posts, and other things:

Ellen Booraem (Small Persons With Wings) at Sarah Laurence Blog
Diane Zahler (A True Princess) at Galleysmith and The Cozy Reader

Locus Magazine gives awards every year determined by votes from fans (the votes of fans who are subscribers are weighted more heavily). They've put up some lists of recommended reading, although books that aren't on the list can be voted for too. Here's their "YA" list, which strays into "MG" territory:
It's a nice list, I think--a few surprises, such as Thresholds, which I haven't read, but will now, and Kid vs Squid, a fun book that flew under the radar somewhat.

and finally, via Buzzfeed: ducks wearing dog masks. Just in case you hadn't seen it yet.

2/3/11

No Passengers Beyond This Point, by Gennifer Choldenko


No Passengers Beyond This Point, by Gennifer Choldenko (Dial, 2011, middle grade, 256 pages)

The three children are appalled when their mother abruptly tells them that their house has been foreclosed on, and that they must leave the next day for their uncle's in Colorado, on their own. 12 year old Finn and his sisters, teenaged India and young Mouse, are packed onto an airplane, their future suddenly uncertain. And when their plane lands unexpectedly in a deserted airport, and they are met not by Uncle Red but by a boy driving a taxi that's covered with feathers, things become even stranger.

Their new destination is the town of Falling Bird, where they receive a welcome of incredible warmth, and each child is taken taken to a new home, perfectly tailored to their daydreams...a place where happily ever after seems to have come true. But memories of their mother, and their dead father, intrude, and the houses collapse around them after the first night. Like many places that seem too perfect to be real, Falling Bird soon shows, to Finn and Mouse in particuarl, a different, darker face.

Each child has been given a clock, that's ticking down the time until they must stay there forever. Each child has a piece of a puzzle that must be joined before they can leave. But to find the way out, clues must be deciphered, and obstacles overcome...or they will never be a family again.

Told in the alternating points of view of the three children, it's a complicated and twisty story where the stakes are high, and both the protagonists, and the reader, only gradually realize what is going on. Each of the children comes across clearly as an individual--not necessarily likable, all the time, especially prickly, self-centered India, but each quirkily distinct, and, in the end, someone to care about.

Falling Bird is a place of classic fairy tale ensnarement--a place where the unthinking can find themselves trapped, a limbo where a person can be lost forever. Fortunately for India, Finn, and the precocious Mouse, their will to find their way out proves stronger than its wiles and machinations. The place is never Explained, but it does become clear what has happened...and the ending, mercifully, is a happy one.

No Passengers Beyond This Point could be described as Heck meets Departure Time meets The Kneebone Boy....combining the surreal, very busy afterlife of the one with the wistful surreal melancholy of the other, with the siblings in confusing circumstances of the third. Despite the fantasy that underpins the story, and provides the basis of the action, it's primarily a character driven book, with lots of emotional turmoil. Those who don't like introspective stories might become impatient, and want the fantasy explained and explored in greater depth, but those who do like such stories, who are content to go along with the ride, and who like quirky kids, should enjoy this one lots.

I'm pretty sure I did like this one myself (I read it with fixed, engrossed, even thoughtful and absorbed attention, and I liked Choldenko's smoothly snappy writing lots)...but I can't be certain whether others will or not, because, I, um, read the ending quite soon after the kids arrived in Falling Bird. I was growing a tad vexed by the incomprehensible turns of events, and had to know if there was a point. Turns out there was, and it colored my reading experience rather dramatically...for the better, but so much so that I can't begin to comprehend what a reader who doesn't know what has happened will make of the story. (Incidentally, the clues are there pretty early on, for those who are good at clues, but I am not. For those who like clues, and don't mind possible spoilers, I have put the two most obvious ones at the end).

Other thoughts, that might well prove more useful than my own, can be found at Ms. Yingling Reads, Collecting Children's Books (scroll down quite far), and My Brain on Books.

Disclaimer: ARC received from the publisher.

Spoilerish clues:


(ample spoiler space)


(clues are in italics, to make them harder to read)


The place is called Falling Bird, and the kids have to find a black box.

2/2/11

The False Princess, by Eilis O'Neal

The False Princess, by Eilis O'Neal (Egmont 2011, upper middle grade/YA, 336 pages)

For sixteen years she was a princess, and then, with no warning, Nalia's identity was stripped from her. She was simply a substitute for the real princess, who had been hidden away for safekeeping. Her true name is Sinda, she's a commoner, and the people she thought were her parents don't seem to give a darn about her. Before she can register what's happened, she's whisked off to her aunt's village, to somehow make some sort of life for herself...

But Sinda is still tied by the magical spell cast on her when she was a baby to the fate of the true princess. With the help of her old friend Keirnan, and magical gifts she never knew she had, she uncovers a plot to put yet another false princess on the throne. The mastermind behind this plot has already killed to make sure it happens, and is ready to kill again...

In short, it's an entertaining tale in which magic and intrigue are spiced with a nice dash of romance.

There are books that seem tailor-made for the 11 or 12 year old girl just beginning to make their way into YA fantasy--books that provide very gratifying wish fulfillment (Keirnan is more than just a friend, and Sinda discovers she has untapped magical powers), and which aren't Dark, even though bad things might happen. This is a book that I'd give in a second to a girl who loved Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine, or Brightly Woven, by Alexandra Bracken. I bet that girl would find this riveting.

Although I myself enjoyed Sinda's story, and found found the plot fascinating, I'm not that eleven year old girl anymore, and it wasn't quite a book that I fell in love with. Partly this is because the things I wanted more of (Sinda's life with her aunt, a dyer and weaver in a small village, and her subsequent apprenticeship with a very eccentric old magician) weren't that important to the story O'Neal wanted to tell, which is no fault of the book's. And partly this is because I felt the Bad Character was Badder than really necessary, which strained my credulity--this is also a matter of personal taste, I think!

But these things would not have mattered if I hadn't been vaguely dissatisfied with Sinda's character. Sinda, narrating the story, constantly shares what is going on inside her head, but despite knowing her thought-processes in detail, I was never entirely convinced by her. Although she does grow as a character, become stronger and more self-confident as the book progresses, I didn't quite find the bravery and determination the plot required her to show toward the end believable. And introspection and self-doubt are fine, but she takes it too far-- an interior monologue with eight unanswerable questions on just one page (ie, "Was the king alive or dead?") is perhaps a bit much (p 248).

That being said, I'm going to pass this one on to the young reader to whom I gave my review copy of Brightly Woven (also from Egmont). She loved it, and asked for more...The False Princess should hit the spot very nicely!

Here's a sampling of other opinions: Bookyurt, WORD for Teens, and the Book Pixie

(ARC received from the publisher)

2/1/11

New releases of science fiction and fantasy for kids and teenagers--the first half of February, 2011

This is a really, really long list, with lots of books I want. I want Zita the Space Girl. I want The Floating Islands. I want the third of the Books of Umber. I could go on and on. I also very much want the time to read the three books on this list that I have in my possession, and that is why the YA books didn't get pictures this time around--I used up my alloted time.

disclaimer: since I haven't actually read all of these, I'm deciding they are sff based on their descriptions, except for Tall Story, which I'm putting in the list because it was nominated for the Cybils in mg sff (but I never got hold of a copy...). My information comes from Teens Read Too, and the blurbs (except, of course, the ones I couldn't find) come from Amazon and Goodreads.

BONGO FISHING by Thacher Hurd "Jason has a pretty normal life: he lives with his mom, he goes to school, he does his homework. But when he meets a short, bluish alien named Sam, his life begins to seem much less normal and a lot more...well, alien. Sam takes Jason bongo fishing in space, and a whole new world opens up. But when Jason's cat, Sputnik, disappears, things start to get a little weird. Interstellar travel isn't just fun and games, after all! Is the evil Dr. Zimburger involved? Or are there even more sinister forces at work?"

BRASS MONKEYS by Terry Caszatt "Bumbling, cowardly Eugene is forced to transfer to a new school in northern Michigan - in the middle of the year, and in the middle of a blizzard. Eugene is used to weird things happening in his life, but this feels really bad. He has no idea how bad it's going to get until he meets his English teacher, "Ming ther Merciless." To save his classmates from a fatal graduation from Ming's School of the Brass Monkeys, Eugene must deliver an unfinished book to a legendary teacher named McGinty, who is hiding in the underworld. With the help of some renegade teachers and his new friends, he begins an epic journey to find McGinty. Will Eugene survive the Cliffs of Notes and the Sea of Hot Lunches?"

THE CASE OF THE GLASGOW GHOUL: A SLIGHTLY JONES MYSTERY by Joan Lennon

LICENCE TO FISH: AGENT ALFIE by Justin Richards "SPUD—Secret Partners for Undertaking Destruction—has set up a secret base under the school pond and is using radio-controlled duck-cameras to gather information. But the chief SPUD agent has made the mistake of having his weekly edition of SPUD's Nasty Newsletter redirected to his new base—by Alfie's dad, the local postman! It doesn't take long for the gang to work out what SPUD are up to. Can Alfie and his friends find a way of turning the SPUD infiltration to their advantage? Of course they can—and soon the school is teaching the pupils using even more bizarre methods than usual, all for SPUD's benefit. Will the evil organization really believe in assassination by daffodil? Or that trained hamsters are used to infiltrate their bases? Of course they will!"

THE MASK WEARER: AMOS DARAGON by Bryan Perro "Amos Daragon's life changes forever the day a mermaid gives him a mask capable of harnessing the strength of the wind—and appoints Amos as the new Mask Wearer. His task: to find the masks for the other elements, earth, fire, and water. Only then will Amos be fully empowered to battle the evil forces that threaten to destroy the balance of nature and plunge the world into darkness.
To fulfill his destiny, Amos must make his way to the mysterious woods of Tarkasis. But a wicked sorcerer is terrorizing the land, searching for a skull pendant that was stolen from him—a pendant that conceals a secret weapon. What will Amos do when the pendant falls into his hands? Will Beorf, a boy who can morph into a bear, and Medusa, a snake-haired gorgon, turn out to be friend or foe? And will Amos master any of his newfound skills as Mask Wearer in time to face a formidable enemy? His chanllenges are great . . . and they're just beginning."

MIDNIGHT HOWL by Clare Hutton "Marisol and her mom move from the city to rural Montana for a few months, and stay with family friends and their twin children, Jack and Hailey. Marisol loves looking at the stars so far away from city lights, but she feels creeped out by the woods right by their house. She's even more scared when her new friend Lily warns her about the wolves there -- wolves that are most dangerous around the full moon. When she notices Hailey disappear several times late at night, Marisol starts to wonder...could she be friends with a werewolf?"

NO PASSENGERS BEYOND THIS POINT by Gennifer Choldenko "Three siblings - India, Finn, and Mouse - have less than forty-eight hours to pack up all their belongings and fly, without Mom, to their uncle Red's in Colorado, after they lose their house to foreclosure. But when they land, a mysterious driver meets them at the airport, and he's never heard of Uncle Red. Like Dorothy in Oz, they find themselves in a place they've never heard of, with no idea of how to get home, and time is running out."

OWL NINJA: SAMURAI KIDS by Sandy Fussell
"Across the valley, a drumbeat echoes. For ten days, the drum will call the mountain ryus to war, including the samurai kids from the Cockroach Ryu. Only Japan’s feudal emperor can stop the war, so Niya and Sensei Ki-Yaga set off on a grueling journey with all the Cockroaches, whose firm friendship and unusual skills must be put to the test in order to beg the Emperor to maintain peace. Sensei Ki-Yaga is respected and wise, but unfortunately, the last time he encountered the Emperor, the Emperor threatened to cut off his head. All seems hopeless until Ki-Yaga guides the Cockroaches to meet with the Owl Ninja clan. Samurai and ninja are supposed to be enemies, but can these two groups somehow work together to save the sensei and stop the battle in time?"

PANDORA GETS ANGRY: MYTHIC MISS-ADVENTURES by Carolyn Hennesy "Pandora and her friends are off to Persia to track the fifth evil: Rage. They have camels to help them cross the desert, but mysterious sandstorms and frightening strangers keep them from moving quickly. Luckily, help arrives in the form of a cute Persian boy who helps Pandy and her friends search for Persia's secret Garden of the Jin. In the garden, where genies hide their treasure, there is a lamp that was once used to imprison an angry genie. So Pandy & Co. just have to figure out how to capture one of the most enraged genies of all time. Easy, right?"

QUEST FOR THE SPARK: BONE by Tom Sniegoski Twelve-year-old Tom Elm is just an ordinary turnip farmer from the Valley, but he's always felt destined for something bigger. So when he discovers everyone in his village is asleep and plagued by nightmares, he assembles a band of unlikely heroes. They must fight to preserve the Spark--a divine light born at the core of a vast, dark nothingness called the Nacht. The Nacht is trying to permeate the Waking World with nightmares of the Dreaming, and it's Tom's mission to defeat the Nacht and its most loyal follower, the Constable. If he fails, his family--and everyone--might never wake up again.

THE QUEST OF THE WARRIOR SHEEP by Christine & Christopher Russell "When Sal the sheep is bonked on the head by an unidentified falling object, it can only mean one thing: Lord Aries, the Sheep of all Sheepdom is in trouble, and the sheep posse must save him.

Little do the sheep know that the mysterious object is actually a cell phone dropped by a couple of baaaaad bank robbers who will do anything to get it back. And a couple of woolbags aren't going to stand in their way!

And so the quest of the Warrior Sheep begins.
The bravest sheep in the universe are in for a wild ride!"

SECRETS AND SHADOWS: THE SECRET ZOO by Bryan Chick "Only weeks after their return from the Secret Zoo, Noah and his friends must go back—and face their biggest challenge yet. With monstrous sasquatches freely attacking the denizens of the zoo and the evil Shadowist at large, the fate of the world is at stake. As Crossers, Noah, Megan, Richie, and Ella would help protect the zoo from these dangers. But do they have what it takes to complete their training? And what other secrets are hiding in the shadows?"

SPIRITS IN THE STARS: SEEKERS by Erin Hunter "United once again, Toklo, Lusa, Kallik, and Ujurak continue across the ice. Conditions are harsh and especially treacherous for the black bear and grizzly bears who are not used to the brutal cold, never-ending snow, and limited food. But the bears are certain now that they're on the right course, and with the stars still guiding them, they push forward. When they reach land at last, the group is overjoyed, but something is not right. The bears who live here are ill. What's wrong with them? What can the foursome do to help? Is aiding these strangers the ultimate goal of their quest? Ujurak just might hold the key to their mission in his paws, yet it's Lusa the new bears are especially interested in.

Three young cubs, each from different backgrounds, and their mysterious shape-shifting companion have grown up together in their long and dangerous journey to save the wild. Now, when their task appears more difficult than ever, the bears must make a critical decision . . . and for one bear the path ends here."

STING THE SCORPION MAN: BEAST QUEST, THE DARK REALM by Adam Blade "Step into the Dark Realm--home to the most dangerous Beasts yet! The good Beasts of Avantia have been imprisoned in the kingdom of Malvel the evil wizard. Tom has already fought five terrible Beasts and is nearing the end of his Quest. But in order to achieve victory, Tom must navigate through the tunnels under Malvel's castle, where Sting the Scorpion Man is waiting."

TALL STORY by Candy Gourlay "Andi is short. And she has lots of wishes. She wishes she could play on the school basketball team, she wishes for her own bedroom, but most of all she wishes that her long-lost half-brother, Bernardo, could come and live in London where he belongs.

Then Andi's biggest wish comes true and she's minutes away from becoming someone's little sister. As she waits anxiously for Bernardo to arrive from the Philippines, she hopes he'll turn out to be tall and just as crazy as she is about basketball. When he finally arrives, he's tall all right. Eight feet tall, in fact—plagued by condition called Gigantism and troubled by secrets that he believes led to his phenomenal growth."

A TRUE PRINCESS by Diane Zahler "Twelve-year-old Lilia is not a very good servant. In fact, she's terrible! She daydreams, she breaks dishes, and her cooking is awful. Still, she hardly deserves to be sold off to the mean-spirited miller and his family. Refusing to accept that dreadful fate, she decides to flee. With her best friend, Kai, and his sister, Karina, beside her, Lilia heads north to find the family she's never known. But danger awaits. . . .

As their quest leads the threesome through the mysterious and sinister Bitra Forest, they suddenly realize they are lost in the elves' domain. To Lilia's horror, Kai falls under an enchantment cast by the Elf King's beautiful daughter. The only way for Lilia to break the spell and save Kai is to find a jewel of ancient power that lies somewhere in the North Kingdoms. Yet the jewel will not be easy to find. The castle where it is hidden has been overrun with princess hopefuls trying to pass a magical test that will determine the prince's new bride. Lilia has only a few days to search every inch of the castle and find the jewel—or Kai will be lost to her forever."

THE WAY OF THE DRAGON: YOUNG SAMURAI by Chris Bradford "Japan is threatened with war and Jack Fletcher is facing his greatest battle yet. Samurai are taking sides and, as the blood begins to flow, Jack’s warrior training is put to the ultimate test. His survival – and that of his friends – depends upon him mastering the Two Heavens, the secret sword technique of the legendary samurai Masamoto Takeshi. But first Jack must recover his father’s prize possession from the deadly ninja Dragon Eye. Can Jack defeat his ruthless enemy? Or will the ninja complete his mission to kill the young samurai..."

ZITA THE SPACEGIRL by Ben Hatke "When her best friend is abducted by an alien doomsday cult, Zita leaps to the rescue and finds herself a stranger on a strange planet. Humanoid chickens and neurotic robots are shocking enough as new experiences go, but Zita is even more surprised to find herself taking on the role of intergalactic hero. Before long, aliens in all shapes and sizes don’t even phase her. Neither do ancient prophecies, doomed planets, or even a friendly con man who takes a mysterious interest in Zita’s quest."

YOUNG ADULT

ANGEL: A MAXIMUM RIDE NOVEL by James Patterson In the seventh book in the bestselling series, evil scientists are still trying to convince Max that she needs to save the world, this time by providing the genetic link in speeding up the pace of evolution. Worse, they're trying to convince her that her perfect mate is Dylan, the newest addition to the flock. The problem is that, despite herself, Max is starting to believe it.

Fang travels the country collecting his own gang of evolved humans, but the two separate flocks must unite to defeat a frightening doomsday cult whose motto is Save the Planet: Kill the Humans. And this time, the true heroine, for once, might just be little Angel.

ANGELFIRE by Courtney Allison Moulton
First there are nightmares.

Every night Ellie is haunted by terrifying dreams of monstrous creatures that are hunting her, killing her. Then come the memories.

When Ellie meets Will, she feels on the verge of remembering something just beyond her grasp. His attention is intense and romantic, and Ellie feels like her soul has known him for centuries. On her seventeenth birthday, on a dark street at midnight, Will awakens Ellie's power, and she knows that she can fight the creatures that stalk her in the grim darkness. Only Will holds the key to Ellie's memories, whole lifetimes of them, and when she looks at him, she can no longer pretend anything was just a dream.

Now she must hunt.

Ellie has power that no one can match, and her role is to hunt and kill the reapers that prey on human souls. But in order to survive the dangerous and ancient battle of the angels and the Fallen, she must also hunt for the secrets of her past lives and truths that may be too frightening to remember.

THE AUTUMN PALACE: ONDINE by Ebony McKenna "One boy, one girl, one plot to be foiled! Hamish the gorgeous man (and part time ferret) has a new job with the Duke as a spy in his Autumn Palace. So Ondine goes with him. She imagines a hugely romantic escapade together that involves lots of kissing. What she hadn't imagined was having to do endless laundry, go to school and keep Hamish the man a secret. All the while trying to find out who is plotting to kill the Duke. And if that weren't bad enough, it seems that Hamish is more interested in getting the Duke's attention than hers. Plus he's always in ferret form. Things can't go on like this! Can Ondine foil the would-be assassin, save the Duke and get her man back in gorgeous human form? It's going to take a little bit of magic, a lot of stolen kisses and some ferreting around..."

CLOAKED by Alex Flinn "I'm not your average hero. I actually wasn't your average anything. Just a poor guy working an after-school job at a South Beach shoe repair shop to help his mom make ends meet. But a little magic changed it all. It all started with a curse. And a frognapping. And one hot-looking princess, who asked me to lead a rescue mission.

There wasn't a fairy godmother or any of that. And even though I fell in love along the way, what happened to me is unlike any fairy tale I've ever heard. Before I knew it, I was spying with a flock of enchanted swans, talking (yes, talking!) to a fox named Todd, and nearly trampled by giants in the Everglades. Don't believe me? I didn't believe it either. But you'll see. Because I knew it all was true, the second I got cloaked."

CLOSER: TUNNELS by Roderick Gordon & Brian Williams "Closer to victory...or closer to death? An army of darkness is on the march: Who won't escape with their life? The fourth book in the New York Times Bestselling TUNNELS series!

At long last reunited with his dad, Will now spends his days exploring the "land of the second sun," decoding the cryptic glyphs carved into its three mysterious temples--or eyeing the wild animals with renegade girl Elliott. Chester, meanwhile, has finally returned Topsoil, where his homecoming is rapidly becoming a horror show. But an army of darkness is on the march. And the ruthless Rebeccas have once more cheated death. With a corps of cold-blooded Limiters at their command, they're determined to hunt Will to the bitter innards of the earth. This time, who WON'T escape with their life?"

CONSUMED by Kate Cann "The thrilling sequel to POSSESSED finds 16-year-old Rayne still entwined in the creepy history of Morton's Keep -- and about to discover that she's the only one who can stop the evil lurking there. Rayne's countryside escape has proven to be anything but -- the remote mansion house where she lives and works holds terrible secrets, and she feels trapped there. And when a new manager shows up, things take an even more sinister turn. Rayne doesn't know who to trust -- even the ghosts of Morton's Keep seem to be warning her. It's up to Rayne to overcome the ancient evil lurking here -- but how?"

CRYER'S CROSS by Lisa McMann "The small town of Cryer’s Cross is rocked by tragedy when an unassuming freshman disappears without a trace. Kendall Fletcher wasn’t that friendly with the missing girl, but the angst wreaks havoc on her OCD-addled brain.

When a second student goes missing—someone close to Kendall’s heart—the community is in an uproar. Caught in a downward spiral of fear and anxiety, Kendall’s not sure she can hold it together. When she starts hearing the voices of the missing, calling out to her and pleading for help, she fears she’s losing her grip on reality. But when she finds messages scratched in a desk at school—messages that could only be from the missing student who used to sit there—Kendall decides that crazy or not, she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t act on her suspicions.

Something’s not right in Cryer’s Cross—and Kendall’s about to find out just how far the townspeople will go to keep their secrets buried."

CYBORG: CLONE CODES by The McKissacks "In the next Clone Codes installment, Houston, a cyborg, tells his story. Set in the year 2130, The World Federation of Nations determines through laws and regulations that all enhanced persons with three or more synthetic body or organ replacements are classified as three-fifths of a human being. As such, Houston is considered less than human and must fight to overcome the rules of his strange universe. Drawing on parallels to slavery, terrorism, caste system oppression, and war, readers confront the troubling and complex moral questions probed throughout history.

If the government learns of Houston’s cyborg status it could cost him his life--and change the course of history forever. With the help of Leanna, his friend, Houston is in a race with time, and he’s in a fight against the oppressive ways of The Cyborg Act of 2130...."

DARK MOON: WERELING by Steve Feasey "A few short months ago, Trey Laporte learned the news that would change him forever: He is a werewolf, and the evil vampire Caliban wants him dead. The threat becomes real when Caliban attacks Trey’s mentor, Lucien Charron, and leaves him fighting for his life.

Gwendolin, a wicked sorceress, holds the only key to saving Lucien. Together, Trey and Lucien’s beautiful daughter, Alexa, must enter the Netherworld to defeat her. The pressure for Trey is great—Alexa is counting on him to save her father. But when Trey and Alexa find themselves trapped and surrounded by demons, can Trey use his werewolf strength to save them both?"

DELIRIUM by Lauren Oliver "Ninety-five days, and then I'll be safe. I wonder whether the procedure will hurt. I want to get it over with. It's hard to be patient. It's hard not to be afraid while I'm still uncured, though so far the deliria hasn't touched me yet. Still, I worry. They say that in the old days, love drove people to madness. The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't."

THE DEMON TRAPPER'S DAUGHTER by Jana Oliver "Seventeen-year-old Riley, the only daughter of legendary Demon Trapper, Paul Blackthorne, has always dreamed of following in her father's footsteps. The good news is, with human society seriously disrupted by economic upheaval and Lucifer increasing the number of demons in all major cities, Atlanta’s local Trappers’ Guild needs all the help they can get – even from a girl. When she’s not keeping up with her homework or trying to manage her growing crush on fellow apprentice, Simon, Riley’s out saving distressed citizens from foul-mouthed little devils – Grade One Hellspawn only, of course, per the strict rules of the Guild. Life’s about as normal as can be for the average demon-trapping teen.

But then a Grade Five Geo-Fiend crashes Riley’s routine assignment at a library, jeopardizing her life and her chosen livelihood. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, sudden tragedy strikes the Trappers’ Guild, spinning Riley down a more dangerous path than she ever could have imagined. As her whole world crashes down around her, who can Riley trust with her heart – and her life?"

DESIRES OF THE DEAD by Kimberly Derting "The missing dead call to Violet. They want to be found.

Violet can sense the echoes of those who've been murdered—and the matching imprint that clings to their killers. Only those closest to her know what she is capable of, but when she discovers the body of a young boy she also draws the attention of the FBI, threatening her entire way of life.

As Violet works to keep her morbid ability a secret, she unwittingly becomes the object of a dangerous obsession. Normally she'd turn to her best friend, Jay, except now that they are officially a couple, the rules of their relationship seem to have changed. And with Jay spending more and more time with his new friend Mike, Violet is left with too much time on her hands as she wonders where things went wrong. But when she fills the void by digging into Mike's tragic family history, she stumbles upon a dark truth that could put everyone in danger."

THE END OF TIME: THE BOOKS OF UMBER by P. W. Catanese The third book in P.W. Catanese's Books of Umber trilogy concludes the imaginative, page-turning adventures of Umber and Hap.

THE FLOATING ISLANDS by Rachel Neumeier "When Trei loses his family in a tragic disaster, he must search out distant relatives in a new land. The Floating Islands are unlike anything Trei has ever seen: stunning, majestic, and graced with kajurai, men who soar the skies with wings. Trei is instantly sky-mad, and desperate to be a kajurai himself. The only one who fully understands his passion is Araene, his newfound cousin. Prickly, sarcastic, and gifted, Araene has a secret of her own . . . a dream a girl cannot attain.

Trei and Araene quickly become conspirators as they pursue their individual paths. But neither suspects that their lives will be deeply entwined, and that the fate of the Floating Islands will lie in their hands. . . ."

GALLOWS AT TWILIGHT: WITCHFINDER by William Hussey "Eight pale hands - some with fingers stripped down to the bone - rose out of the earth. Slimy with rain, the rat-gnawed heads of four soldiers loomed into view. They moaned at the sky and their cry moulded itself into a word: 'FLLLLLLEEESSSSSSSSHHHHH!' The Demon Father has escaped from hell and walks among us, his trident symbol branded into the earth in countries all over the world. A scorching beacon. A call to arms. A sign that war is coming. Jake is struggling to harness his powers and live up to his reputation of the boy who closed the demon door. But now he must push all doubt aside. To stop the Demon Father Jake must change the course of history - embark on a treacherous journey deep into the past and into another dimension, filled with horror and pain. A place where innocent people are tried and tortured. A place where the law of the Witchfinder rules. Let the rushes be lit for there will be gallows at twilight."

HAUNTED by Joy Preble "Anne Michaelson is trying to forget everything that happened last year. But it's hard to do when her heart aches for Ethan and there's a wild-haired woman stalking her...

Ethan Kosinsky
is embracing his newfound mortality. But something is drawing him back to the girl he left behind-back to Anne and back to the magic...

A mysterious stranger is hunting Anne wherever she goes. No one sees her but Anne. When she searches for the woman's identity, Anne exposes secrets about her own life- things that will change her life forever. And when the gorgeous Ethan returns, her life gets a lot more complicated. Anne thought her journey with the Romanov family had ended, but it was just the beginning..."

THE HORN OF MORAN: ADVENTURERS WANTED by M. L. Forman "The land of Norsland is on the brink of war as two men have each claimed the throne. Only the true king can sound the Horn of Moran and prove his nobility. But the horn has been lost for years. If it is not found and soon it could mean the destruction of an entire nation. Young Alexander Taylor joins a band of seasoned adventurers who have been called up to retrieve the legendary Horn of Moran. Their journey to the mysterious Tower of the Moon will take them through an enchanted forest, into battle against a goblin army, past the watchful eyes of griffin guards, and face-to-face with a sphinx and her deadly riddles. With his sword, Moon Slayer, and the wise counsel from his wizard mentor, Whalen Vankin, Alex must use all his wizard and warrior skills to slay a darkness that may consume them all. Sequel to the bestselling Slathbog's Gold."

HOW TO BE A WEREWOLF: THE CLAWS-ON GUIDE FOR THE MODERN LYCANTHROPE by Serena Valentino. "Celebrate your inner beast —and harness that newfound animal magnetism! — with this essential guide to the lycanthropic lifestyle.

Are you subject to savage moods, extreme and unexplained buffness, and cravings for meat on the rare side? Do you long for super speed and reflexes, along with rapid healing and maybe a talent for telepathy? Welcome to the pack — and get ready to howl — as you sink your claws into this guide to everything life as a werewolf has to offer."

KINDRED by Tammar Stein "Miriam is an unassuming college freshman stuck on campus after her spring break plans fall through. She's not a religious girl--when pressed she admits reluctantly to believing in a higher power. Truth be told, she's about as comfortable speaking about her faith as she is about her love life, which is to say, not at all. And then the archangel Raphael pays Miriam a visit, and she finds herself on a desperate mission to save two of her contemporaries. To top it all off, her twin brother, Mo, has also had a visitation, but from the opposite end of the good-evil spectrum, which leaves Miriam to wonder--has she been blessed and her brother cursed or vice versa? And what is the real purpose behind her mission?"

THE IRON WITCH by Karen Mahoney "When she was seven, a horrific fey attack killed Donna Underwood’s father and drove her mother mad. Her own nearly fatal injuries were fixed by alchemy—the iron tattoos branding her hands and arms. Now seventeen, Donna feels like a freak, doomed by the magical heritage that destroyed her parents and any chance she had for a normal life. Only her relationship with her best friend, Navin, is keeping her sane.

But when vicious wood elves abduct Navin, Donna is forced to accept her role in the centuries-old war between human alchemists and these darkest outcasts of Faerie. Assisted by Xan, a gorgeous guy with faery blood running through his veins and secrets of his own, Donna races to save Navin—even if it means betraying everything her parents fought to the death to protect."

LEX TRENT FIGHTING WITH FIRE by Alex Bell "Lex Trent is reigning champion of The Games contested between fickle Gods using human playing pieces. He has it all: Fame. Glory. Wealth. An enormous ego. But The Games are about to begin again and the Goddess of Luck wants Lex to defend their title. A challenge he can't resist, despite the risk of death, because the final round will take place in the Wild West, giving Lex the chance to claim the legendary Sword of Life (who wouldn't want that?). With Lex's mix of skill, quick wittedness and no small amount of outright cheating, he can't lose! Can he? Luck may usually be a lady to Lex...but in the Wild West they play by their own rules...and Lex has never been that good with rules."

THE LOCKET by Stacey Jay "On her seventeenth birthday, Katie discovers a locket and decides to wear it for good luck. But when her boyfriend Isaac finds out she cheated on him- with their mutual best friend Mitch, no less-he dumps her, leaving her devastated.

And then a miracle happens. The locket burns on Katie's chest and she feels herself going back two weeks in time, to the night she cheated with Mitch. At first, Kate is delighted to be a better girlfriend to Isaac this time around. But as other aspects of her life become inexplicably altered, she realizes that changing the past may have had a dangerous effect on her present.

Can she make things right before the locket destroys everything-and everyone-she loves?"

MIND GAP by Marina Cohen "Fourteen-year-old Jake MacRae's life is spinning out of control. He's making all the wrong choices; gambling, drinking, hanging around gang members; and now he's been asked to make a special delivery. What should he do? Jake knows either way that his decision will seal his fate, but what he doesn't realize is that this choice might not only destroy his life but the lives of those close to him.

Before Jake has a chance to make up his mind, he receives a mysterious text message inviting him to a flash party on a midnight subway train. As Jake steps off the platform and onto the ghostly 1950s-style Gloucester car, he has no idea he has just boarded a train bound for his worst nightmare. And what's more; he can't get off!"

ONE HUNDRED CANDLES: PAST MIDNIGHT by Mara Purnhagen
It's taken a long time for me to feel like a normal teenager. But now that I'm settled in a new school, where people know me as more than Charlotte Silver of the infamous Silver family paranormal investigators, it feels like everything is falling into place. And what better way to be normal than to go on a date with a popular football star like Harris Abbott? After all, it's not as if Noah is anything more than a friend….

But my new life takes a disturbing turn when Harris brings me to a party and we play a game called One Hundred Candles. It seems like harmless, ghostly fun. Until spirits unleashed by the game start showing up at school. Now my friends and family are in very real danger, and the door that I've opened into another realm may yield deadly consequences.

OUTSIDE IN by Maria V. Snyder "Me? A leader? Okay, I did prove that there's more to Inside than we knew. That a whole world exists beyond this cube we live in. And finding that led to a major rebellion—between worker scrubs like me and the snobby uppers who rule our world. Make that ruled. Because of me, we're free. I thought that meant I was off the hook, and could go off on my own again—while still touching base with Riley, of course. He's the one upper I think I can trust. But then we learned that there's outside and then there is Outside.

And something from Outside wants In."

RANCOUR by James McCann "Alix of Fillmore High is depressed about the prospect of finding a date for the prom. Boys who understand her — or whom she understands — are few and far between. But soon Alix’s life takes a turn that makes finding a prom date the least of her worries. She finds herself in the middle of a feud that’s been going on for a millennium. The combatants? A vampire and a werewolf! Werewolf Rancour has spent centuries trying to rid the world of vampires, while vampire Shay has been there to thwart his efforts at every turn. Alix gets more deeply involved when she learns that she was Rancour’s wife in a previous life. As the bodies continue to pile up, Rancour and Shay find themselves forced into an alliance by a new enemy stalking them. Author James McCann expertly blends the typical concerns of teens — love, football, parties, fitting in, racial tensions — with a chilling story of the supernatural."

RED MOON RISING by Peter Moore "Being only half-vamp in a high school like Carpathia Night makes you a whole loser. But Danny Gray manages to escape the worst of the specists at his school. Thanks to genetic treatments he had as an infant, most people assume Danny's other half is human. Which is a good thing. Ever since the development of synthetic blood – SynHeme – vamps have become society’s elite, while wulves like his father work menial jobs and live in bad neighborhoods. Wulves are less than second class citizens; once a month they become inmates, forced to undergo their Change in dangerous government compounds.

For Danny, living with his vamp mother and going to a school with a nearly all-vamp student body, it’s best to pretend his wulf half doesn’t even exist. But lately Danny's been having some weird symptoms -- fantastic night vision; a keener-than-usual sense of smell; and headaches, right around the full moon. Even though it's easy to be in denial, it's hard to ignore evidence. There's only a month until the next few moon, and Danny's time is running out."

SECRETS AND SHADOWS: 13 TO LIFEby Shannon Delany "Nothing's simple when you run with werewolves. Jess Gillmansen thinks she's seen it all but her eyes are about to be opened to even more danger and a reality far more paranormal than she's suspected. With Jess' realization that the Rusakovas' mother is still alive and imprisoned, the group's choices become harder and trust more important. Lines are drawn and relationships change as the broken Rusakova family struggles to reunite to free their mother - and those who Jess thought to be normal people show themselves to be much, much more..."

SHADOW WALKERS by Brent Hartinger "Zach lives with his grandparents on a remote island in Puget Sound in Washington State. With only his little brother, Gilbert, to keep him company, Zach feels cut off from the world. But when Gilbert is kidnapped, Zach tries the only thing he can think of to find him: astral projection. Soon, his spirit is soaring through the strange and boundless astral realm—a shadow place. While searching for his brother, Zach meets a boy named Emory, another astral traveler who's intriguing (and cute).

As Zach and Emory track the kidnappers from the astral realm, their bond grows—but each moment could be Gilbert's last. Even worse, there's a menacing, centuries-old creature in their midst that devours souls and possesses physical bodies. And it's hungry for Zach."

TORN FROM TROY: ODYSSEY OF A SLAVE by Patrick Bowman “You heard what the little filth said to me,” Ury growled. “He’ll be trouble. I say trench him now.” The other man spoke, his voice low and even. “I heard him, Ury. His mind is quick, and his Greek is good.” He knelt down beside my head. “Your choice, boy. Decide now.”

Alexi’s city is still burning when the Greeks catch him and give him a brutal choice: slavery or death. With his sister dead and his home destroyed, Alexi, a 15-year-old orphan from the streets of Troy, grits his teeth and chooses the life of a captive. He and the other Trojan survivors are forced aboard a ship bound for faraway Ithaca, under the command of the Greek warrior Odysseus. But none could foresee the perils of the cursed voyage to come: a brutal raid on the Cicones, a visit to the bewitching Lotus Eaters and a grisly encounter with a Cyclops all take a gruesome toll. Alexi has no idea how much worse his life is about to get.

WATERFALL: RIVER OF TIME by Lisa T. Bergren "In Book One, American teenager Gabi Betarrini accidently finds herself in sixteenth-century Italy . . . Knights. Swords. Horses. Armor. And Italian hotties.

Most American teens want an Italian vacation, but the Bentarrini sisters have spent every summer of their lives there with their archeologist parents. Stuck on yet another hot, dusty dig, they are bored out of their minds… until they place their hands atop handprints in an ancient tomb and find themselves in the sixteenth-century—and in the middle of a fierce battle between knights bent on killing one another."

WITCH BREED: HELL'S UNDERGROUND by Alan Gibbons

WORD OF HONOUR: THE LAWS OF MAGIC by Michael Pryor "Magical genius Aubrey Fitzwilliam, along with his loyal friend George, is trying to immerse himself in his new life at college. But for Aubrey life is never straightforward. When Aubrey's father, the Prime Minister, invites them to take a ride on a top-secret submersible, Aubrey and George can't resist. But a sudden magical attack threatens to send them to the bottom of the ocean and begins a whirlwind series of events—a plot to rob Albion's largest bank, strange underground disturbances, and an opera singer who bears an uncanny resemblance to Aubrey's nemesis, Dr. Tremaine."

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