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Eagle Strike
Anthony Horowitz
Synopsis: Alex Rider will soon be a star in his very own TV series! 

A New York Times bestselling series. 

Millions adore him.  A philanthropist.  Anti-drug crusader.  Peace activist.  And former pop star the likes of which the world has never seen.  Sir Damian Cray even has the president's car.  Yet the president's car is not enough for Damian-he wants more.  Such as the president's fingerprints.  So he can manipulate computer systems only the President of the United States has access to.  So he can launch nuclear missiles.  From aboard Air Force One.  All in the name of peace...So what if a few million lives are lost in the process?

 

Teen spy Alex Rider survives a bullfight, a high-speed bicycle chase through Amsterdam, and even being the target in a human video-game, only to face his most disturbing challenge yet: when the best of intentions are driven by insanity, how do you reason with a madman?

Publication Date: 07/18/25
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Lion Boy
Zizou Corder
Synopsis: In the near future, ten-year-old Charlie Ashanti, who has the ability to speak the language of cats, sets out from London to seek his kidnapped parents and finds himself on a Paris-bound circus ship learning to train lions. 75,000 first printing.
Publication Date: 12/29/03
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Lord of the Flies
E. L. Epstein, William Golding
Synopsis: Golding’s iconic 1954 novel, now with a new foreword by Lois Lowry, remains one of the greatest books ever written for young adults and an unforgettable classic for readers of any age.
 
This edition includes a new Suggestions for Further Reading by Jennifer Buehler.

At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from civilization they can do anything they want. Anything. But as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued.
Publication Date: 12/16/03
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Most Unusual Adventures of Black Shadow Smokey
Synopsis:
Publication Date: 12/01/03
Age Level: 5 - 8
Genre: Fiction
A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens
Synopsis: • This e-book publication is unique which includes exclusive Introduction, Historical Background and handcrafted additional content. • This edition also includes detailed Biography, Notes, Criticisms and Interpretations. • A new table of contents with working links has been included by a publisher. • This edition has been corrected for spelling and grammatical errors.
Publication Date: 11/05/03
Age Level: Any Age
Genre: Fiction
Cry, the Beloved Country
Synopsis: An Oprah Book Club selection, Cry, the Beloved Country, the most famous and important novel in South Africa’s history, was an immediate worldwide bestseller in 1948. Alan Paton’s impassioned novel about a black man’s country under white man’s law is a work of searing beauty.

Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.

The eminent literary critic Lewis Gannett wrote, “We have had many novels from statesmen and reformers, almost all bad; many novels from poets, almost all thin. In Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country the statesman, the poet and the novelist meet in a unique harmony.”

Cry, the Beloved Country is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son, Absalom, set against the background of a land and a people riven by racial injustice. Remarkable for its lyricism, unforgettable for character and incident, Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic work of love and hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man.
Publication Date: 11/01/03
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Beast
Walter Dean Myers
Synopsis: One of today's premier novelists brings his fiction back to Scholastic Press with a powerful and haunting love story.

17-yr-old Anthony "Spoon" Witherspoon is returning to Harlem after seven months at an exclusive prep school. It's with mixed feelings that he's left New York City in the first place to finish high school in the hallowed halls of the mostly white, very preppy New England school -- but now that Spoon is back home, he realizes how much he's come to like his prep-school life and new friends. He's missed his girlfriend, though, and is shocked to discover upon his return that the bright young poet she was when he left has become a drug addict.
Publication Date: 10/01/03
Age Level: Mature Young Adult
Genre: Fiction
A Separate Peace
John Knowles
Synopsis: An American classic and great bestseller for over thirty years, A Separate Peace is timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to World War II.

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.

Set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.
Publication Date: 09/30/03
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Firebirds
Meredith Ann Pierce, Nancy Springer, Sherwood Smith, Patricia A. McKillip, Lloyd Alexander, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Garth Nix, Sharyn November, Nancy Farmer, Emma Bull Diana Wynne Jones
Synopsis: Sixteen original stories showcase some of the genre's most admired authors, including multiple award-winners Diana Wynne Jones, Garth Nix, Lloyd Alexander, Nancy Farmer, and Meredith Ann Pierce.
Publication Date: 09/29/03
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Loamhedge
Brian Jacques
Synopsis: A latest Redwall adventure explores the mysteries of the Abbey's ancient origins when it is realized that wheelchair-bound Martha might be cured by a formula buried at the deserted Loamhedge, a quest that is complicated by an attack by the Searats. 150,000 first printing.
Publication Date: 09/29/03
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Jacob Have I Loved
Katherine Paterson
Synopsis:

The remarkable Newbery-winning classic about a painful sibling rivalry, and one sister’s struggle to make her own way.  

Sara Louise Bradshaw is sick and tired of her beautiful twin Caroline. Ever since they were born, Caroline has been the pretty one, the talented one, the better sister. Even now, Caroline seems to take everything: Louise's friends, their parents' love, her dreams for the future.

For once in her life, Louise wants to be the special one. But in order to do that, she must first figure out who she is . . . and find a way to make a place for herself outside her sister's shadow.

Publication Date: 09/02/03
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Guitar Highway Rose
Brigid Lowry
Synopsis: Two fifteen-year-olds, Rosie and Asher, upset over the various unhappy circumstances of their lives in the Australian city of Perth, decide to run away, in a tale that explores the emotional roller coaster of adolescence.
Publication Date: 09/01/03
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Amulet of Samarkand
Jonathan Stroud
Synopsis: Presenting a thrilling new voice in children's literature-a witty, gripping adventure story featuring a boy and his not-so-tame djinni. Nathaniel is a young magician's apprentice, taking his first lessons in the arts of magic. But when a devious hotshot wizard named Simon Lovelace ruthlessly humiliates Nathaniel in front of everyone he knows, Nathaniel decides to kick up his education a few notches and show Lovelace who's boss. With revenge on his mind, he masters one of the toughest spells of all: summoning the all-powerful djinni, Bartimaeus. But summoning Bartimaeus and controlling him are two different things entirely, and when Nathaniel sends the djinni out to steal the powerful Amulet of Samarkand, Nathaniel finds himself caught up in a whirlwind of magical espionage, murder, blackmail, and revolt. Set in a modern-day London spiced with magicians and mayhem, this extraordinary, funny, pitch-perfect thriller will dazzle the myriad fans of Artemis Fowl and the His Dark Materials trilogy. And with the rights sold in more than a dozen countries, and a major motion picture in the works, the Bartimaeus trilogy is on the fast track to becoming a classic.
Publication Date: 09/01/03
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Tale of Despereaux
Timothy Basil Ering, Kate DiCamillo
Synopsis: The beloved author of BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE enlightens us with a tale of adventure, despair, love, and soup.

Welcome to the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse who is in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in the darkness and covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl who harbors a simple, impossible wish. These three characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering castle, and, ultimately, into each other’s lives. And what happens then? As Kate DiCamillo would say: Reader, it is your destiny to find out.

From the master storyteller who brought us BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE comes another classic, a fairy tale full of quirky, unforgettable characters, featuring twenty-four stunning black-and-white illustrations by Timothy Basil Ering, in an elegant design that pays tribute to the best in classic children’s books and bookmaking traditions.
Publication Date: 08/25/03
Age Level: Any Age
Genre: Fiction
Mike and a Lynx Named Kitty
Karen Vitt, Mike Kerr
Synopsis: Mike Kerr pens a story based on his boyhood experiences in a commercial fishing village in Kodiak, Alaska. On this forested island surrounded by ocean where whales frolic offshore, Mike builds his own campsite to practice outdoor survival skills. He discovers a lynx kitten and cares for it when it becomes orphaned. Torn between his love for the animal and allowing it to remain wild, Mike learns respect for nature balancing it with humanity when he allows the animal to roam free. A long and cherished friendship develops between animal and boy with experiences that build love and trust between them.

Mike's story describes many fun and interesting experiences about life in rural Alaska including:
wilderness camping
living among the wildlife on land and sea
respect for the environment
outdoor survival skills
the challenges of commercial fishing

Illustration copyright 2006 Karen Vitt

Publication Date: 07/29/03
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Mill on the Floss
George Eliot
Synopsis: Misunderstood Maggie Tulliver is torn. Her rebellious and passionate nature demands expression, while her provincial kin and community expect self-denial. Based closely on the author's own life, Maggie's story explores the conflicts of love and loyalty and the friction between desire and moral responsibility. Written in 1860, The Mill on the Floss was published to instant popularity. An accurate, evocative depiction of English rural life, this compelling narrative features a vivid and realistic cast, headed by one of 19th-century literature's most appealing characters. Required reading for most students, it ranks prominently among the great Victorian novels.
Publication Date: 07/25/03
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction

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