June 2 releases of fantasy/sci fi for kids and teens

Here are the books that were released yesterday, taken from Teens Read Too, with help from Amazon and Booklist.

The 39 Clues: Beyond the Grave, by Jude Watson. "A Clue found in Book 3 sends Amy and Dan jetting off to find out just what's behind the fierce rivalry between the Tomas and Ekaterina branches of the Cahill family. Was a Clue stolen from the Tomas branch? Where is it now? And most important, can Amy and Dan get their hands on it before their rivals do? It's a wild race that will take Amy and Dan deep into the bowels of the earth . . . and right into the hands of the enemy."


The Dragons of Ordinary Farm, Tad Williams & Deborah Beale. From Booklist, quoted on Amazon: "...two siblings [are] shunted off to spend a summer with an odd, distant relative who is up to all manner of mysterious goings-on but flies off the handle when the kids naturally get a little curious. Tyler and Lucinda discover that their great-uncle Gideon is raising dragons, griffins, unicorns, and stablefuls of other mythical beasties." Time travel and alternate reality adventures await the two children....

Return of the Homework Machine, by Dan Gutman. From Booklist: From the Homework Machine series, this volume picks up the story with the same four main characters. Now sixth-graders, they discover that the creepy villain from the previous volume is searching for the mysterious computer chip that powered the homework machine.



Oath Breaker: Chronicles of Ancient Darkness #5: Oath Breaker, by Michelle Paver, illustrated by Geoff Taylor. "When he was outcast, Torak was the hunted one. Nine moons later he becomes the hunter, when he vows to avenge the killing of one of his closest friends. Racked by guilt and grief, he follows the killer into the Deep Forest, where the World Spirit stalks the hidden valleys as a tall man with the antlers of a stag. But there is a rottenness at the heart of the Forest, for its clans have succumbed to the lies of the Soul-Eaters. Here Torak must face fire, war, and overwhelming evil"

YA:

Carpe Corpus (Morganville Vampires, Book 6), by Rachel Caine. "In the small college town of Morganville, vampires and humans lived in (relative) peace—until all the rules got rewritten when the evil vampire Bishop arrived, looking for the lost book of vampire secrets. He’s kept a death grip on the town ever since. Now an underground resistance is brewing, and in order to contain it, Bishop must go to even greater lengths. He vows to obliterate the town and all its inhabitants—the living and the undead. Claire Danvers and her friends are the only ones who stand in his way. But even if they defeat Bishop, will the vampires ever be content to go back to the old rules, after having such a taste of power?"

The Demon's Lexicon, by Sarah Rees Brennan. From the Booklist: "What if the bad-boy hunk in your class was actually a sword-wielding demon slayer? That’s the enticing scenario offered up in Brennan’s debut, and although the results are periodically workmanlike, they will satisfy the legions currently clamoring for this brand of dark fantasy. Nick (the aforementioned hunk) lives with his empty-shell mother and older brother Alan, but they’re constantly on the move as they hunt—and are hunted by—evil magicians and their conjured demons. Their brutal routine is interrupted by the arrival of two teen siblings in need of help, one of whom has been “marked” by a demon for certain death and the other of whom fosters a growing desire for one of the brothers."

Elyon (The Lost Books), by Ted Dekker and Kaci Hill. "A continuation of the Circle Trilogy. "Darsal is trying to love the Horde as Elyon asked her to, but she's torn between this new mission and her original one . . . especially now that Johnis and Silvie no longer seem to be on her side. The Chosen Ones are facing their greatest threat--extinction--and only by Elyon's grace will they survive to tell the tale."

And also in the same series: Lunatic (The Lost Books): "Johnis, Silvie, and Darsal found the Books of History, and now it's time to return home--but five years have passed at home, and nothing is as it was. The Horde has taken over Middle, Thomas and the rest of the Forest Guard are in hiding, and a strange new force is challenging everything they thought they knew. Should the Chosen One continue to follow his heart . . . or is his heart finally leading them astray?

Emily the Strange: The Lost Days, by Rob Reger and Jessica Gruner. Not sure if this is exactly fantasy or not, nor am I sure I believe Amazon when they say it's YA. From Booklist: "Reger’s gothy cult heroine, who began life as a sticker for skaters and other underground types before moving into comics, now makes the leap into full-fledged YA noveldom. But not to worry: this is anything but a sellout. The book (structured as the girl’s diary) opens with Emily coming to with a fresh case of plot-device-grade amnesia. As she tries to figure out who she is, where she is, and just about everything else (aside from remembering an affinity for cats and the number 13), Emily gets involved in a power struggle among a cast of shady characters in the town of Blackrock."

The Waters & the Wild, by Francesca Lia Block. From the Booklist review: "...the perplexing and ethereal story of Bee, a 13-year-old who has begun seeing her own doppelgänger. “You are me,” her twin says before disappearing into the dark. She befriends two other kids who exist on the fringe: Haze, a stuttering loner who thinks he is the offspring of an alien, and Sarah, who believes she is the reincarnation of a slave from the 1800s. Together they work out that Bee must be a changeling, a “hideous elf” who was switched at birth with the real Bee."

And here's the new release from June 2nd I most want, even though its not sci fi/fantasy: The Locked Garden, by Gloria Whelan. From Booklist: "When her father, a well-known psychiatrist, accepts a position at a remote asylum in northern Michigan, Verna is reluctant to leave their home, which holds happy memories of her mother, who died two years earlier in 1898. Once settled into their cozy new house on the asylum grounds, though, Verna and her younger sister welcome their new life, particularly after the arrival of their young maid, Eleanor. Although she is a melancholia patient, Eleanor brings a warmth that contrasts sharply with the girls’ guardian, Aunt Maude, who can be “as menacing as a hornet’s nest.” Tensions rise as Aunt Maude grows furiously jealous of the affection Eleanor shares with the girls, who, in turn, plot to send Maude packing. Descriptions of the sprawling, grand asylum and its mysteriously locked wings may lead readers to suppose that they’ve begun a gothic novel. They’ll quickly realize, though, that the evocative setting is a backdrop to the sensitive, sometimes comedic family story filled with character lessons for Verna and compassionate questions about mental illness and its treatment. Grades 3-6."