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The Golden Path
Anson Montgomery
Synopsis: FROM: Dianna Torman (dtorman@deadmail.anonymous.guyana.000)
SUBJECT: Warning and Plea.
Sweetheart, I don't want to alarm you, but I fear I must. If you are getting this email it is because something has happened to us. This note is rigged to be sent from a special dead letter drop if I have not checked back in three days.

So begins the email that changes your life forever.
Where have your parents gone? Were they kidnapped? Did they travel on their own to Ungava Bay? Were the explosions at Carlsbad, New Mexico volcanic or something more sinister? Why is the government so interested? And why do your parents, who are college professors, suddenly have $74 million in the bank?

It starts with a simple call into the headmaster's office on a perfect fall day. It turns into a search for your missing parents that takes you and your two best friends on a trip into the hollow Earth. Part thriller, part travelogue, part personal quest, The Golden Path - Volume One weaves a labyrinthine journey as you search for answers to the truth about your past and the clues to your future. Every choice you make could be the difference between your parents life and death, and your ultimate destiny.

Four story lines continue from Volume One to Volume Two. Can you find the ultimate Golden Path?

A Multi-Volume Interactive Epic
Publication Date: 04/25/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Mystery
Willing Sacrifice (The Sugar & Spice Series)
Synopsis: Raised in isolation, La’tiera has been coddled and secluded, her mission too important to risk anything happening to her. The Herald—a harbinger comet--has appeared in the sky, telling all the Time of Trial is near. She is ready to do as her duty requires, though the very world she will die to preserve is one she will never see. Dal has led a free life, serving the Order established centuries ago to find and instruct the Bearer in how to perform the Trial established by the covenant made between the Four Gods and the Demons who seek to take over his world. Yet as the latest Trial approaches, there has been no news of the Bearer. The Order is worried.
 A lively child draws these two together. La’tiera is elated at seeing a person or two from the outside, even as she worries her selfish desire for companionship might put all in jeopardy. Suspicion then arises on both sides, as what she has been taught and what Dal knows to be true are widely different. La’tiera knows the truth—she is the sacrifice that will save the world, no matter who says it should be otherwise. Her task has always been clear. She will not be swayed from her course. But Dal knows her death will open their world to the savage Demons—the exact opposite of what she has been told. He must find a way to get her to accept this before it is too late. But can he? Her very dedication and stubbornness might just doom their world to destruction. Let the battle of wills begin.
Publication Date: 04/23/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Crispin- At the Edge of the World
Synopsis:
The more I came to know of the world, the more I knew I knew it not.

He was a nameless orphan, marked for death by his masters for an unknown crime. Discovering his name— Crispin—only intensified the mystery.  Then Crispin met Bear, who helped him learn the secret of his full identity. And in Bear—the enormous, red-bearded juggler, sometime spy, and everyday philosopher—Crispin also found a new father and a new world.

Now Crispin and Bear have set off to live their lives as free men. But they don’t get far before their past catches up with them: Bear is being pursued by members of the secret brotherhood who believe he is an informer. When Bear is badly wounded, it is up to Crispin to make decisions about their future—where to go, whom to trust. Along the way they become entangled with an extraordinary range of people, each of whom affects Crispin and Bear’s journey in unexpected ways.  To find freedom and safety, they may have to travel to the edge of the world—even if it means confronting death itself.

In this riveting sequel to the Newbery-Award winning Crispin: The Cross of Lead—the second book in a planned trilogy—Avi explores themes of war, religion, and family as he continues the adventures of Crispin and Bear.
Publication Date: 04/22/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
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: Fiction
Found
Margaret Peterson Haddix
Synopsis: Thirteen-year-old Jonah has always known that he was adopted, and he's never thought it was any big deal. Then he and a new friend, Chip, who's also adoped, begin receiving mysterious letters. The first one says, "You are one of the missing." The second one says, "Beware! They're coming back to get you."

Jonah, Chip, and Jonah's sister, Katherine, are plunged into a mystery that involves the FBI, a vast smuggling operation, an airplane that appeared out of nowhere -- and people who seem to appear and disappear at will. The kids discover they are caught in a battle between two opposing forces that want very different things for Jonah and Chip's lives.

Do Jonah and Chip have any choice in the matter? And what should they choose when both alternatives are horrifying?

With Found, Margaret Peterson Haddix begins a new series that promises to be every bit as suspenseful as her Shadow Children series -- which has sold more than 41/2 million copies -- and proves her, once again, to be a master of the page-turner.
Publication Date: 04/22/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Trouble
Gary D. Schmidt
Synopsis:

“Henry Smith’s father told him that if you build your house far enough away from Trouble, then Trouble will never find you.”

But Trouble comes careening down the road one night in the form of a pickup truck that strikes Henry’s older brother, Franklin. In the truck is Chay Chouan, a young Cambodian from Franklin’s preparatory school, and the accident sparks racial tensions in the school—and in the well-established town where Henry’s family has lived for generations. Caught between anger and grief, Henry sets out to do the only thing he can think of: climb Mt. Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine, which he and Franklin were going to climb together. Along with Black Dog, whom Henry has rescued from drowning, and a friend, Henry leaves without his parents’ knowledge. The journey, both exhilarating and dangerous, turns into an odyssey of discovery about himself, his older sister, Louisa, his ancestry, and why one can never escape from Trouble.

Publication Date: 04/21/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Attack of the Spider Bots
Synopsis: Know Your Star-FightersBeamer: California transplant to a weird Midwestern town. Feels like he’s living on another planet. Scilla: the gangly tomboy next door. Ghoulie: the class nerd. Add one spaceship-shaped tree house capable of taking them most anywhere in the universe. Hop in and blast off for fantastic outer space adventures in Star-Fighters of Murphy Street―the quirky, funny, fast-paced new trilogy by Robert West.Taking a shortcut home from school, the Star-Fighters are chased by a horrible one-eyed creature into a cavern that houses an entire miniature world. Everything is animated―cars, trucks, moon, clouds, stars―but no one is at the controls. Who would make such a thing and then abandon it?The Star-Fighters’ search leads them on a wild adventure to a palatial mansion within a wintry jungle that hides a terrible secret―a secret that defines the limits of trusting God.
Publication Date: 04/20/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty
Synopsis: While working at the Triple Shot Betty during summer break, Geena's great plans are ruined when her best friend and cousin meet and instantly hate one another, but as the weeks go on and endless dramas unfold, the three finally put their silly differences aside in order to have great group adventures that no one will ever forget! 30,000 first printing.
Publication Date: 04/17/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Braless in Wonderland
Debbie Reed Fischer
Synopsis: After being approached by a modeling scout and convinced to go to Miami to start a career in the industry, Allee Rosen feels quite out of her element away from her classes and friends, yet as her success grows, the pressure grows, and the in-fighting gets more fierce, Allee finds herself changing in more ways than she could have ever imagined.
Publication Date: 04/17/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Chick Lit
Home to the Sea
Chester Aaron
Synopsis:

Strange changes begin for twelve-year-old Marian as she starts to understand a secret her mother and her grandmother already know. Why don't they tell her?

And how a couple of years later, can Marian, who has never had a swimming lesson, be known world-wide, wooed by college swim coaches and Sports Illustrated for their cover as a world-class Olympic swimmer? Why does she hear inhuman voices calling her to the sea? What on earth is happening to her?

In this enchanting story of her transformation from a girl to a myth, readers who love mermaids and the sea and adventure will join Marian going Home to the Sea.

Publication Date: 04/17/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
It's A Money Thing
Kathleen Brown, Susan Estelle Kwas, Women's Foundation of California
Synopsis: One important thing a teenage girl can do for herself is learn about moneyhow to make it, save it, invest it, and spend it wisely. Through engaging and practical exercises, this guide teaches young girls valuable lessons to help themlead financially secure and independent lives.
Publication Date: 04/16/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Educational
The Hidden World
Paul Park
Synopsis:

The breathtaking climax to Paul Park’s lyrical and mesmerizing series. “Park…should be knighted.”--Entertainment Weekly

The Hidden World is the concluding volume in Paul Park’s remarkable tale of Roumania, a world that is both more real and yet also more mysterious and magical than our own.

After finding out that she is the lost princess of Roumania and the mythical White Tyger, Miranda’s fate is still uncertain. The ghosts of her enemies cluster about her, the insane spirit of the Baroness takes possession of her body for a time, and demons released by her mother are abroad. And through it all her heart calls out to Peter, away with the army, whom she has come to love, and her best friend Andromeda, sworn to help her and protect her. There are no easy answers; it all looks impossible. Any hope may lie in the hidden world of spirits, where death is but an inconvenience.

Publication Date: 04/15/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Series
The King Commands
Meg Burden
Synopsis: The Northlands are in turmoil, divided by those who support King Alaric's decrees welcoming the Southlings and their magic, and those who will stop at nothing to send them back to the Southland where they belong. But the Southland, too, is being torn apart as the Southlings with mental gifts and healing magic are hunted by the mysterious Guardians, captured and never heard from again.As the legendary peace of the Southland crumbles and the throne of the Northlands is challenged, Ellin Fisher, the powerful young Southling who befriended the Northlands royalty, must make a terrible choice. Is it her destiny to fight for equality in the Northlands, or to embrace her calling as a Healer and help other True Southlings escape from the Guardians who killed her family? In the midst of this, while the home she's chosen and the land she left behind both stand poised on the brink of civil war, Ellin must choose where her heart lies, as well. She loves King Alaric, but will Princess Nathalia, another newcomer to the Northlands, stand in the way? Loyalty and romance, secrets and destinies, threaten to tear Ellin and her newfound family in the Northlands apart, especially when a loved one betrays her and old enemies become new friends. Only one thing is certain: the Borderlands will never be the same again.
Publication Date: 04/14/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
The Fold
An Na
Synopsis: Joyce never used to care that much about how she looked, but that was before she met JFK—John Ford Kang, the most gorgeous guy in school. And it doesn’t help that she’s constantly being compared to her beautiful older sister, Helen. Then her rich plastic-surgery-addict aunt offers Joyce a gift to “fix” a part of herself she’d never realized needed fixing—her eyes. Joyce has heard of the fold surgery—a common procedure meant to make Asian women’s eyes seem “prettier” and more “American”—but she’s not sure she wants to go through with it. Her friend Gina can’t believe she isn’t thrilled. After all, the plastic surgeon has shown Joyce that her new eyes will make her look just like Helen—but is that necessarily a good thing?

Printz Award–winning author An Na has created a surprisingly funny and thought-provoking look at notions of beauty, who sets the standards and how they affect us all. Joyce’s decision is sure to spark heated discussions about the beauty myths readers confront in their own lives.
Publication Date: 04/10/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Chill
Neryl Walker, Deborah Reber
Synopsis: Your day starts at 6am and ends at midnight-if you're lucky. You keep up with all two hundred of your friends on Facebook. You practically invented the word "multitasking" Sound familiar? You're not alone. You are part of the most overscheduled, overprogrammed, and overwhelmed generation on the planet. And CHILL can help you manage it all! It's just a matter of having the right frame of mind. So relax, take a deep breath . . . and chill.
Publication Date: 04/08/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Educational
Sweet Valley High: Double Love
Synopsis: WELCOME TO SWEET Valley High—a world of good girls and bad girls, hot boys with fast cars, perfect tans and natural highlights . . . all under the Southern California sun.
Twin girls, identical in every way—yet they couldn’t be more different. Jessica Wakefield is used to getting what she wants—at school, with her friends, and especially with boys—and she’ll stop at nothing to get it. Elizabeth Wakefield is used to letting her twin sister have her way. There’s not much that’s worth fighting her over—lost earrings can be replaced, petty problems can be resolved, and rampant rumors can be doused like a fire. But when it comes to Todd Wilkins, Liz isn’t so sure she should step aside and make way for Jessica. This time, Jessica Wakefield is going to have some competition—from her own sister.
Publication Date: 04/08/08
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction

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