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Skellig/Wild Girl
David Almond
Synopsis: David Almond turns his talents to drama in these two plays. Skellig is the dramatization of his highly acclaimed novel. What has Michael found in the derelict garage? What is this creature that lies in the darkness? Is it human, or a strange beast never seen before? And what will happen in the world when he carries it out into the light?
Wild Girl, Wild Boy is an original play produced in London by the Pop-Up Theatre company. Young Elaine has recently lost her father, and now she spends her days dreaming in the family’s garden, skipping school, unable to read or write. One day, Elaine conjures up a Wild Boy from spells and fairy seed. No one else can see him, and Elaine disappears into a world of fantasy where she and Wild Boy remember the teachings of her father. Will her mother ever come to understand?
These two plays introduce a new talent from the remarkable David Almond.


From the Trade Paperback edition.
Publication Date: 11/08/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Open Ice
Pat Hughes
Synopsis: NICKY TAG! NICKY TAG!
All his life, crowds have been cheering for Nick Taglio.
He’s been skating since he could walk, scoring goals since he picked up a hockey stick. He’s only a sophomore but he rules the ice, because Nicky Tag’s a fighter. Which means you have to take some hits; concussions come with the territory. When he gets another head injury, his doctor, his parents, and his coach tell him he can never play again. Too dangerous, they say. He can’t risk his future.
But they don’t understand that without hockey, Nick has no future. It’s not a game, it’s his life. And nobody can stop him from playing.
Publication Date: 11/08/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Befiddled
Pedro de Alcantara
Synopsis: Becky Cohen has a rough life. She’s an outsider everywhere she goes: shunned and mocked at school, at her violin lessons, and at home by her disapproving mother. Her only true friend is her brilliant little brother, newspaper-loving Benjy. She dreams of becoming a great violinist, but at the group lessons she’s forced to take at the Y, Becky panics and plays badly. Then Becky meets Mr. Freeman, her building’s handyman. He has a lot to teach her about becoming a musician, and being a friend.
Gradually, Becky begins speaking her mind more often, and finds that people are actually listening. Then Mr. Freeman tells Becky about a local performing arts high school’s scholarship contest. With the lessons learned from Mr. Freeman and Benjy, can Becky overcome her fears and play what’s in her heart?
Publication Date: 11/08/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Anyone But You
Lara M. Zeises
Synopsis: Critter and Jesse have been close to Seattle since her dad moved in with their mother. Closer still since he took off six years ago and Layla decided to raise Sea as one of her own. It’s a decision none of them regrets, especially not Critter. He’s more than a brother–he’s Seattle’s best friend.
Now it’s vacation, and Seattle and Critter are stoop sitters, at least until summer school starts in July. It beats working like Jesse, or worse, studying like Layla wants them to. It’s too hot for Seattle to be on her skateboard–too hot, even, for Critter to be scamming on girls. But Sea comes up with a plan for them to bluff their way into the ritzy swimming pool the next town over. Big mistake.
Soon Critter’s got his heart set on a Penn Acres princess, while Seattle’s trying hard not to fall for a skater boy on the rebound. For the first time in a long while, they can talk to anyone but each other. Then Seattle’s dad shows up unexpectedly, and the way of life Critter and Seattle have always known begins to change even more. . . .
Publication Date: 11/08/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Romance
True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet
Synopsis: Teen movie star Morgan Carter retreats to a small midwestern town to recuperate anonymously after a near fatal overdose outside LA's Viper Room, recording her thoughts in a diary.
Publication Date: 11/03/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Chick Lit
Dragon's Hoard
Chris Riddell, Chris Riddell, Paul Stewart
Synopsis: Unsure of the tales he is being told about a destructive dragon living in the forest, Free Lance goes to work to protect a wealthy merchant and discovers the truth that leads him into a head-to-head battle with the elusive and dangerous creature on his own turf.
Publication Date: 11/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Community Spirits
Jonathan Pearce
Synopsis: Young Joseph O. Kuhl is commanded by a beautiful transparent young woman to investigate spectral phenomena in his home town. Stimulated by the aspirins provided by his evil little brother, assisted by his Cousin Zack, and hindered by local journalist Patella Sackworth, Joseph encounters ghosts, orbs, explosions, earthquakes, and considerable puzzlement before finally saying farewell to the beautiful young woman.
Publication Date: 11/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Paranormal
A Little Honesty
Jonathan Pearce
Synopsis: Second Edition. A creative, self-absorbed 16-year-old is trapped in summer school dullness, but his desire for a motorcycle and a date with a TV actress, a female fellow-student's romantic and violence-prone objectives, a confidence man's movie production scheme, and some counseling with a psychiatrist all serve to pique his enthusiasm.
Publication Date: 11/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Pretties
Scott Westerfeld
Synopsis: Having been transformed into a pretty girl after making promises while living in her ugly life, Tally is a happy girl with new friends and a positive outlook, but when the past comes calling, Tally doesn't want to live up to her obligations and now must fight to keep the life she loves without making the sacrifices expected by others. By the author of Uglies.
Publication Date: 11/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Orphans of Chaos
John C. Wright
Synopsis: John C. Wright burst onto the SF scene with the Golden Age trilogy. His next project was the ambitious fantasy sequence, The Last Guardians of Everness.
Wright’s new fantasy is a tale about five orphans raised in a strict British boarding school who begin to discover that they may not be human beings. The students at the school do not age, while the world around them does.
The children begin to make sinister discoveries about themselves. Amelia is apparently a fourth-dimensional being; Victor is a synthetic man who can control the molecular arrangement of matter around him; Vanity can find secret passageways through solid walls where none had previously been; Colin is a psychic; Quentin is a warlock. Each power comes from a different paradigm or view of the inexplicable universe: and they should not be able to co-exist under the same laws of nature. Why is it that they can?
The orphans have been kidnapped from their true parents, robbed of their powers, and raised in ignorance by super-beings no more human than they are: pagan gods or fairy-queens, Cyclopes, sea-monsters, witches, or things even stranger than this. The children must experiment with, and learn to control, their strange abilities in order to escape their captors.
Publication Date: 11/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Series
David Crockett: Hero of the Common Man
Synopsis: Perhaps no other figure in American history is more shrouded in myth and legend than David ("Davy") Crockett, the Tennessee frontiersman whose death at the Alamo in 1836 ensured his place in the Valhalla of American heroes.
Crockett himself was responsible for much of the folklore about his life. A gregarious, fun-loving man, he was more than capable of spinning tall tales over a "horn" of liquor. The truth of his life, as William Groneman emphasizes in this book, was far more fascinating than the myth. David Crockett was a true self-made man who left home at the age of twelve. His adventures--hunting and exploring, serving as a soldier under Andrew Jackson in the Creek Indian War of 1813, a political career that took him to the United States Congress, an incessant search for "elbow room" that drew him to Texas-these were the real fabric of a heroic life.
In writing of the "historical Crockett," Groneman, a world authority on the Alamo and its defenders, dispels the myths to uncover the genuine hero. He writes at length of the defense of the Alamo, describes how Crockett's reputation and heroism have been tainted by revisionist historians, and presents new evidence that the Tennessean actually left the Alamo during the siege to bring in reinforcements. Although safely outside the walls, he fought his way back in to rejoin his friends for the final, fatal, battle.
Publication Date: 11/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Historical Fiction
The Skyborn
Paul Collins
Synopsis: After the crash of the ship Colony, 14-year-old Welkin was left for dead on the inhospitable landscape of a ravaged Earth. After being rescued by a gang of Earthborn, Welkin proves his value and becomes a trusted member of the Family. But existence is still hand to mouth. The nuclear ravaged landscape is hardly more than a vast wasteland. Dangers from bands of mutants threaten continually. As does the ominous presence of Colony itself. Inside the grounded starship Skyborn inhabitants feed on their hatred of the Earthborn. When on routine patrol a Colony scout is captured by the Family, he reveals a secret: authorities onboard Colony have regrouped and mean to launch a final assault-to rid the Earth of the "savage" Earthborn for ever. But even Welkin--armed with his knowledge of
Skyborn ways and methods--could never have been prepared for what he finds.
Publication Date: 11/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
The Borribles: Go For Broke
Michael de Larrabeiti
Synopsis: What is a Borrible?

Borribles are runaways who dwell in the shadows of London. Apart from their pointed ears, they look just like ordinary children. They live by their wits and a few Borrible laws--the chief one being, Don't Get Caught! The Borribles are outcasts--but they wouldn't have it any other way….

The Borribles Go For Broke

On the Great Rumble Hunt, Chalotte, a Borrible from Whitechapel, very nearly lost her life--and good friends had been left for dead--all because of the Rumble Treasure Chest. To Chalotte the treasure was evil and she had sworn never to go on another adventure. But when Chalotte and the other survivors discover that Sam the horse is in danger they know they have no choice--Borribles always help their friends. Their attempts to rescue Sam lead them into the second Great Borrible Adventure!
Publication Date: 11/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Joy Writing
Kenn Amdahl
Synopsis: Joy Writing:Discover and Develop Your Creative Voice will make you want to write. It will also entertain, inspire, and cheer you as it nudges and teases you toward mastery of language. Novices and experienced writers alike will discover useful tips. Employing over four dozen examples ranging from Shakespeare and Steinbeck to Napoleon Dynamite and Donald Trump, the book maintains that our own favorite authors will teach us their tricks once we learn to “read like a writer.” By the author (or co author) of the perennial bestselling classics There Are No Electrons, Algebra Unplugged, Calculus for Cats, and The Land of Debris and the Home of Alfredo.
Publication Date: 11/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Educational
Seeing Emily
Joyce Lee Wong
Synopsis: The stunning new talent, Joyce Lee Wong, delivers a poignant, lyrical novel about the experiences of a Chinese American teenage girl by a stunning new talent.

In the successful style of David Levithan's The Realm of Possibility and Sonya Sones' What My Mother Doesn't Know, this free verse novel introduces readers to sixteen-year-old Emily, one of three Asian students at her high school in Richmond, Virginia, and the only child of protective, ambitious parents. She loves her parents and has always strived to please them, but her interest in a sexy new student, her growing passion for art, and her need to break away without breaking her tightly-knit family apart, force Emily to create a web of lies that ultimately traps her just as tightly as her circumstances. Through her art she finds a key to freedom and a new understanding of her place in the world.

Joyce Lee Wong's dazzling debut addresses the complexities of the contemporary Asian American experience, the pressures of American high school, and the age-old clash between teens and parents. This touching novel takes readers on a journey in which parents, peers and readers ultimately find new ways of seeing Emily.
Publication Date: 11/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Thou Shalt Not Dump the Skater Dude
Synopsis: When she breaks up with her boyfriend, a popular skater named C.J. Logan, Kelsey discovers that he doesn't take rejection well when he begins spreading rumors about her, which forces her to salvage her reputation and reinvent herself as a reporter for the school's newspaper.
Publication Date: 10/20/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction

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