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The Friskative Dog
Susan Straight
Synopsis: Sharron was five when her father gave her the Friskative Dog. And just like the best-loved toys from The Velveteen Rabbit, Sharron has made the Friskative Dog real through her love and devotion.

Now Sharron is nine, and her father is missing, and the Friskative Dog is more necessary to her than ever. Her father walked out about a year ago and has been lost to her ever since. If he were a dog, he'd be able to find his way home, Sharron thinks. But people don't have the same homing instincts as dogs. And you can't train them to be true.

The Friskative Dog is about a young girl coming to accept that families can take all different shapes and sizes, and learning to live with hope and patience.

Susan Straight has written a spare, delicate story, rich in metaphor and meaning, and full of love.
Publication Date: 03/13/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Your Own Sylvia
Stephanie Hemphill
Synopsis: On a bleak February day in 1963 a young American poet died by her own hand, and passed into a myth that has since imprinted itself on the hearts and minds of millions. She was and is Sylvia Plath and Your Own, Sylvia is a portrait of her life, told in poems.

With photos and an extensive list of facts and sources to round out the reading experience, Your Own, Sylvia is a great curriculum companion to Plath's The Bell Jar and Ariel, a welcoming introduction for newcomers, and an unflinching valentine for the devoted.
Publication Date: 03/13/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Nonfiction
Summer of Love
Emily Franklin
Synopsis: After a difficult junior year at Hadley Hall, Love looks forward to a carefree summer on Martha's Vineyard running her late Aunt Mable's cafe with her best friend Arabella, but the clues about Love's family history that her aunt has left for her to find bring some surprising and troubling revelations. Original.
Publication Date: 03/06/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Romance
Simmer Down
Susan Conant, Jessica Conant-Park
Synopsis: When a trendy club owner is found bludgeoned to death at a food-sampling fund raiser, Chloe Carter helps her chef boyfriend prepare for the opening of his new restaurant in Boston and investigates an unsettlingly long list of suspects, in a new installment of a popular series featuring complementary recipes. 20,000 first printing.
Publication Date: 03/06/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Mystery
True Talents
David Lubar
Synopsis: It’s been over a year since fourteen-year-old Eddie “Trash” Thalmeyer and his friends from Edgeview Alternative School found out about their special hidden talents. Trash can move things with his mind, Torchie is a fire-starter, Cheater reads minds, Lucky finds lost objects, Flinch can predict the future, and Martin can see into people’s souls. Now back home with their families, all the boys want to do is get back to their normal lives, start attending high school, and keep in touch with their friends from Edgeview.
When Trash tests his power in a bank and accidentally steals a fistful of cash, he is kidnapped by the ruthless leader of a shadowy company whose purpose is to gather information about psychic phenomena—and who is willing to do anything to get it…. Torchie, Cheater, Lucky, Flinch, and Martin join forces to rescue their friend using their hidden talents, and discover their true talents in the process.
Publication Date: 03/06/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Farseed
Pamela Sargent
Synopsis: Centuries ago, the people of Earth sent Ship into space. Deep within its core, it carried the seed of humankind…
More than twenty years have passed since Ship left its children, the seed of humanity, on an uninhabited, earthlike planet--a planet they named Home. Zoheret and her companions have started settlements and had children of their own. But, as on board Ship, there was conflict, and soon after their arrival, Zoheret's old nemesis, Ho, left the original settlement to establish his own settlement far away.
When Ho's daughter, fifteen-year-old Nuy, spies three strangers headed toward their settlement, the hostility between the two groups of old shipmates begins anew and threatens to engulf the children of both settlements. Can the divided settlers face the challenges of adapting to their new environment in spite of their conflicts? And if they do, will they lose their humanity in the process?
Publication Date: 03/06/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Why I Let My Hair Grow Out
Synopsis: Being sent to your room is one thing. But being sent to another country?

Morgan's boyfriend dumped her on the last day of school-it seemed the only thing to do was to hack off her hair and dye the stubble orange. Unfortunately, Morgan's parents freaked and decided a change of scenery would do her good. So they're sending her off on a bike tour of Ireland.

But Morgan gets more than she bargained for on the Emerald Isle-including a strange journey into some crazy, once upon a time corner of the past. There, she meets fairies, weefolk, and a hunky warrior-dude named Fergus, and figures out that she's got some growing to do-and she doesn't just mean her hair.
Publication Date: 03/06/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
The Complete Screech Owls: Volume 5
Synopsis: Celebrating ten years and more than one million books in print!

New four-in-one edition!

The first four Screech Owls mysteries are now collected in one volume:

#17 — The Secret of the Deep Woods
#18 — Murder at the Winter Games
#19 — Attack on the Tower of London
#20 — The Screech Owls's Reunion

Screech Owls books have won the Our Choice Award and the Manitoba Young Reader’s Choice Award. They have been endorsed by the Canadian Toy Testing Council and shortlisted for the Silver Birch Award, the Red Cedar Award, the Arthur Ellis Award, the Ottawa-Carleton Award, and the Palmarès de Communication-Jeunesse.
Publication Date: 03/06/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Hitler's Canary
Sandi Toksvig
Synopsis:

"My brother stood up so quickly he almost knocked Mama over. 'Why aren't you doing something? Do you know what the British are calling us? Hitler's canary! I've heard it on the radio, on the BBC. They say he has us in a cage and we just sit and sing any tune he wants.'"

Bamse's family are theater people. They don't get involved in politics. "it had nothing to do with us," Bamse tells us. Yet now he must decide: should he take his father's advice and not stir up trouble? Or should he follow his brother into the Resistance and take part in the most demanding role of his life?

Publication Date: 03/06/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The One Where The Kid Nearly Jumps To His Death An
Synopsis: Having not seen his father after the accident that caused him to lose his leg five years ago, Alastair is sent to see him and his new step-family for the summer and knows that now will be the time to address the issues of the past if there is to be any hope for a future between them.
Publication Date: 03/01/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
L8r g8r
Lauren Myracle
Synopsis: The third book in Lauren Myracle’s wildly popular IM series!

The winsome threesome say “l8r” to high school in this sequel to the New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestsellers ttyl and ttfn

Through their instant messages, three inseparable friends have shared the ups and downs of high school. They’ve survived a flirtatious teacher, a witchy classmate, a pot-smoking smoocher, a Care Bear–toting stalker, and much, much more. Now it’s their senior year, and Angela, Zoe, and Maddie—otherwise know as the winsome threesome—are feeling invincible. Too bad Jana, the Queen Bee who made their sophomore year a nightmare, is on the warpath again. This time she has it out for good girl Zoe, and it’s up to Maddie and Angela to defend their friend. Not that Zoe, who’s deep in love with Doug, seems to notice. A series of pranks escalates, culminating in a senior prom that no one will forget, even if they want to! And it will be up to Zoe to finally take action and make sure the power of the winsome threesome prevails.
Publication Date: 03/01/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Chick Lit
What Happened
Peter Johnson
Synopsis: A hit-and-run accident threatens the happiness of two teenage borthers and exposes deeper mysteries. An unnamed sixteen-year-old's account of events begins on a snowy evening after his brother Kyle brawls with a classmate, Duane, over Duane's tsister, the beautiful Emily. The two basketball stars make apparent amends, and Duane offers the brothers a ride home from a party. Drunk and still fuming at Kyle, Duane drives recklessly to scare his passengers. Duane hits someone on the road and then leaves Kyle, the narrator, and the victim's body to freeze while he speeds away. The next day, the narrator and Kyle must face Duane's powerful father. The man hated the boys' father when the two adults were in high school, and he hates Kyle for dating Emily. The brothers learn that the abandonment by their father after their mother's drath is only the tip of their father's mysterious history and only a sliver of What Happened.
Publication Date: 03/01/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
The Wolf
Steven Herrick
Synopsis: Jake and Lucy hike to Sheldon Mountain: Jake to prove his dad right or wrong about the wolf he claims he saw; Lucy to escape her father's cruelty. Jake's dad saw the wolf before Jake was born. They say wolves don't live in this country, yet in the night Jake hears it howling, long and lonely. During the hike, both are tested—physically, emotionally, spiritually—but what they find on that dangerous, dark mountain surprises them both. A novel written in verse, this Voice of Youth Advocates Poetry Pick is taut and tender, a gripping blend of physical adventure, family drama, love story, and journey of self-discovery.
Publication Date: 03/01/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
One Whole and Perfect Day
Synopsis: In this Michael L. Printz Honor Book, Lily wishes she could be like the other girls in her class. But how can she? As the only sensible person in her family, she never has time to hang out with friends. Someone has to stay home to look after her brother. Maybe she should fall in love! What could be less sensible that that?
When her grandmother invites the whole family to a party, Lily cannot imagine how they will make it through the day. Her mother is always bringing home strange people. Lily doesn't even know her father . Her grandfather has disowned her brother. Her brother has a new girlfriend that no one has met. To top it all off, that day when her eye caught Daniel Steadman's just for a moment, she felt all woozy inside. If that was love, she isn't sure she likes the feeling. As the party approaches, all Lily can hope for is one whole and perfect day. Is it too much to ask?
Publication Date: 03/01/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Exploits of a Reluctant Hero
Synopsis: Meet a teenage hero who likes nothing better than to sit back with a bucket of fried chicken and a girlie magazine, waiting for his family plumbing fortune to come to him. But when our hero gets into some serious trouble, he's forced to volunteer at a local soup kitchen where he finds himself at the center of a struggle between the rich and the poor, the selfish and the selfless. It is a worthy cause he could care less about until the day he stumbles across a shocking piece of information. What happens next surprises everybody, including our very reluctant hero. Exploits of a Reluctant (But Extremely Goodlooking) Hero is a novel of adventure, intrigue, Ukrainian dance lessons, disruptive horseplay, inappropriate ogling and some truly heroic consumption of junk food. Adrian Mole meets South Park in this often outrageous and always hilarious trip into the inner world of a boy teetering on the brink of manhood.
Publication Date: 03/01/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Chess Set in the Mirror
Estelle Gilson, Massimo Bontempelli
Synopsis:

"This whimsical Italian fantasy, originally published in 1922, belongs on the shelf next to The Little Prince and Alice and Wonderland. Simple language by translator Gilson gives the novel a poetic tone, while STO's charming black-and-white illustrations add humor."—VOYA

Alone in a room with nothing but an old mirror and a chess set, a young boy anticipates a boring afternoon. But like Alice just before she fell down the rabbit hole—and wound up in Wonderland—this boy is about to embark on a marvelous adventure. Gazing at the mirror, he discovers that the chess pieces (the reflections, not the real ones) are alive! When the White King invites him into the world on the other side, the excitement begins. There, all the rules of the real world are reversed. There, you can have a perfectly reasonable conversation with a perfectly unreasonable chess piece. There, you can meet anyone who's ever looked into the mirror (even a hundred years ago). This bewildering experience leads to some odd questions: What goes on inside a mirror when no one is looking at it? What if the reflected world is more real than the one where we live? And speaking of our world, how will our hero get back to this side of the mirror?

Join him on his fantastic journey where nothing is more absurd than reason or more important than freedom of imagination.

"[A] story told in a voice that's charmingly direct, sweetly self-referential…and more than a little trippy…Like all good books for children, it also has unusual insights into childhood itself: '…when you're ten years old, standing or sitting are exactly the same.'"—Philadelphia Inquirer

"The narrator's dry wit, reminiscent of P. G. Wodehouse, makes for an appealing journey and, coupled with the whimsical pen-and-ink drawings, a charming package with a timeless air."—Publishers Weekly

"Motherhood is the theme of these two intimate novellas by Italian writer Bontempelli, who preceded such better-known authors of 'magic realism' as Jorge Luis Borges and Alejo Carpentier by more than two decades in his fusion of the miraculous and the matter-of-fact…The elegantly restrained passion of these two tales, penned in Bontempelli's delicate prose, proves yet again the writer's literary genius."—Publishers Weekly (review of Separations)

"Separations is a complete triumph. Bontempelli's work prefigured the magic realism popularized by many Latin American writers, andSeparations is an excellent example of this style. Elegant, superbly crafted, and masterfully written, these tales are not easily forgotten; the heroines are haunting and the plots finely honed. Bontempelli is truly a 'fantastic' writer."—Library Journal (review of Separations)

A protégé of Pirandello, Massimo Bontempelli (1878–1960) was a prolific writer of poetry, plays, and prose fiction. Bontempelli now occupies a major place in 20th century Italian letters, and his works are translated in every major European language.

Sergio Tofano, also known as STO, was an Italian illustrator, actor, director, and playwright. For fifty years his illustrated work appeared in the children's supplement of Corriere della Sera, one of the oldest and most widely read newspapers in Italy.

Estelle Gilson's translation of Umberto Saba's Stories and Recollections won both the Italo Calvino and PEN Renato Poggioli awards, and the MLA's first Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione award in 1994 as the best literary translation of the previous two years. Her fiction, essays, and articles appear in many publications. She translated Bontempelli's Separations.


Publication Date: 03/01/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy

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