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Native Son
Richard Wright
Synopsis:

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.

Publication Date: 08/02/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Warriors: The New Prophecy #2: Moonrise
Dave Stevenson, Erin Hunter
Synopsis:

Erin Hunter’s #1 nationally bestselling Warriors series continues with the second book in the New Prophecy series!

The second book in this second series, Warriors: The New Prophecy #2: Moonrise, brings more adventure, intrigue, and thrilling battles to the epic world of the warrior Clans.

Moons have passed since six cats set out on a journey to save their Clans. Now they are traveling home again, but on their way through the mountains, they meet a tribe of wild cats with a secret…and their own mysterious prophecy to fulfill.

In the forest, Firestar and Leafpaw watch ThunderClan’s world crumbling around them. Will the questing cats make it back in time to save the Clans, or will they be too late?

Publication Date: 08/02/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Synopsis: Selling more than 300,000 copies the first year it was published, Stowe's powerful abolitionist novel fueled the fire of the human rights debate in 1852. Denouncing the institution of slavery in dramatic terms, the incendiary novel quickly draws the reader into the world of slaves and their masters.
Stowe's characters are powerfully and humanly realized in Uncle Tom, a majestic and heroic slave whose faith and dignity are never corrupted; Eliza and her husband, George, who elude slave catchers and eventually flee a country that condones slavery; Simon Legree, a brutal plantation owner; Little Eva, who suffers emotionally and physically from the suffering of slaves; and fun-loving Topsy, Eva's slave playmate.
Critics, scholars, and students are today revisiting this monumental work with a new objectivity, focusing on Stowe's compelling portrayal of women and the novel's theological underpinnings.
Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Dragon Blade:The Book of the Rowan
Sasha Miller, Andre Norton
Synopsis: Over a year has passed since the defeat of the Great Foulness, and the ravaged earth has begun to heal. Lost for generations, the signet rings of the Four Great Houses---Oak, Yew, Ash, and Rowan---have been restored to their rightful heirs. And Ashen NordornQueen, mistress of the Land of Ever Snow, looks forward to a life of peace and happiness with her beloved husband and their newborn son---only to learn that an ancient evil still threatens all that she holds dear.

The Mother Ice Dragon, the fearsome progenitor of her deadly breed, has awakened from slumber to menace the world anew. Legend holds that only the Dragon Blade, forged from the scales of her vanquished mate, can slay the deadly female dragon, but the Dragon Blade has been lost for ages.

As Ashen embarks on a perilous quest to find the mystic sword, she leaves her castle and homeland in the care of her closest friends, including Rannore, Lady of the Rowan, who soon faces danger of a different sort....

Dragon Blade continues the saga begun in To the King a Daughter and continued in Knight or Knave and A Crown Disowned.
Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Poppy's Return
Brian Floca, Avi
Synopsis:

Poppy returns ... with big trouble. Family trouble.

Poppy and Rye don't know what to do about their son Ragweed Junior's attitude. He is rude, he is crude, and he has dyed his fur to look like Mephitis, his skunk friend. In short, Ragweed Junior is very much a teenager. Even Ereth, the cantankerous porcupine, with his salty swearing, can't straighten him out. Then Poppy gets an urgent request to return to her old home, Gray House, where her aging parents, Sweet Cicely and Lungwort, are in difficulties. Not only does she agree to go back, she decides to take Junior, in hopes traveling together will bring them together. But when Junior's skunk pal and Ereth join the party, the trip doesn't quite go as expected. And when Poppy recalls she did not get along with her parents, things become even more complicated.

Poppy's Return is a hilarious adventure tale about family: the gleeful joys, the farcical sorrows, the high emotions, and the low comedy of living with and without relations. It's also about bears, bulldozers, and the boisterous antics of young mice doing the stinky red. And sugared slug soup, there's always Ereth to stir the stew of Poppy’s rich and rewarding life.

Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Lambkins
Jonathan Keegan, Eve Bunting
Synopsis:

Kidnapped.
Injected with a shrinking formula.
Held prisoner in a bizarre dollhouse.

Kyle Wilson, once a regular kid, is now the size of a doll, but still alive. He is the fourth Lambkin in crazy Mrs. Shepherd's collection. She'll keep them safe, she says. She loves them like her own children, she says. She would never harm them ... as long as they don't make her angry.

John made her angry.

Look what happened to him.

One thing is certain. Kyle and the others must figure out how to escape, and fast. Otherwise they'll end up as Lambkins forever ... or worse.

Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Ready or Not : An All-American Girl Novel
Synopsis:

Top ten things Samantha Madison isn't ready for:

10. Spending Thanksgiving at Camp David

9. With her boyfriend, the president's son

8. Who appears to want to take their relationship to the Next Level

7. Which Sam inadvertently and shockingly announces live on MTV

6. While appearing to support the president's dubious policies on families, morals, and yes, sex

5. Juggling her new after-school job at Potomac Video

4. Even though she already has a job as teen ambassador to the UN (that she doesn't get paid for)

3. Riding the Metro and getting accosted because she's "the redheaded girl who saved the president's life," in spite of her new, semipermanent Midnight Ebony tresses

2. Experiencing total role reversal with her popular sister Lucy, who for once can't get the guy she wants and the number-one thing Sam isn't ready for?

1. Finding out the hard way that in art class, "life drawing" means "naked people."

Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Chopstick
Sandra, Byrd
Synopsis: Thirteen-year-olds Paige and Kate find themselves competing for the same worship-music contest and the same $500 prize. Each girl is so sure she will win that each has already promised the prize money to a favorite worthy cause. Via the contest's Web site, Paige and Kate meet and begin a friendship that will make both girls examine their ideas about their faith and what worship really is. They realize that, like a single chopstick, the body of Christ cannot work well alone. Each girl decides to share a bit of her strongest gift with the other, thereby increasing the chances that one of them--but only one of them--will win. Friends For a Season Book 2.
Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Sea Singer
Craig Moodie
Synopsis: Craig Moodie's finely crafted adventure novel tells the story of twelve-year-old Finn, who stows away to search for his lost father and brothers. It's a journey that brings storms, shipwreck, tense encounters with the inhabitants of an unexplored continent -- and a coming of age for Finn, who will in the end, face his father as a young man and a Viking. Dramatic and beautifully told, The Sea Singer is a first-rate literary sea story.

Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Heart's Desire
Laura Pedersen
Synopsis: Card sharp and former wild child Hallie Palmer is in college now–and Bernard Stockton, her legal guardian, has suddenly appeared during final exams. He’s hysterical about his recent breakup with his longtime boyfriend, Gil, and wants to enlist Hallie in a scheme to win Gil back. So Hallie returns to Cosgrove County, Ohio, for the summer, to her job as live-in yard person for Bernard and his delightfully oddball mother, Olivia. Also present are Ottavio, Olivia’s hot-tempered Italian lover, who’s desperate for a wedding; Rocky, a chimpanzee who’s one Singapore Sling away from an AA meeting for primates; and Hallie’s own ever-expanding family, which she fled as soon as she could slide down the drainpipe.

Around town, folks assume that since Hallie isn’t in jail, she clearly has no problems of her own and can therefore tackle theirs. But Hallie has plenty of troubles–a looming tuition bill, gambling temptations, and an ex-boyfriend who’s back in town for the summer to upset any potential if highly unlikely (a girl can dream!) romantic flings.

Yet as Hallie and company navigate life’s unexpected paths of games lost and love found, the real truth begins to emerge: With friends, family, and a place to call home, your heart’s desire is always within reach.
Publication Date: 07/26/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Tofu and T. Rex
Greg Leitich Smith
Synopsis: Hans-Peter, who enjoys working in his family's Chicago delicatessen, applies for admission to the prestigious Peshtigo School that his cousin Freddie, a vegan and outspoken animal rights activist, attends. By the author of Ninjas, Piranhas, and Galileo.
Publication Date: 07/06/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Confessions of a Teen Nanny
Victoria Ashton
Synopsis:

Sixteen-year-old Adrienne Lewis is in charge of eight-year-old Emma Warner, the youngest member of the snooty Warner family. Emma is an evil genius who has gotten all five previous nannies fired -- and she's the good news. Because then there's Emma's half brother, Graydon, who goes to college -- yet always seems to be lurking around waiting to hit on Adrienne. But worst of all is Emma's beautiful seventeen-year-old half sister, Cameron, whose reputation as a wild girl, a liar, and a user is known to everyone . . . everyone, that is, except Adrienne.

Publication Date: 07/05/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Love’s Labours Lost
William, Werstine, Paul Shakespeare
Synopsis: Shakespeare's romantic comedy is accompanied by explanatory notes annotated reading lists and an introduction to Shakespeare's language, life, and theater.
Title: Love's Labor's Lost
Author: Mowat, Barbara A./ Werstine, Paul
Publisher: Pocket Classics
Publication Date: 2005/06/28
Number of Pages: 291
Binding Type: PAPERBACK
Library of Congress: 2005281513
Publication Date: 07/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Deerslayer
Bruce L. R. Smith, James Fenimore Cooper
Synopsis: &&LDIV&&R&&LDIV&&R&&LDIV&&R&&LI&&RThe Deerslayer&&L/I&&R, by &&LB&&RJames Fenimore Cooper&&L/B&&R, is part of the &&LI&&RBarnes & Noble Classics&&L/I&&R&&LI&&R &&L/I&&Rseries, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of &&LI&&RBarnes & Noble Classics&&L/I&&R: <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />&&LDIV&&RNew introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. &&LI&&RBarnes & Noble Classics &&L/I&&Rpulls together a constellation of influences―biographical, historical, and literary―to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.&&L/DIV&&R&&L/DIV&&R&&L/DIV&&R&&LDIV&&R &&L/DIV&&R&&LDIV&&R“Live by your own council. Be brave in the face of the unknown. Be always fair.”&&LBR&&R-Natty Bumppo, &&LI&&RThe Deerslayer&&L/I&&R&&LBR&&R&&LBR&&ROne of the greatest heroes in American literature, Natty Bumppo is the rugged frontiersman of &&LB&&RJames Fenimore Cooper&&L/B&&R’s &&LI&&RLeatherstocking Tales&&L/I&&R, a series of five novels that includes &&LI&&RThe Last of the Mohicans&&L/I&&R and &&LI&&RThe Deerslayer&&L/I&&R. Although the final volume to be written, &&LI&&RThe Deerslayer&&L/I&&R is the first in the chronology of Natty Bumppo’s life, depicting the character as a young man testing himself in the wilderness, and against enemies, for the first time.&&LBR&&R&&LBR&&RSet in the 1740’s just as the French and Indian wars have begun, the novel opens as Natty Bumppo―known as Deerslayer―and his friend Hurry Harry travel to Tom Hutter’s house in upstate New York. Hurry plans to marry Tom’s beautiful daughter Judith, while Deerslayer has come to help his close friend Chingachgook save his bride-to-be, Wah-ta-Wah, from the Huron Indians. When war breaks out, and Hurry and Tom are captured by Indians, Deerslayer must go on his first warpath to rescue them.&&LBR&&R&&LBR&&ROne of the earliest novels to be considered truly “American," &&LI&&RThe Deerslayer&&L/I&&R is a masterpiece of suspense, adventure, and romance.&&L/DIV&&R&&LDIV&&R &&L/DIV&&R&&LDIV&&R&&LDIV&&R&&LB&&RBruce L. R. Smith&&L/B&&R is a fellow at the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University. He is the author or editor of sixteen scholarly books, and he continues to lecture widely in the United States and abroad.&&L/DIV&&R&&L/DIV&&R&&L/DIV&&R
Publication Date: 07/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Chicken Boy
Frances O'Roark Dowell
Synopsis: Tobin Mccauley's got a near-certifiable grandmother, a pack of juvenile-delinquent siblings, and a dad who's not going to win father of the year any time soon. To top it off, Tobin's only friend truly believes that the study of chickens will reveal...the meaning of life? Getting through seventh grade isn't easy for anyone, son, but when the first day of school starts out with your granny's arrest, you know you've got real problems. Throw on five-day suspension (for defending your English teacher's honor), a chicken that lays green eggs, and a family feud that's tearing everyone to pieces, and you're in for one heck of a ride.
With her remarkable ability to create characters you wish could be part of your life forever, Frances O'Roark Dowell introduces Tobin McCauley, Chicken Boy.
Publication Date: 07/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs
Synopsis: When Eben McAllister reads about the Seven Wonders of the World, he longs to escape the small farming community of Sassafras Springs and do some exploring f his own. No one else ever seems to want to leave Sassafras however -- not even his best pal, Jeb -- and so, for now, Eben figures he's stuck on the farm with Pa and Aunt Pretty until he grows up.
All that changes when his pa, tired of Eben's moping, challenges him to find Seven Wonders in Sassafras Springs that can stang up to the real Seven Wonders of the World. And if he does? Then Eben will get the adventure he's been craving for -- a trip out West. Eben doesn't reckon he'll have any luck -- he can't think of even one thing that would be called "interesting," let along wonderous, in Sassafras, but he figures he'll give it a try; there's nothing else to do in Sassafras anyway.
While his mission puzzles and annoys some of his friends and neighbors, Eben perseveres, little knowing that he is in for a big surprise. For what with a singing saw, a floating table, and a truth-telling loom (just to name a few), the Wonders Eben will discover among his neighbors, friends, and family will give him the adventure of a lifetime...without his ever leaving home.
Told in a down-home narrative with glimmers of magical realism woven throughout, and illustrated with sumptuous drawings by Matt Phelan, Betty G. Birney's tale about a boy's journey of discovery reminds us all that extraordinary things can happen in the most ordinary of places...even in Sassafras Springs.
Publication Date: 07/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction

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