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The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous
Synopsis:

Thirteen-year-old Merilee Monroe maintains a Very Ordered Existence, VOE for short. As long as she keeps up with her minute-by-minute daily schedule, she can avoid the internal trauma caused by change and spontaneity. So when two very distracting newcomers arrive in town, Merilee does her best to ignore them and stick to her plans. But can even a VOE have some room for friendship?

Publication Date: 04/28/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
A Certain Strain of Peculiar
Synopsis: A teenager journeys from shame to strength when she moves to her grandmother’s farm in a story infused with southern spirit and heart.

This is the last time Mary Harold will have a panic attack at school when kids call her "the grossest girl." If Mom won’t move back to Alabama, her thirteen-year-old daughter will just have to drive herself 691 miles to Grandma Ayma’s farmhouse — and a whole new life. With Ayma’s loving support, Mary Harold is soon strong enough to help Bud, the Cherokee farm manager, wrangle the cows, and confident enough to stand up for his daughter, Dixie, a girl with a strain of peculiar that makes her whinny and stamp like a horse to keep the world at bay. Mary Harold still misses her mom, but has started to have dreams of the Black Warrior Forest that are offering clues. As she listens to their message, and to her own heart, she discovers how powerful and surprising the bonds of family can be.
Publication Date: 04/28/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Flirting With Boys
Hailey Abbott
Synopsis:

How to Run a Resort:

Make ure employees arrive on time with a positive attitude. (check)

Remember that the customer is always ight. (check)

Keep your boyfriend and your most valuable guest from trying to kill each other. (oops)

Celeste Tippen can't imagine a more perfect summer. Her boyfriend, Travis, has a job at her family's resort, which means lots of quality couple time. Unfortunately, she forgot about Nick Saunders, the hot son of the resort's wealthiest customers. Every year, Nick flirts with Celeste, and apparently this year is no different, despite the boyfriend who's watching their every move. She assures Travis that hanging out with the resident bad boy is the last thing she wants to do. If only she believed that herself. . . .

Publication Date: 04/28/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Sloane Sisters
Anna Carey
Synopsis:

Style. Sabotage. Sisterhood.

When Cate and Andie Sloane's Upper East Side dad met Stella and Lola Childs's British-model mom, nobody thought a transatlantic relationship would last. But then their parents drop the M-bomb—marriage—and it looks like Cate, Andie, Stella, and Lola are going to be one big happy family. Well, big anyway. Meet:

Cate Sloane: She dominates the ninth grade at exclusive Ashton Prep. Tantrum-prone and competitive, Cate would rather wear Laura Ashley every day than be second best at anything. Luckily there's not a rival in sight. Yet.

Andie Sloane: Twelve-year-old Andie desperately wants to walk the runway. Her face is flawless, and boys flock to her like love-struck sheep. There's just one leetle problem: She's only 4' 11". But with a new supermodel stepmom, she'll be voguing in no time. Right?

Stella Childs: With her take-charge attitude and a closet full of supermodel swag, Stella was the It Girl at her London middle school. She's determined to rule Ashton Prep—even if that means dethroning the current queen bee. Can you say British Invasion?

Lola Childs: London boys called gawky Lola "Sticks," but she's got a new mission in Manhattan: boyfriend or bust! With the help of her boy-magnet stepsister, Lola sets her sights on supercute Kyle Lewis. Too bad Kyle's only got eyes for . . . Andie.

Publication Date: 04/28/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
The Other Side of Magic
Marcia Thornton Jones, Debbie Dadey
Synopsis:

This Other Side of Magic is the second in a series of light fantasy chapter books set in Morgantown, a town on the border between the real world and the magical world, by the authors of the Publishers Weekly best selling BAILEY SCHOOL KIDS―a series of 50 books with more than 30 million copies sold!

"I need your help, Natalie," Mr. Leery said. "Yours and Penny's and Luke's."

Natalie is surprised to learn from her neighbor, Mr. Leery, that her classmates Penny and Luke are apprentice Keyholders. A Keyholder's job is to guard the border between the real world and the magical world. Natalie is even more surprised when she finds out that she could be a Keyholder too―if she forms a "link" with a rat named Buttercup.

Will Natalie choose to join the Keyholders? Can she, Penny, and Luke learn how to work together with their links and protect the border from the goblins sent by the evil Queen of the Boggarts?

Publication Date: 04/28/09
Age Level: 5 - 8
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Deep in the Heart of High School
Synopsis: Vanna Reynolds was popular and happy back in Plano, Texas, but now she lives with her mother in a tiny apartment in San Antonio. How can she start her freshman year as a complete nobody? Fatima Garcia does well in school and helps out with her family’s construction business, but is worried about her weight. So she’s thrilled when a junior starts paying attention to her – but is he really interested in Fatima? Olivia Silverstein tries to make life easier for her mother. Ever since her father died two years ago, she’s been the perfect daughter. When will she get to have her own life? When Vanna, Fatima, and Olivia meet at band practice in August, they quickly become best friends. Together, they are ready to tackle the matters of the heart that await them, deep in the heart of high school.

Written with verve and touches of humor, the voices in this first novel ring with authenticity.
Publication Date: 04/27/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Camilla
Madeleine L'Engle
Synopsis: Fifteen-year-old Camilla Dickinson has led a sheltered life on the Upper East Side with her architect father and stunningly beautiful mother. But this winter the security she has always known has vanished, because her parents’ marriage is coming apart – and Camilla is caught in the middle. She finds a way to escape her troubles when she meets Frank, her best friend’s brother, who is someone she can really talk to about life, death, God, and her dream of becoming an astronomer. When Frank introduces her to the important people in his life, who are so different from anyone she has met before, he opens her eyes to worlds beyond her own, almost as if he were a telescope helping her to see the stars.

This novel, one of the author’s earliest, is the story of a girl who, with the help of her first love, leaves childhood behind and enters adulthood with a newfound sense of self and inner strength.
Publication Date: 04/27/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Heartbreak River
Tricia Mills
Synopsis: Spending the summer working their family's rafting business and trying to come to terms with the death of her father, Alex's life is thrown for a loop when Sean comes back into town and rekindles their romance that she thought was long over.
Publication Date: 04/16/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Escape Under the Forever Sky
Synopsis: Loosely based on real-life events, this suspenseful story, by a debut novelist, is also funny and touching and will have readers riveted from start to finish. Lucy's mother is the U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia, so Lucy's life must be one big adventure, right? Wrong. Lucy's worrywart mother keeps her locked up inside the ambassador's residence. All Lucy can do is read about the exotic and exciting world that lies beyond the compound walls and imagine what it would be like to be a part of it. That is, until one day Lucy decides she has had enough and she and a friend sneak off for some fun. But to their horror, Lucy gets kidnapped! With only herself to rely upon, Lucy must use her knowledge of African animals, inventiveness, will, and courage to escape, and in the process embarks on an adventure beyond her wildest imagination.
Publication Date: 04/15/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Without Sin
J. Tomas
Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Jacob Smithson has a temper. He's picked on because he likes boys, and fighting gets him kicked out of public school. As a last resort, his parents place him in St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Boarding School for Boys. At his first mass at St. Thomas he sees Avery Dendritch, a senior who serves as altar boy during the service. When they meet, the attraction between them is hard to deny. The two become fast friends, and as the school year progresses, their friendship deepens until Jacob feels he's found a place where he belongs. But the other students gossip about their growing relationship. Avery can ignore them; Jacob can't. As the rumors and slurs start up again, can he curb his temper, or will his fighting get him expelled from St. Thomas, too?
Publication Date: 04/15/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
The Diamonds
Ted Michael
Synopsis: At Long Islands’s private Bennington School, the Diamonds rule supreme. They’re the girls all the boys want to date and all the girls want to be. And fortunately for Marni, she’s right in the middle of them. Best friends with the ringleader, Clarissa, Marni enjoys all the spoils of the ultrapopular: boys, power, and respect. But then Marni gets a little too close to Clarissa’s ex-boyfriend, Anderson.

Wrong move. The Diamonds don’t touch each other’s exes.

And just like that, Marni is jettisoned from Diamond to lower than Cubic Zirconia.

But Marni isn’t about to take her ouster lying down. She has dirt on the Diamonds, and she’s not about to go down without a fight. Everyone knows, the only thing strong enough to cut a Diamond is another Diamond.

Ted Michael is a literary agent and first time novelist. He lives in New York, New York.
Publication Date: 04/14/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Summerhouse Time
Eileen Spinelli, Joanne Lew-Vriethoff
Synopsis: Every year a rented pink cottage full of family, swapping stories, and riding waves mean Summerhouse Time for Sophie. Best of all is sharing a room with her favorite cousin and laughing and trading secrets like two happy peas in a cousin pod. Sophie can't wait! But when she asks the now-a-teenager Colleen if she's looking forward to their time together, Colleen just says "I guess so."

What? It's the best time of the year, the time they both love. In just a little bit, they will all be together in the cottage on the beach. Will this year be just as wonderful, just like always?

Accompanied by charming black-and-white illustrations, classic growingup experiences radiate throughout the pages of this sunny, anytime story.


From the Hardcover edition.
Publication Date: 04/14/09
Age Level: 8 - 12
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Cashay
Margaret McMullan
Synopsis: In her fourteen years living in a Chicago housing project, Cashay has never ridden in a taxi cab, seen the city lit up at night, or set foot in a museum. She’s not pretty, or graceful, or bubbly like her little sister, Sashay. She gets her family by on a couple of dollars and food stamps every week.

No, Cashay has never felt much like a treasure. “Your name doesn’t signify who you are,” Cashay tells her sister.

But that was before Sashay was killed. Before her mother started using again. Before her mentor, Allison, showed Cashay a bigger piece of the world, and encouraged her to finally, finally step into it.

A name may not signify who you are, but in this poignant coming of age story by acclaimed writer Margaret McMullan, readers will find that indeed, Cashay is an exception to her own rule.
Publication Date: 04/06/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters
Synopsis:

It’s the end of junior year, and summer is about to begin. The Summer of Passion, to be exact, when Jory Michaels plans to explore all the possibilities of the future—and, with any luck, score a boyfriend in the process. But Jory has a problem. A big problem. A curvy, honking, bumpy, problem in the form of her Super Schnozz, the one thing standing between Jory and happiness. And now, with the Summer of Passion stretched before her like an open road, she's determined for Super Schnozz to disappear. Jory takes a job delivering wedding cakes to save up for a nose job at the end of the summer; she even keeps a book filled with magazine cutouts of perfect noses to show the doctor. But nothing is ever easy for accident-prone Jory—and before she knows it, her Summer of Passion falls apart faster than the delivery van she crashes. In this hilarious and heartbreaking novel, Sydney Salter delivers a story about broadening your horizons, accepting yourself, and finding love right under your nose.

Publication Date: 04/06/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Looking For J J
Anne Cassidy
Synopsis: Three children walked away from the cottages on the edge of town toward Berwick Waters. Later that day, only two of them came back. . . . Alice Tully knows exactly what happened that spring day six years ago, though it's still hard for her to believe it. She'll never be able to forget, even though she's trying to lead a normal life--she has a job, friends, and a boyfriend whom she adores. But Alice's past is dangerous, and violent, and sad . . . and it's about to rip her new life apart. Includes a reader's guide.
Publication Date: 04/06/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Manolito Four-Eyes
Emilio Urberuaga, Elvira Lindo
Synopsis: The unforgettable Manolito Four-Eyes is back. So are his equally unforgettable family and friends, including the Bozo (his favorite and only little brother), Big Ears (his best friend, even though he’s a dog traitor), Ozzy (the biggest bully in the worldwide world), and his grandfather (Manolito’s unconditional ally).
Publication Date: 04/01/09
Age Level: 8 - 12
Genre: Juvenile Fiction

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