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Two Moon Princess
Carmen Ferreiro-Esteban
Synopsis: A Spanish Princess. An American Boy. A King set on revenge. An unrequited love and a disturbing family secret bring a World to the brink of War. Wishing to be the heir her father the king has always wanted, Princess Andrea trains to become a knight. But the king laughs at her efforts and sends her to her mother to be made into a lady. Andrea sulks. She finds the ladies’ company boring, their manners puzzling. To make matters worse, the queen, offended by Andrea’s behavior, forbids her to attend the ball that her sister claims will change her mind. Andrea has had enough, and when that very night she learns of the existence of a parallel universe, she leaves her parents’ castle and crosses the door into another world: present day California. Andrea loves the freedom of California and plans to stay there forever, but when, accidentally, returns to her world with the Californian boy he fancies, she starts a chain of events that brings war to her kingdom. Her well-intended but somehow foolish attempts to stop the war and keep her love interest alive, will have unexpected consequences that will challenge her beliefs and change her forever.
Publication Date: 09/21/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Dragonhaven
Robin McKinley
Synopsis: When Jake Mendoza, who lives in the Smokehill National Park where his father runs the Makepeace Institute of Integrated Dragon Studies, goes on his first solo overnight in the park, he finds an infant dragon whose mother has been killed by a poacher.
Publication Date: 09/20/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Hot Hand: Mike Lupica's Comeback Kids
Synopsis:

#1 New York Times bestseller Mike Lupica scores from downtown with his Comeback Kids series for young middle-grade readers.

It's simple. All Billy Raynor wants to do is shoot. After all, he is one of the best shooters in the league. But with his dad as his coach, and his parents newly separated, somehow everything's become complicated. His brother Ben, the piano prodigy, hardly talks anymore. His mom is always traveling on business. And his dad is always on his case about not being a team player. But when Ben's piano recital falls on the same day as the championship game, it is Billy who teaches his dad the true meaning of being a team player.

Praise for the Comeback Kids:
 
“Lupica portrays the action clearly and vividly, with a real sense of the excitement and unpredictable nature of the games. These are worthy additions to collections seeking to draw in middle-grade boys with an enthusiasm for athletics.” –School Library Journal
 
“These should score big with middle-graders looking for alternatives to Matt Christopher's titles.” –Publisher’s Weekly
 
“This title is a good choice for reluctant readers with a background in baseball.” –School Library Journal
 

Publication Date: 09/20/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Two-Minute Drill: Mike Lupica's Comeback Kids
Synopsis: #1 New York Times bestseller Mike Lupica pays tribute to the underdog in his Comeback Kids series for young middle-grade readers

Chris Conlan is the coolest kid in sixth grade–the golden-armed quarterback of the football team, and the boy all the others look up to. Scott Parry is the new kid, the boy with the huge brain, but with feet that trip over themselves daily. These two boys may seem like an odd couple, but each has a secret that draws them together as friends, and proves that the will to succeed is even more important than raw talent.

Mike Lupica scores from downtown with his Comeback Kids series.
 
Praise for the Comeback Kids:
 
“Lupica portrays the action clearly and vividly, with a real sense of the excitement and unpredictable nature of the games. These are worthy additions to collections seeking to draw in middle-grade boys with an enthusiasm for athletics.” –School Library Journal
 
“These should score big with middle-graders looking for alternatives to Matt Christopher's titles.” –Publisher’s Weekly
 
“This title is a good choice for reluctant readers with a background in baseball.” –School Library Journal
 

Publication Date: 09/20/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Freak
Marcella Pixley
Synopsis:

For Miriam Fisher, a budding poet who reads the Oxford English Dictionary for fun, seventh grade is a year etched in her memory "clear as pain." That's the year her older sister, Deborah, once her best buddy and fellow "alien," bloomed like a beautiful flower and joined the high school in-crowd. That's the year high school senior Artie Rosenberg, the "hottest guy in the drama club" and, Miriam thinks, her soul mate, comes to live with Miriam's family. And that's the year the popular "watermelon girls" turn up the heat in their cruel harassment of Miriam--ripping her life wide open in shocking, unexpected ways. Teased and taunted in school, Miriam is pushed toward breaking, until, in a gripping climax, she finds the inner strength to prove she's a force to be reckoned with.


This riveting first novel introduces readers to an unforgettable heroine, an outsider who dares to confront the rigid conformity of junior high, and in the process manages not only to save herself but to inspire and transform others.

Publication Date: 09/18/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You
Synopsis: It’s time for eighteen-year-old James Sveck to begin his freshman year at Brown. Instead, he’s surfing the real estate listings, searching for a sanctuary—a nice farmhouse in Kansas, perhaps. Although James lives in twenty-first-century Manhattan, he’s more at home in the faraway worlds of Eric Rohmer or Anthony Trollope—or his favorite writer, the obscure and tragic Denton Welch. James’s sense of dislocation is exacerbated by his willfully self-absorbed parents, a disdainful sister, his Teutonically cryptic shrink, and an increasingly vague, D-list celebrity grandmother. Compounding matters is James’s growing infatuation with a handsome male colleague at the art gallery his mother owns, where James supposedly works at his summer job but where he actually plots his escape to the prairie.
 
In the tradition of The Catcher in the Rye and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Booklist has hailed Cameron as “one of the best writers about middle-class youth since Salinger”), Peter Cameron paints an indelible portrait of a teenage hero holding out for a better grownup world.  Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is a 2008 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
Publication Date: 09/18/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Iron Thunder
C. B. Mordan, Avi
Synopsis:

When his father is killed fighting for the Union in the War Between the States, thirteen-year-old Tom Carroll must take a job to help support his family. He manages to find work at a bustling ironworks in his hometown of Brooklyn, New York, where dozens of men are frantically pounding together the strangest ship Tom has ever seen.  A ship made of iron.

Tom becomes assistant to the ship’s inventor, a gruff, boastful man named Captain John Ericsson. He soon learns that the Union army has very important plans for this iron ship called the Monitor. It is supposed to fight the Confederate “sea monster”--another ironclad--the Merrimac. But Ericsson is practically the only person who believes the Monitor will float. Everyone else calls it “Ericsson’s Folly” or “the iron coffin.”


Meanwhile, Tom’s position as Ericsson’s assistant has made him a target of Confederate spies, who offer him money for information about the ship. Tom finds himself caught between two certain dangers: an encounter with murderous spies and a battle at sea in an iron coffin …
   
Publication Date: 09/18/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Big Slick
Eric Luper
Synopsis: All in all, sixteen-year-old Andrew Lang has been dealt a pretty good hand in life. Sure, he has to spend his afternoons slaving away in the hellhole that is his dad's dry-cleaning business, but even that's not so bad with Jasmine, the seriously hot Goth-chick senior, working right beside him. So what if she's got a boyfriend? Plus, Andrew's got an ace up his sleeve - he's good at poker. Very good. Unfortunately, all it takes is one bad beat at Shushie's illegal poker club to turn Andrew's bankroll from huge to nonexistent. And Andrew's pretty sure that sooner or later his dad's going to notice that $600 he "borrowed" from the register. Andrew thinks he may know how to get the money back, but it's a little bit crazy, and a little bit dangerous . . .
 
In this breakneck-paced novel about gambling and growing up, the stakes are high, and Andrew must ask himself: What does going all in really mean?
Publication Date: 09/18/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Operation Red Jericho
Benjamin Mowll, Julek Heller, Niroot Puttapipat, Joshua Mowll
Synopsis: "THE DA VINCI CODE meets Alex Rider in this adventure story of secret societies, scientific discoveries, and Chinese pirates." — BULLETIN OF THE CENTER FOR CHILDREN'S BOOKS

Two teens, a shadowy mission, and no turning back. . . . This lavish 1920s journal kicks off a three-part series recounting the adventures of two intrepid siblings tracking their parents’ disappearance. Starting aboard their uncle’s research ship, the saga moves at a breathless pace through the streets of Shanghai and on to a terrifying island fortress. Chinese mercenaries, a hateful pirate warlord, and a highminded secret society all play a part in a thrilling tale of intrigue packed with nonstop action and novelty features.

A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age

An Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Award Winner
Publication Date: 09/13/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Synopsis: Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.

Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by Ellen Forney that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live.

With a forward by Markus Zusak, interviews with Sherman Alexie and Ellen Forney, and four-color interior art throughout, this edition is perfect for fans and collectors alike.
Publication Date: 09/12/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Hollywood Sisters: Caught on Tape
Synopsis: JEREMY. :) ALEX. :( HEATHCLIFF?
Now that we're living in Hollywood, Eva thinks anything is possible - including casting the part of my boyfriend! As for the players: one's an actor (bad sign), one's a snobby rich kid (worse sign), and one doesn't even exist (stop sign). Guess who my sister picked?
Publication Date: 09/11/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Wyvernhail
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Synopsis: HAI HAS ALWAYS been an outsider. With a falcon mother and a deceased cobra father, she is considered a mongrel by most, an ally by some, and a friend by few. Hai's broken falcon wings are a painful reminder of the life she once led on the island of Ahnmik. And here in Wyvern's Court, the avian and serpiente royal family keep their distance, refusing to acknowledge her cobra bloodline. They know that Hai's magic is so volatile, she can barely control it, and images of the past and future threaten to overwhelm her.

When Hai's cousin, Oliza Shardae Cobriana, abdicates the throne of Wyvern's Court, Hai has visions only of destruction: the serpiente king Salem, dying in her arms; the dutiful guard, Nicias, unable to save a generation of children; and Wyvern's Court engulfed in flames.

Now Hai will do anything to protect her new home - even if it means betraying the very people who need her most.
Publication Date: 09/11/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Red Glass
Laura Resau
Synopsis: ONE NIGHT SOPHIE and her parents are called to a hospital where Pedro, 6-year-old Mexican boy, is recovering from dehydration. Crossing the border into Arizona with a group of Mexicans and a coyote, or guide, Pedro and his parents faced such harsh conditions that the boy is the only survivor. Pedro comes to live with Sophie, her parents, and Sophie's Aunt Dika, a refugee of the war in Bosnia. Sophie loves Pedro - her Principito, or Little Prince. But after a year, Pedro's surviving family in Mexico makes contact, and Sophie, Dika, Dika's new boyfriend, and his son must travel with Pedro to his hometown so that he can make a heartwrenching decision.
Publication Date: 09/11/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
What They Found...Love on 145th Street
Synopsis: WALTER DEAN MYERS returns to the world of 145th Street: Short Stories to show how love can be found, and thrive, in the most unlikely places. Curtis finds love in Iraq as he struggles to stay alive in a war he doesn't want to fight, and Letha discovers her own beauty in the love of her child. There is the "good daughter" who realizes that there's only one way to help her brother and her family. Other stories center on the daily drama of the Curl-E-Que beauty shop, or capture the slapstick side of passion.
Publication Date: 09/11/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Second Virginity of Suzy Green
Synopsis:

Suzy Green used to be one of the coolest nonconformist “almost-Goth” party girls in Australia. That was before her older sister Rosie died and her family moved to a new town. Not even her best friend would recognize her now. Gone are the Doc Martens and the attitude. All she wants is to be like Rosie―perfect. The new Suzy Green makes straight As, hangs with the in-crowd at her new school, and dates the hottest guy around. And since all her new friends belong to a virginity club, she joins, too. So what if she’s not technically qualified? Nobody in town knows . . . until Ryan, Suzy’s ex, turns up.

As the past and present collide, Suzy struggles to find her own place in a world without her sister.

Publication Date: 09/08/07
Age Level: Mature Young Adult
Genre: Fiction
Little (Grrl) Lost
Charles de Lint
Synopsis: Forced to move to the suburbs, fourteen-year-old TJ, leaving her only friend behind, finds an unexpected ally in "Little," a six-inch-high punked-out teen with a big attitude who is searching for a place in this world.
Publication Date: 09/06/07
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction

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