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Young Artists Draw Manga
Christopher Hart
Synopsis:

Do you love manga? Now you can learn to draw your own!
 
This book has everything the beginning manga artist needs! You’ll learn how to draw the basic manga head and body types…but that’s just the beginning! Over 100 manga characters—from magical shoujo girls and their super-cute chibi friends to mysterious ninjas and double-crossing villains— are broken down into easy-to-follow steps so you can start drawing all of your favorite manga characters right away!

Publication Date: 09/13/11
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Nonfiction
Journal of a Schoolyard Bully
Synopsis: In the tradition of the mega successful DIARY OF A WIMPY KID and DORK DIARIES comes Niko Kayler, a school bully who must keep a journal to right all the wrongs he has done, but Niko, being a habitual trouble-maker, has other ideas.   Niko Kayler, the terror of his middle school, doles out wedgies and collects money he doesn't need. When he is forced to begin keeping a journal of his activities to curb his bullying ways, he secretly turns his diary into a how-to guide for bullies.  Now, against the wishes of his peers, Niko plans to conquer his middle school and teach everyone a lesson in bullying, including his teachers. 

Check out JournalofaSchoolyardBully.com for more.
Publication Date: 09/13/11
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
After Obsession
Steven E. Wedel, Carrie Jones
Synopsis:

Aimee and Alan have secrets. Both teens have unusual pasts and abilities they prefer to keep hidden. But when they meet each other, in a cold Maine town, they can't stop their secrets from spilling out. Strange things have been happening lately, and they both feel that something-or someone- is haunting them. They're wrong. Despite their unusual history and powers, it's neither Aimee nor Alan who is truly haunted. It's Alan's cousin Courtney who, in a desperate plea to find her missing father, has invited a demon into her life-and into her body. Only together can Aimee and Alan exorcise the ghost. And they have to move quickly, before it devours not just Courtney but everything around her.

Filled with heart-pounding romance, paranormal activity, and rich teen characters to love-and introducing an exciting new YA voice, Steven Wedel-this novel is exactly what Carrie Jones fans have been waiting for. Meet your next obsession.

Publication Date: 09/13/11
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
How to Draw Chiller Monsters, Werewolves, Vampires, and Zombies
Synopsis: From movies to comics to graphic novels, monsters and their ilk tap into the terror that lurks in the darkest regions of the human collective unconscious. Enduringly popular characters, from vampires to zombies, provide an exciting challenge and appeal to comics and animation artists. How to Draw Chiller Monsters, Werewolves, Vampires and Zombies features the artwork of comic-book artist and Hollywood monster designer Kerry Gammill, Gene Colan as well as Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, Jack Davis, David Hartman, Frank Frazetta, Basil Gogos, and Wally Wood.
Publication Date: 09/13/11
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Toys Come Home
Paul O. Zelinsky, Emily Jenkins
Synopsis: “A bit like the great movie Toy Story and a bit like the wonderful Kate DiCamillo book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. This is a great family book.” —The Washington Post on Toys Go Out, the companion to Toys Come Home
 
Here is the final book in the highly acclaimed Toys trilogy, which includes the companion books Toys Go Out and Toy Dance Party and chronicles the unforgettable adventures of three brave and loving toys.
 
Fans of the series, as well as newcomers, will happily discover how Lumphy, StingRay, and Plastic came to live with the Girl. In six linked adventures, readers will also learn how the one-eared Sheep became one-eared, watch a cranky toy meet an unfortunate end, and best of all, learn why it’s okay for someone you truly love to puke on you. This is perhaps the most charming of three inimitably charming books destined to become classics.

A Wall Street Journal Best Children’s Book of the Year
A Bank Street College of Education Best Children’s Book of the Year
A Junior Library Guild Selection
 
"A timeless story of adventure and friendship to treasure aloud or independently. Wholly satisfying, this may well leave readers expecting to see the Velveteen Rabbit peeking in the bedroom window and smiling approvingly." —Booklist, Starred

“The best talking toy stories since Winnie-the-Pooh.” —Kirkus Reviews

"A book destined to be read to children at bedtime for decades (nay, centuries?) to come. It is rare that prequels exceed the books they are meant to simply introduce, but this is one of the few." —Betsy Bird, A Fuse #8 Production
Publication Date: 09/13/11
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
All the Earth Thrown to the Sky
Synopsis:

Jack Catcher's parents are dead—his mom died of sickness and his dad of a broken heart—and he has to get out of Oklahoma, where dust storms have killed everything green, hopeful, or alive. When former classmate Jane and her little brother Tony show up in his yard with plans to steal a dead neighbor's car and make a break for Texas, Jack doesn't need much convincing. But a run-in with one of the era's most notorious gangsters puts a crimp in Jane's plan, and soon the three kids are hitching the rails among hoboes, gangsters, and con men, racing to warn a carnival wrestler turned bank robber of the danger he faces and, in the process, find a new home for themselves. This road trip adventure from the legendary Joe R. Lansdale is a thrilling and colorful ride through Depression-era America.

Publication Date: 09/13/11
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
You Have Seven Messages
Stewart Lewis
Synopsis:    It's been a year since Luna's mother, the fashion-model wife of a successful film director, was hit and killed by a taxi in New York's East Village. Luna, her father, and her little brother, Tile, are still struggling with grief.
   When Luna goes to clean out her mother's old studio, she's stunned to find her mom's cell phone there—charged and holding seven unheard messages. As Luna begins to listen to them, she learns more about her mother's life than she ever wanted to know . . . and she comes to realize that the tidy tale she's been told about her mother's death may not be the whole truth.
    
“. . . a lovely contemporary fairy tale, with a sad Upper West Side princess at the heart of it, and that’s a kind of folklore that many readers will enjoy.”—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, Recommended
 
“The book contains various delights. . . . the love story element shines, and the book offers a nice window into the life of privileged New York youngsters, refreshingly filled with protective and involved adults.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
“Following Luna through a hazy grief state after the death of her mother is like a beautiful dream. This book takes your hand and leads you on a wonder-filled adventure.”—Melissa Walker, author of Small Town Sinners
 
“Luna is someone to weep with and to cheer for, to wish was your best friend. Readers will fall in love with Luna and her dazzling world.”—Emily Wing Smith, author of Back When You Were Easier to Love
Publication Date: 09/13/11
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Every You, Every Me
Jonathan Farmer, David Levithan
Synopsis: In this high school-set psychological tale, a tormented teen named Evan starts to discover a series of unnerving photographs—some of which feature him. Someone is stalking him . . . messing with him . . . threatening him. Worse, ever since his best friend Ariel has been gone, he's been unable to sleep, spending night after night torturing himself for his role in her absence. And as crazy as it sounds, Evan's starting to believe it's Ariel that's behind all of this, punishing him. But the more Evan starts to unravel the mystery, the more his paranoia and insomnia amplify, and the more he starts to unravel himself. Creatively told with black-and-white photos interspersed between the text so the reader can see the photos that are so unnerving to Evan, Every You, Every Me is a one-of-a-kind departure from a one-of-a-kind author.
Publication Date: 09/13/11
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Mystery
A Plague Year
Edward Bloor
Synopsis: It's 2001 and zombies have taken over Tom's town. Meth zombies. The drug rips through Blackwater, PA, with a ferocity and a velocity that overwhelms everyone.

It starts small, with petty thefts of cleaning supplies and Sudafed from the supermarket where Tom works. But by year's end there will be ruined, hollow people on every street corner. Meth will unmake the lives of friends and teachers and parents. It will fill the prisons, and the morgues.

Tom's always been focused on getting out of his depressing coal mining town, on planning his escape to a college somewhere sunny and far away. But as bits of his childhood erode around him, he finds it's not so easy to let go. With the selfless heroism of the passengers on United Flight 93 that crashed nearby fresh in his mind and in his heart, Tom begins to see some reasons to stay, to see that even lost causes can be worth fighting for. 

Edward Bloor has created a searing portrait of a place and a family and a boy who survive a harrowing plague year, and become stronger than before.
Publication Date: 09/13/11
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
The Things A Brother Knows
Synopsis:

Levi's older brother Boaz returns from fighting with the Marines in the Middle East. He's safe. Levi's family has waited three long years for this. But Boaz is no longer the brother Levi thought he knew. Even if nobody else wants to see it, Levi can tell that Boaz has changed; something's wrong. When Boaz announces he's off to hike the Appalachian Trail, Levi knows he's lying. He's heading somewhere else. So Levi follows, determined to understand who his brother was, what he's been through, and how to bring him home again.

Publication Date: 09/13/11
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Under the Mesquite
Guadalupe Garcia Mccall
Synopsis:

Lupita, a budding actor and poet in a close-knit Mexican American immigrant family, comes of age as she struggles with adult responsibilities during her mother's battle with cancer in this young adult novel in verse.

When Lupita learns Mami has cancer, she is terrified by the possibility of losing her mother, the anchor of her close-knit family. Suddenly, being a high school student, starring in a play, and dealing with friends who don't always understand, become less important than doing whatever she can to save Mami's life.

While her father cares for Mami at an out-of-town clinic, Lupita takes charge of her seven younger siblings. As Lupita struggles to keep the family afloat, she takes refuge in the shade of a mesquite tree, where she escapes the chaos at home to write. Forced to face her limitations in the midst of overwhelming changes and losses, Lupita rediscovers her voice and finds healing in the power of words.

Told with honest emotion in evocative free verse, Lupita's journey toward hope is captured in moments that are alternately warm and poignant. Under the Mesquite is an empowering story about testing family bonds and the strength of a young woman navigating pain and hardship with surprising resilience.

Publication Date: 09/09/11
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Poetry
Married Mom, Solo Parent
Carla Anne Coroy
Synopsis: Who knew a married woman could feel like a single mom?

Bookstore shelves are full of parenting resources for single moms. But where do moms turn if they feel like a single parent--but they're not? Whether he is away on business, deployed in the military, or obsessing over a hobby, families face unique and difficult challenges when dad is unavailable. Moms who parent in these situations need help and don't necessarily relate to the advice given in divorce recovery or single parenting resources.

Married Mom, Solo Parent is a common-sense, down-to earth look at the struggles wives and mothers face when their husband is not actively involved in family life. Writing from her own experience as a "married solo mom", Carla Anne addresses tough questions such as:
How do I overcome loneliness, insecurity, and anger? How do I raise kids to honor a father who's not around? How do I avoid emotionally checking out of my marriage? How do I find some time just for me? With practical suggestions, anecdotes, and biblical teaching, this book encourages moms to see their position as a high calling, to find healing amidst their worries and frustrations, and to tap into God's strength for help in facing the daily challenge of being a married mom, solo parent.
Publication Date: 09/09/11
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Nonfiction
The Adventure Begins
Roderic L Waibel
Synopsis: You are Zach, a 10 year old boy who constantly gets into trouble at school for daydreaming. But one day you discover a portal that leads into a fantastic new world of magic and monsters. A world where all of your daydreams have come to life. Do you choose to enter the world, or play it safe and go back the way you came? The Adventure Begins is the first book of the “Your Choice” stories. These are stories in which you, the reader, are given options throughout the book on which way you proceed. Can you make the right choices? It’s up to you.
Publication Date: 09/07/11
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
One Salt Sea
Seanan McGuire
Synopsis: New York Times-bestselling October Daye series • Hugo Award-winning author Seanan McGuire • "Top of my urban-paranormal series list!" —Felicia Day

October "Toby" Daye is finally doing all right—and that inevitably means it's time for things to take a turn for the worse. Someone has kidnapped the sons of the Duchess Dianda Lorden, regent of the Undersea Duchy of Saltmist.

To prevent a war between land and sea, Toby must not only find the missing boys, but also prove that the Queen of the Mists was not behind their abduction. She'll need all her tricks and the help of her allies if she wants to make it through this in one piece.

Toby's search will take her from the streets of San Francisco to the lands beneath the waves. But someone is determined to stop her—and whoever it is isn't playing by Oberon's Laws. As the battle grows more and more personal, one thing is chillingly clear. When Faerie goes to war, not everyone will walk away. 
Publication Date: 09/06/11
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
The Truth of Valor
Tanya Huff
Synopsis: The thrilling final installment in Tanya Huff's military sci-fi adventure Confederation series

Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr was the very model of a Confederation Marine. She’d survived more deadly encounters than anyone in the Corps. No one who’d ever served with her could imagine her walking away from the Corps. But that was before Torin had learned the truth about the war the Confederation was fighting…before she’d been declared dead and had spent time in a prison that shouldn’t exist....
 
It was Salvage Operator Craig Ryder who had refused to believe Torin was dead. Craig who found and rescued Torin. And so, when her mission was complete, Torin resigned from the Marines to start a new life with Craig aboard his tiny salvage ship, the Promise.
 
But civilian life was a lot rougher than Torin had imagined. The salvage operators were losing cargo and lives to pirates. Because salvagers were an independent lot unwilling to turn to the OutSector Wardens for help, no one in authority seemed to take their ever-increasing threat seriously.
 
Then, on their first real run together, pirates attacked the Promise, kidnapping Craig and leaving Torin to die. But leaving Torin behind to die was never a good strategy. Against all odds, she survived, and certain—despite no evidence to prove her correct—that Craig was still alive, she decided to mount a rescue mission. When Craig’s salvager friends refused to join her, Torin had no choice but to call in the Marines—some very special Marines.
 
Then she discovered why the pirates had been trying to kidnap salvagers. And suddenly Torin’s mission expanded from saving Craig to stopping the pirates from changing the balance of power in known space....
Publication Date: 09/06/11
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Coronets and Steel
Sherwood Smith
Synopsis: Too much imagination was tantamount to lying―that’s what my grandmother taught me. So when I first got the sense that someone was following me, I ignored it. Who’d waste time following me?

Me, being Aurelia Kim Murray, a grad student from California with a passion for ballet and fencing, and a hopelessly romantic vision of the world. I had some to Europe to track down my grandparents’ families, but so far I’d had no luck.

I couldn’t explain the sense of urgency that drove me, even to myself. It has begun that day four months ago when my grandmother lay restlessly in her bed, her eyes glittering with fever as she gripped my hand. “Your mother is too gentle,” she’s whispered in her aristocratic Parisian French. “I cannot send her to steal the breach.”

Breach? What breach? With her family? With my grandfather’s family? Neither Mom nor I knew anything about Grandmother’s family or the handsome man in the silver-framed photo that Gran always kept on her bedside table.

“She wouldn’t talk about her life before California,” my mom has said, as we waited in yet another specialist’s office, hoping to find out why, though Gran had recovered from her fever, she had not spoken since.

Nothing had come of my search in Paris, or Vienna, and no matter how fast I walked along the grand boulevards, I knew I couldn’t outpace my sense of failure.

And that’s when I met my first ghost.

But seeing ghosts wasn’t my biggest problem. I was being followed, and I was about to find out more about my lineage than I had ever imagined possible in my wildest, most fanciful dreams…or nightmares.
Publication Date: 09/06/11
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction

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