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Finder's Magic
C.M. Fleming, Tom Varnon, Dianne Hamilton, C. M. Fleming
Synopsis: 1911. Atlanta, Georgia -- Murder!

Hank McCord witnesses the murder of his best friend by two mill supervisors. There's another witness, a stranger. Calvin Yates, a Negro boy about Hank's age, questions Hank's desire to go to the sheriff for help: Didn't you hear em? The sheriff be as big a crook as anybody.

A chase begins that forces the boys to flee to the only person who can help them, the Finder. She is a mysterious, old woman know by many names--conjure woman, witch, finder of lost things -- a seer. Though blind, the old woman has visions and powers that Hank finds almost as terrifying as the murderers on his heels. Tension and distrust between the two boys grow until it threatens to destroy both. They have been framed for the murder of Hank's friend. The law is on the lookout for Hank and the KKK makes a night ride seeking Calvin.

Can Finder's magic save them? Will Hank live to celebrate his twelfth birthday in two weeks? Will the two boys, in spite of their differences, create some magic of their own to solve their problem? Or will one, or both, die trying?

Publication Date: 05/02/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
The Kingdom of Strange
Shula Klinger
Synopsis: When she’s assigned a group project in English (what could be worse?), Thisbe decides to work online with a student from another school. The next twelve weeks change her life in ways she never imagined as she forms an important new friendship and makes new discoveries about writing, identity, friendship, and love.
Publication Date: 05/01/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Lamplighter
D. M. Cornish
Synopsis: Continuing the absorbing, inventive saga started in Foundling, Lamplighter follows Rossam?nd Bookchild, now one of the EmperorÕs lamplighters, who is sworn to protect travelers from the ferocious bogles that live in the wild. Small and meek, he does not fit in. Then a haughty young female monster hunter is forced upon the lamplighters for training. As Rossam?nd begins to make new friends in the dangerous world of the Half-Continent, he also seems to make more enemies, finding himself pushed toward a destiny that he could never have imagined. . . .
Publication Date: 05/01/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Peeled
Joan Bauer
Synopsis: Something?s rotten in the heart of apple country!

Hildy Biddle dreams of being a journalist. A reporter for her high school newspaper, The Core, she?s just waiting for a chance to prove herself. Not content to just cover school issues, Hildy?s drawn to the town?s big story?the haunted old Ludlow house. On the surface, Banesville, USA, seems like such a happy place, but lately, eerie happenings and ghostly sightings are making Hildy take a deeper look.

Her efforts to find out who is really haunting Banesville isn?t making her popular, and she starts wondering if she?s cut out to be a journalist after all. But she refuses to give up, because, hopefully, the truth will set a few ghosts free.

Peeled is classic Joan Bauer, featuring a strong heroine, and filled with her trademark witty dialogue, and problems and people worth standing up to.



Publication Date: 05/01/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Cicada Summer
Andrea Beaty
Synopsis: From a debut novelist, a heroine who will make you laugh, and will break your heart.

Eleven-year-old Lily has a passion for Nancy Drew stories and a secret she is keeping from those she loves. When summer brings lying, stealing, sneaky Tinny Bridges to town, Lily must be on her guard with this perceptive newcomer, or risk having her secret revealed. But Tinny won’t leave Lily alone. She takes candy from the general store and blames Lily. She tries to steal Lily’s friends and even her father’s affection. Then Tinny goes missing, and only watchful, mystery-loving Lily has any idea what happened to her. But for Lily, finding Tinny means confronting her hidden past.

Funny, poignant, and peopled with memorable characters, this first novel announces a writer of great warmth and talent.
Publication Date: 05/01/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Oh. My. Gods.
Tera Lynn Childs
Synopsis: A modern girl's comedic odyssey in a school filled with the descendants of Greek gods. When Phoebe's mom returns from Greece with a new husband and moves them to an island in the Aegean, Phoebe's plans for her senior year and track season are ancient history. Now she must attend the uberexclusive academy, where admission depends on pedigree, namely, ancestry from Zeus, Hera, and other Greek gods. That'’s right, they'’re real, not myth, and their teen descendants are like the classical heroes--—supersmart and superbeautiful with a few superpowers. And now they'’re on her track team! Armed only with her Nikes and the will to win, Phoebe races to find her place among the gods.
Publication Date: 05/01/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
The Compound
S.A. Bodeen
Synopsis:

Eli and his family have lived in the Compound for six years.

The world they knew is gone.

Eli's father built the Compound to keep them safe. Now, they can't get out.

He won't let them.

The Compound is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

Publication Date: 04/30/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
The Temptress Four
Gaby Triana
Synopsis:

Four best friends, one graduation cruise, a week of partying.

Eight days of strife and storms . . .

It's supposed to be the best eight days of their lives.

Bonds will be broken...

But when a fortune-teller predicts trouble the night before their trip,

One of you will not come home...

Fiona, Killian, Alma, and Yoli are left on edge, wondering what it could all mean.

Gaby Triana gets right to the heart of that thrilling, nerve-wracking, exhilarating, terrifying, amazing time that comes right after graduation, when the big question is: Where do we go from here?

Publication Date: 04/29/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Little Vampire
Joann Sfar, Joann Sfar
Synopsis:

Living in a house filled with grown-up ghouls and monsters, Little Vampire is so lonely that he’s even willing to go to school if that’s what it takes to find friends.  Unfortunately, school seems to be filled with children who are still alive. . . .

Little Vampire finds friendship with a boy named Michael, and they embark on adventures in the three stories in this collection.  Included in this book are Little Vampire Goes to School (a New York Times Bestseller), Little Vampire Does Kung Fu, and Little Vampire and the Society of Canine Defenders (now published in the United States for the first time).  Insightful and inventive, Joann Sfar brings Little Vampire and Michael’s fantastical world to young readers in stories that both feed the imagination and resonate with emotional truth.

Publication Date: 04/29/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Dog Gone
Cynthia Chapman Willis
Synopsis: Twelve-year-old Dill (short for Dylan) is desperately trying to keep her family from falling apart. Her father is always at work, her mother is gone, and their dog, Dead End, seems to be here one moment and missing the next.     And big trouble is brewing. A wild pack of dogs is destroying local livestock and property, and the sheriff has ordered them to be shot. Is this where Dead End has been disappearing to? How far will Dill and her best friend, a boy nicknamed Cub, go to uncover the truth, and hold together the last strands of a family that seems to be unraveling?
Publication Date: 04/29/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Little Brother
Cory Doctorow
Synopsis: Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.

But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days.

When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.
Publication Date: 04/29/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
The Joys of Love
Léna Roy, Madeleine L'Engle
Synopsis:

During the summer of 1946, twenty-year-old Elizabeth is doing what she has dreamed of since she was a little girl: working in the theatre. Elizabeth is passionate about her work and determined to learn all she can at the summer theatre company on the sea where she is an apprentice actress. She’s never felt so alive. And soon she finds another passion: Kurt Canitz, the dashing young director of the company, and the first man Elizabeth’s ever kissed who has really meant something to her. Then Elizabeth’s perfect summer is profoundly shaken when Kurt turns out not to be the kind of man she thought he was.

Moving and romantic, this coming-of-age story was written during the 1940s. As revealed in an introduction by the author’s granddaughter Léna Roy, the protagonist Elizabeth is close to an autobiographical portrait of L’Engle herself as a young woman—“vibrant, vulnerable, and yearning for love and all that life has to offer.”

Publication Date: 04/29/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Lucky (by Rachel Vail)
Synopsis:

It's all good . . . and lucky Phoebe Avery plans to celebrate by throwing an end-of-the-year bash with her four closest friends. Everything will be perfect—from the guest list to the fashion photographer to the engraved invitations. The only thing left to do is find the perfect dress . . . until Phoebe goes from having it all to hiding all she's lost.

Phoebe's older sisters warn her to keep the family's crisis totally secret. Unfortunately, her alpha-girl best friend looks increasingly suspicious, and Phoebe's crush starts sending seriously mixed signals. Phoebe tries hard to keep smiling, but when her mother is humiliated in Neiman Marcus while buying Phoebe that perfect dress and her father decides to cancel her party, she panics. How far will she go to keep up her image as a lucky girl?

With lucky, Rachel Vail begins a powerful sisterhood trilogy, comprised of one book for each of the three fascinating Avery sisters, with all their secrets laid bare during the year that completely changes their lives. Phoebe is the youngest; her story combines first love and flip-flops, friendship and sisterhood, humor and tears. Breezy, witty, and poignant, lucky is Rachel Vail at her breathtaking best.

Publication Date: 04/29/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Abomination
Robert Swindells
Synopsis: Martha is 12 and very different from other kids—no TV, no computer, no cool clothes, and especially no friends. It's all because of her parents, who are strict members of a religious group called the Brethren. Their rules dominate Martha's life, and one rule is the most important of all: she must never ever invite anyone home. If she does, their terrible secret—Abomination—could be revealed. But as Martha makes her first real friend in Scott, a new boy at school, she begins to wonder, Is she doing the right thing by helping to keep Abomination a secret? And just how far will her parents go to prevent the truth from being known?
Publication Date: 04/28/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
The Kingdom of Malinas
Synopsis: Sorrel knows what she must do. Enter the Kingdom of Malinas to rescue her people from slavery. It should be easy. But the Kingdom of Malinas harbours evil…
Publication Date: 04/25/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Love Me Tender
Audrey Couloumbis
Synopsis: Elvira’s family has never been the warm, fuzzy type. Most of the time, Elvira can’t stand the sight of her little sister, Kerrie. Elvira and her mother, Mel, fight more often than not. Mel hasn’t spoken to her own family in years. And when Mel announces she’s pregnant again, Elvira’s daddy storms off to Las Vegas to enter an Elvis impersonator competition. But when an urgent phone call sends Elivra, Mel, and Kerrie on an unexpected trip to visit Mel’s family, Elvira discovers that love doesn’t always look like it does in television commercials–it can be as simple as a bucket of blueberries, an attic full of memories, or a song. But it’s there all right. You just have to know how to look for it.
Publication Date: 04/22/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction

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