2/15/10

New releases of fantasy and science fiction for children and teenagers-the middle of February, 2010

Here are the new releases of fantasy and science fiction for kids and teenagers from the middle of February. I get my information from Teens Read Too, with help from Amazon, and, since I haven't actually read all of these, sometimes I have to guess whether a book is fantasy/sci fi or not...please let me know if I'm wrong, or if I've left a book out!

DRAGON: THE FIVE ANCESTORS by Jeff Stone. "Long, the dragon-style warrior, saw his temple burned, his brothers killed, and his novice siblings fleeing to the four winds. But that was many months ago. Now the five young warriors have reunited with Ying, the redeemed renegade who put all of these events in motion, and ShaoShu, the mousy street thief, to prevent the wily mantis Tonglong from taking over China. Time is short and distances are great, and the future of China lies in the hands of five young monks."

HEART OF THE MUMMY: SCREAM STREET by Tommy Donbavand. "Deadstock, the world’s greatest zombie rock festival, is coming to Scream Street! Too bad Sir Otto Sneer is not in the mood for dancing—and when he banishes the concert’s headliners, the fleshmetal band Brain Drain, to the evil Underlands, he causes a riot. Now if Luke and his pals want to restore peace to the neighborhood (and find the fourth relic they seek), they have no choice but to follow the band . . . into the darkest depths of the earth."

THE LAST WILDERNESS: SEEKERS by Erin Hunter. "Is this journey's end . . . or just the beginning? Toklo, Kallik, Lusa, and Ujurak have finally reached the Last Great Wilderness, the legendary bear paradise they've been searching for. But while his companions think they've come to the end of their long journey, Ujurak feels a deep unrest. Is this truly where they're meant to be? In the Last Great Wilderness, one by one the bears begin to remember their true natures. Toklo feels the urge to hunt caribou and mark his territory as a brown bear should, and Kallik feels the pull of the ice within her. It's only Lusa, happy just to be in the wild, who fears the day when her friends will leave her to follow their own paths. As the bears adjust to this new life, disaster strikes. The friends are forced to venture into the world of the flat-faces to save the life of one of their own. Once there, the end of their journey seems farther away than ever, as a new path spreads out before them."

LEGENDS OF THE SHADOW WORLD: THE SECRET COUNTRY, THE SHADOW WORLD, & DRAGON'S FIRE by Jane Johnson. "Magical creatures are at war with the Dodman in the Shadow World. It is up to the Arnold children to save their family and this world from his evil."



THE LOST CHILDREN by Carolyn Cohagan. "Josephine Russing owns 387 pairs of gloves. She's given a new pair every week by her father, a sullen man known best for his insistence that the citizens in town wear gloves at all times. A world away, the children of Gulm have been taken. No one knows where they might be, except the mysterious and terrifying leader of the land: The Master. He rules with an iron fist, using two grotesque creatures to enforce his terrible reign. When a peculiar boy named Fargus shows up on Josephine's property and then disappears soon afterward, she follows him without a second thought and finds herself magically transported to Gulm. After Fargus introduces her to his tough-as-nails friend Ida, the three of them set off on an adventure that will test everything Josephine has ever thought about the rules of the universe, leading to a revelation about the truth of the land of Gulm, and of Josephine's own life back home."

MY UNWILLING WITCH GETS A MAKEOVER: RUMBLEWICK'S DIARY by Hiawyn Oram. "Witty Rumblewick the cat is back, writing about even more hilarious hijinx with his unwilling witch in Book 4 of the series. Rumblewick is Haggy Aggy's right-hand cat, contractually bound to shape her into the best witch she can be. The problem? Haggy is willfully unwilling, and she much prefers nail polish to broomsticks. Now Haggy says black is out and pink is in. What sort of witch wears PINK?! As if that weren't enough, she's on her way to get a makeover to jumpstart her modeling career-and on Fright Night, no less!"

THAT'S LIFE, SAMARA BROOKS by Daniel Ehrenhaft. "Is playing blackjack in the school cafeteria that bad? Samara Brooks doesn’t think so. She isn’t out to hurt anybody. She just wants to create some drama. And she does. Drama . . . and trouble. When the principal threatens to call her parents, Samara proposes a way to save herself. She’ll prove she’s not a bad person by conducting a scientific experiment to show that she has the same DNA as one of the friendliest girls at school: class president Lily Frederick. But then Nathan Weiss, a kid obsessed with UFOs and mysterious codes, gets involved. And things get really weird. Samara’s DNA looks exactly like the eye symbols in the Phaistos Disk and the Voynich Manuscript, a six-hundred-year-old riddle that nobody can decipher—not even professional cryptologists. Does that mean Samara’s an alien? Is it a coincidence? Or does it prove something that has never been proven before?"

TOKLO'S STORY: SEEKERS by Erin Hunter. "Grizzly cub Toklo dreams of one day being a great big bear who will rule the forest. He will mark his wide territory and hunt the biggest game, and his brother, Tobi, will forever be at his side. Other grizzlies may stalk the forest alone, but Toklo and Tobi will always have each other. Yet for now, they're too little to defend themselves, and when a terrifying grizzly demands they leave his territory—or else—they have no choice but to abandon the only home they've ever known. Will Toklo be able to help his family find a new home—or will he just get them into even greater trouble?"

WHISTLE BRIGHT MAGIC: A NUTFOLK TALE by Barb Bentler Ullman. "It has been twenty years since the time of The Fairies of Nutfolk Wood, and grownup Willa has returned to Plunkit with her daughter, Zelly. Willa can't see the fairies anymore, but Zelly can, and she meets an unusual boy—the last remaining fairy child living in Nutfolk Wood, Ronald Whistle Bright. Hard times have befallen the fairy town of Nutfolk Wood, but Whistle Bright is determined to stay in his forest village, even though humans are sure to destroy it. And Zelly wants to stay in the small town of Plunkit, even though her mother insists that they return to their lives in the big city. Zelly is convinced that she belongs in Plunkit, and only there will she find out more about her father, who disappeared when she was three. In their quest to stay in the place that they love, the tiny Nutfolk boy and the human girl become allies, and both are surprised by the unexpected things that can happen in life."

Young Adult:

ELEVENTH GRADE BURNS: THE CHRONICLES OF VLADIMIR TOD by Heather Brewer. "Eleventh grade at Bathory High is draining Vladimir Tod. Joss, a professional vampire slayer and Vlad’s former friend, has moved back to town. The powerful vampire Dorian has an overwhelming desire to drink Vlad’s blood. And his arch enemy, D’Ablo, has brought Vlad’s Uncle Otis to trial for crimes against vampires. So much for dating. When the tables turn on Vlad, he has just enough time to return to Bathory for his final good-byes . . ."

FINNIKIN OF THE ROCK by Melina Marchetta. "Finnikin was only a child during the five days of the unspeakable, when the royal family of Lumatere were brutally murdered, and an imposter seized the throne. Now a curse binds all who remain inside Lumatere’s walls, and those who escaped roam the surrounding lands as exiles, persecuted and despairing, dying by the thousands in fever camps. In a narrative crackling with the tension of an imminent storm, Finnikin, now on the cusp of manhood, is compelled to join forces with an arrogant and enigmatic young novice named Evanjalin, who claims that her dark dreams will lead the exiles to a surviving royal child and a way to pierce the cursed barrier and regain the land of Lumatere. But Evanjalin’s unpredictable behavior suggests that she is not what she seems — and the startling truth will test Finnikin’s faith not only in her, but in all he knows to be true about himself and his destiny."

GONE: WAKE by Lisa McMann. "Things should be great for Janie--she has graduated from high school and is spending her summer with Cabel, the guy she's totally in love with. But deep down she's panicking about how she's going to survive her future when getting sucked into other people's dreams is really starting to take its toll. Things get even more complicated when she meets her father for the very first time--and he's in a coma. As Janie uncovers his secret past, she begins to realize that the choice thought she had has more dire consequences than she ever imagined."

JUGGLER IN THE WIND: THE WAND BEARER TRILOGY by Wim Coleman & Pat Perrin. "When a ragtag circus shows up in the town of Buchanan, Kansas, fourteen-year-old Randy Carmichael faces a deep mystery. Why is his alcoholic mother so troubled by the troupe s arrival? What does Circus Olympus mean to her past and to Randy s future? Voices summon him, a godlike figure appears in his dreams, and supernatural adversaries lay in wait for him as he embarks on a dangerous quest that will take him beyond mortal reality."

A SMALL FREE KISS IN THE DARK by Glenda Millard. "Two young boys, an old tramp, a beautiful teenage dancer, and the girl's baby--ragtag survivors of a sudden war--form a fragile family, hiding out in the ruins of an amusement park. As they scavenge for good, diapers, and baby formula, they must stay out of sight of vicious gangs and lawless soldiers. At first they rely on Billy, the only adult in the group. But as civil life deteriorates, Billy starts to fall apart. Skip, who is barely into his teens, must take over and lead them on a search for sanctuary. This complex and haunting exploration of life on the edge and what it takes to triumph over adversity is a story about the indomitable nature of hope."

TOKEN OF DARKNESS by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. "Cooper Blake has everything going for him—until he wakes from a car accident with his football career in ruins and a mysterious, attractive girl by his side. Cooper doesn’t know how Samantha got there or why he can see her; all he knows is that she’s a ghost, and the shadows that surround her seem intent on destroying her. No one from Cooper’s old life would understand what he can barely grasp himself. . . . But Delilah, the captain of the cheerleading squad, has secrets of her own, like her ability to see beyond the physical world, and her tangled history with Brent, a loner from a neighboring school who can hear strangers’ most intimate thoughts. Delilah and Brent know that Cooper is in more trouble than he realizes, and that Samantha may not be as innocent as she has led Cooper to believe. But the only way to figure out where Samantha came from will put them all in more danger than they ever dreamed possible."

A WISH AFTER MIDNIGHT by Zetta Elliott. "Genna is a fifteen-year-old girl who wants out of her tough Brooklyn neighborhood. But she gets more than she bargained for when a wish gone awry transports her back in time. Facing the perilous realities of Civil War–era Brooklyn, Genna must use all her wits to survive. In the tradition of Octavia Butler’s Kindred and Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, A Wish After Midnight is the affecting and inspiring tale of a fearless young woman’s fight to hold on to her individuality and her humanity in two different worlds."

No comments:

Post a Comment

Free Blog Counter

Button styles