
On Orbis 2, Johnny Turnbull has a new home and a new job, one that pushes his softwire abilities to painful limits. JT is the only one who can communicate with the Samirans, large aquatic aliens who have cooled the crystals on Orbis for nearly two thousand rotations. But as the Samirans’ work rule ostensibly comes to a close, they have grown dangerously agitated, and JT must find out why. What he learns is that the prosperity of Orbis is built on a brutal system of enforced labor — and that everyone seems to have something to hide. Can JT appease the Samirans before their threat is realized? And if he doesn’t, will his friends survive? In this second episode of THE SOFTWIRE, PJ Haarsma takes readers on another lightning-paced, cyber-fueled ride through the amazing universe he introduced in THE SOFTWIRE: VIRUS ON ORBIS 1.

Cute girl wizard Lucy wants to join the Fairy Tail, a club for the most powerful wizards. But instead, her ambitions land her in the clutches of a gang of unsavory pirates led by a devious magician. Her only hope is Natsu, a strange boy she happens to meet on her travels. Natsu’s not your typical hero–he gets motion sickness, eats like a pig, and his best friend is a talking cat. With friends like this, is Lucy better off with her enemies?

Possessing an awesome power he is only beginning to understand, young Jair Ohmsford must summon the devastating yet darkly seductive magic of the wishsong on a fateful mission to save his friends . . . and protect the future from the forces of evil.
If you’ve never ventured into the wondrous world of Shannara, consider this an ideal opportunity. Prepare to enter the breathtaking realm of the Four Lands, where beings both noble and sinister have quested and clashed, crossed swords in the names of darkness and light, and engaged in adventures rich with mystery and majesty.
“Terry’s place is at the head of the fantasy world.”
–Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass

In Firestorm, the first book of the Caretaker Trilogy, seventeen-year-old Jack Danielson saved the world’s oceans, but at great personal cost – his parents were killed and everything he knew and believed in was turned upside down. Now Jack has come home to see P.J., his girlfriend and sole remaining touchstone. But she’s missing, and blame falls on Jack. On the run with Gisco, his crafty canine sidekick, Jack is literally caught up in a whirlwind as he travels to the heart of darkness to rescue P.J. – a journey that will bring him face-to-face with the father of his old nemesis, the colonel, aka the Dark Lord from the future. Jack’s quest becomes all the more complicated as he discovers that the only person who can stop the Dark Lord is another time traveler, the wizard Kidah, who has disappeared in the present.
Book 2 of the Caretaker Trilogy mixes heart-racing adventure with an urgent ecological warning about the fragility of the world’s rain forests and the importance of respect for indigenous peoples. Readers will be drawn into the vortex of the quest—whether or not they’re familiar with Book 1.

NOT EVERYONE SEES THE WORLD THROUGH THE SAME LENS. From the author of Something Invisible comes this funny and poignant novel about the hues of friendship.
Spunky Olivia and eccentric Hal are an unlikely pair. While Hal suffers from a neurological condition called synesthesia that causes him to associate things with colors, Olivia tends to see the world in black and white. Still, these two are friends through thick and thin, through rose-colored days and blue days, even when Hal’s plan to get rid of his mother’s boyfriend backfires by driving his mother away. Olivia’s honest, funny and always-opinionated voice tells this story with colorful perception.


A rip-roaring pirate romance and mystery
In a world where infants with magical powers are torn from their parents to be raised by the mysterious and powerful Danisoba, who have a monopoly on magic, Kestrel has managed to keep her abilities concealed―and herself free. First hiding in back alleys as a street urchin, she hid when they killed her parents, and then served as a young tavern maid before escaping to sea, where magic is cancelled by water.
Now an adult, as the quartermaster of a pirate ship, Kestrel loves the freedom of living on the seas. But her way of life could end if anyone on board learns her closely guarded secret―that she has magical control over the wind.
One day a black ship appears, and her life changes. Its captain is a handsome rogue of whom Kestrel is strangely, constantly aware.
When Kestrel's captain is led into a trap and is arrested, she gathers her crew and sets sail in relentless pursuit. . . .

I look at the clock: 4:23 a.m. In approximately three hours I have to wake up again to go to school, and I haven't even gone to sleep yet. How can I possibly care about pop quizzes, bad hair days, and beauty makeovers now that I've found a major clue to the true identity of my missing father?
IDENTIFYING DATA
Subject: Portia Avatar -- Girl Psychoanalytic Detective
Background material: Twelve years old. Lives with earth mom, Indigo, and gray-and-white cat (who thinks he's a dog) named Frederick. To date, Portia does not know the whereabouts of her mysterious father, Patch.
Recent developments: An earthquake shakes up Portia's sleepy hometown of Palmville, California. A photograph of Patch is uncovered. Portia's life, as she knows it, is about to change forever.





H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines has entertained generations of readers since its first publication in 1885. Following a mysterious map of dubious reliability, a small group of men trek into southern Africa in search of a lost friend-and a lost treasure, the fabled mines of King Solomon. Led by the English adventurer and fortune hunter Allan Quartermain, they discover a frozen corpse, survive untold dangers in remote mountains and deserts, and encounter the merciless King Twala en route to the legendary hoard of diamonds.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

It is London through the looking glass, an urban Wonderland of strange delights where all the lost and broken things of London end up . . . and some of its lost and broken people, too–including Brokkenbroll, boss of the broken umbrellas; Obaday Fing, a tailor whose head is an enormous pin-cushion, and an empty milk carton called Curdle. Un Lun Dun is a place where words are alive, a jungle lurks behind the door of an ordinary house, carnivorous giraffes stalk the streets, and a dark cloud dreams of burning the world. It is a city awaiting its hero, whose coming was prophesied long ago, set down for all time in the pages of a talking book.
When twelve-year-old Zanna and her friend Deeba find a secret entrance leading out of London and into this strange city, it seems that the ancient prophecy is coming true at last. But then things begin to go shockingly wrong.
From the Hardcover edition.

Updated for today's young readers, this action-packed series allows readers to jump right into their very own fantasy adventure.

One day while going through boxes of her father’s boyhood stuff, she comes upon a rare old set of dragon puzzles … all of which are missing pieces. Her grandmother recalls the fantastic tales Shy's father would tell about his travels to lands of dragons and adventure. She always thought that these fantasies were inspired by the puzzles Shy has found.
Shy realizes that by mixing and matching the different sets she can complete a single dragon puzzle that combines all of the others. Upon doing so she is whisked away to ancient Babylon where she must continue the duties of her father’s legacy as a servant to the dragon and a savior of the world.