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Brutal
Michael Harmon
Synopsis: With her martyr-doctor mother gone to save lives in some South American country, Poe Holly suddenly finds herself on the suburban doorstep of the father she never knew, who also happens to be a counselor at her new high school. She misses Los Angeles. She misses the guys in her punk band. Weirdly, she even misses the shouting matches she used to have with her mom.

But Poe manages to find a few friends: Theo, the cute guy in the anarchy Tshirt, and Velveeta, her oddly likeable neighbor—and a born victim who’s the butt of every prank at Benders High. But when the pranks turn deadly at the hands of invincible football star Colby Morris, Poe knows she’s got to fix the system and take down the hero.

With insightfulness, spot-on dialogue, and a swiftly paced plot, Michael Harmon tells the story of a displaced girl grappling with a truly dangerous bully.
Publication Date: 03/10/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Fate
Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Synopsis: For the past two years, Bailey Morgan has lived a double life: high school student by day, ancient mystical being by night. As the third Fate, Bailey literally controls the fate of the world, but as Plain Old Bailey, her life is falling apart. She’s got a tattoo that was supposed to be temporary (but isn’t), friendships that were supposed to last forever (but might not), and no idea what her future holds after high school graduation.

Then Bailey meets the rest of the Sidhe, an ancient race defined by their power, beauty, and a sinister habit of getting what they want at any cost. Before Bailey knows it, she’s being drawn into an otherworldly web more complicated than anything she weaves as a mortal Fate.
Publication Date: 03/10/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Highway to Hell
Rosemary Clement-Moore
Synopsis: Maggie Quinn was expecting to find plenty of trouble with Lisa over Spring Break. Give a girl a bikini, a beachfront hotel, and an absent boyfriend, and it’s as good as a road map to the dark side. But Maggie doesn’t have to go looking for trouble. Trouble has started looking for her. One dead cow and a punctured gas tank later, she and Lisa are stuck in
Dulcina, Texas—a town so small that it has an owner. And lately life in this small town hasn’t been all that peaceful. An eerie predator is stalking the ranchland.

Everyone in town has a theory, but not even Maggie’s psychic mojo can provide any answers. And the longer the girls are stranded, the more obvious it becomes that something is seriously wrong. Only no one—not even Maggie’s closest ally—wants to admit that they could have been forced on a detour down the highway to hell.
Publication Date: 03/10/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Surface Tension
Brent Runyon
Synopsis: The cottage on the lake is always the same, but Luke is changing. At thirteen he’s excited. At fourteen he’s cool. At fifteen he’s pissed off. At sixteen he’s in love.

Through four summers’ worth of trips to the emergency room, campfires and house fires, parties and feuds with neighbors, Luke is doing his best to navigate life. He makes discoveries, makes mistakes, freaks out, and comes to see things in a new light.

Brent Runyon has crafted a remarkable portrait of a boy at four distinct points in his life and literally shows us his coming of age. It’s a story that explores what is ever-changing and what is timeless, and how we are shaped by both the people and places we love.
Publication Date: 03/10/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
The Hollywood Sisters: Truth or Dare
Synopsis: Only in L.A. would a school internship involve celebrity guest stars and hitting your mark. Acting is not my thing (can you say shy spasm?) . . . but mysteries are. I’m working as an extra on my sister’s latest movie, and legend has it that the mansion we’re filming in is haunted. With disappearing paintings, a glowing ghost, and Eva acting possessed (by love?), I’m starting to believe the stories are true!

Chills. Thrills. Things that go bump in the night. Is my jinx on overdrive or have I stepped into a real-life horror flick?
Publication Date: 03/10/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
The Battle of the Red Hot Pepper Weenies
Synopsis:

A girl doesn't have a date for the school dance―until her dad makes one for her in his lab. "Lily―meet Stitchy." A family enjoys a nice Thanksgiving dinner―until they are interrupted by a torrent of turkeys out for revenge. A princess meets a pea-brained suitor. And the battle of two red hot pepper weenies ends in flames.

Critically-acclaimed author and master of the macabre David Lubar returns from a journey into the darkest depths of his brain with thirty-five more warped and creepy tales. And in the tradition of the three previous Weenie collections―In the Land of the Lawn Weenies, Invasion of the Road Weenies, and The Curse of the Campfire Weenies―he reveals the inspiration behind each story at the end of the book. Don't be a weenie. Read these stories...if you dare!

Publication Date: 03/03/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Camp Alien
Mike Gorman, Pamela F Service
Synopsis:

Zack knows he's not a normal kid. He's really an alien agent-in-training, brought to Earth to help guide the planet into the Galactic Union. Aliens follow him to a ritzy summer camp, where he's hooked up with Vraj, a huge, dinosaur-like creature on her first-ever assignment. Their mission: To get back a bunch of alien Duthwi eggs that, if hatched, can harm Earth. Their problem: Lots of eggs, too little time, and those bad guys are still after them. So what's a young alien to do?

Publication Date: 03/01/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
If I Love You, Am I Trapped Forever?
Synopsis:

Alan Bennett is all set for his senior year to be the best year ever. He’s the school’s star jock, star writer, star everything . But that’s before Duncan Stein enters the scene. Stein, the new boy at Cayuta High, is nicknamed "Doomed" by his classmates, and Alan thinks he’s a total joke. Then Stein invents a newspaper called REMOTE , with personal ads everyone wants to imitate. Suddenly, Stein is most WANTED himself, even by Alan’s own girlfriend! Could Alan possibly lose his girl to such a freak?

Publication Date: 03/01/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Waiting to Score
J.E. MacLeod
Synopsis: Quirky, smart, and good looking, Zack Chase is a book-loving, talented hockey player.But he doesn't want to turn pro like his late dad, despite his mom's hopes. New in town, Zack's pitted against obnoxious Mac, the hockey team captain with something against Jane, the alluring Goth-girl who's caught Zack's eye. As incidents on the ice and off force Zack to decide what he really wants, he copes with sore losers, other people's drinking problems, and the consequences of making out with too many girls. As Zack focuses even less on hockey, he discovers other ways he wants to score in life, especially as a 15-year-old guy with spiking hormones. He's being chased by hot little Mona; his best friend Sheila has curves that make him sweat; and he'd like to show Jane that he's not another typical hockey player. Soon Zack finds out the hard way that people have secrets and burdens all their own, and that some actions have tragic, far-reaching consequences.
Publication Date: 02/26/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Between Us Baxters
Bethany Hegedus
Synopsis: It's hard to be a "Black Sheep Baxter," at least for 12-year-old Polly. From a poor white family, Polly's best friend, Timbre Ann Biggs, is black, making them the only "salt-and-pepper" friends in town. But in that fall of 1959, life in quiet Holcolm County starts to heat up as one by one, thriving colored businesses burn to the ground. When someone throws a note wrapped around a brick through the window of Biggs Repair, Polly worries that Timber Ann will be blinded by the color of her skin and forget they were ever close. When a tragic fire brings everything to a head, the spotlight falls on Polly's family. Sensitively painting a vivid portrait of the Jim Crow South, Polly's inspiring story captures the defiant spirit of youth in an oppressive small town, just as the seeds of the Civil Rights Movement begin to sprout.
Publication Date: 02/26/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Silver Shoes
Paul Miles Schneider
Synopsis: WHEN DONALD GARDNER'S parents tell him they'll be taking an exciting road trip through Kansas, he openly cringes. He is sure it will be a boring summer vacation. But at one of their final roadside stops on the way home, they are approached by a poor woman offering to sell a curious item--an antique silver shoe. While Donald's mother is initially reluctant, she is ultimately smitten with the shoe and buys it. Donald is skeptical that the shoe is anything more than a relic, but when the new school year starts, he brings it in for show-and-tell, attempting to impress his classmates. His friends liken it to something out of The Wizard of Oz, and his teacher agrees the idea is not far-fetched considering author L. Frank Baum wrote about silver shoes, not ruby slippers, which were strictly in the movie. Yet when he accepts a dare from his two best buddies to try it on, frightening and incredible things begin to happen. Strange animals cry out in the night. Dark, shadowy shapes lurk in distant corners. Scratching sounds are heard just outside his bedroom window. And when he meets George Clarke, a reclusive man who has been in hiding and on the run for many years, Donald finds out there is a lot more to Baum's story than he thinks. Join Donald as he unravels Baum's earth-shattering secret in Silver Shoes.
Publication Date: 02/25/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
The Adventures of Kid Humpty Dumpty "Series"
Synopsis: Young Humpty Dumpty wants to make friends with Shellga, the new girl in town. But every time he works up the nerve to talk to her, Sunny Side Up and Sunny Side Down (the very "anti-boy" Sunny Side Twins) do their best to scramble his plans. After his failed attempts to talk to Shellga and getting an "F" on his spelling paper, poor Humpty is starting to feel pretty rotten. But with the help of his grandpa Dumpty and best friend, Eggden, things may not be so hard-cooked for little Humpty after all! Follow the adventures of a lovable little egg-boy before he took his famous fall from the wall in this original offshoot from a classic children's tale. About the Author: Benjamin Boyd created the Kid Humpty Dumpty series as bedtime stories for his little sister, Ruby. He works as a house painter and is currently working on the next installment for his series. The Adventures of Kid Humpty Dumpty is his first published book. Benjamin lives in Walterboro, South Carolina.
Publication Date: 02/25/09
Age Level: 5 - 8
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
The Gecko and Sticky
Stephen Gilpin, Wendelin Van Draanen
Synopsis: Dave Sanchez is an average boy with an after-school job and a pet gecko named Sticky. All very normal—until the day Sticky talks. Sticky tells Dave a wild tale of a former life of crime, searching for Aztec gold with a treasure hunter named Damien Black, and of a magical Aztec wristband with shiny gold power ingots that will give the wearer super powers. Dave doesn’t believe a word—until Sticky shows him the wristband. But while Sticky managed to escape with the wristband, Damien Black has the power ingots. So the lizard and treasure hunter each have something the other wants . . . very badly.

Filled with outrageous adventures, over-the-top characters, snappy-funny dialogue, and a tongue-planted-firmly-in-cheek narration, this new series is sure to be a hit with young superheros everywhere.

Wendelin Van Draanen spent many years as a teacher before devoting herself to writing full-time. She lives in Central California.
Publication Date: 02/10/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Shadowed Summer
Saundra Mitchell
Synopsis: Nothing ever happened in Ondine, Louisiana, not even the summer Elijah Landry disappeared.

His mother knew he ascended to heaven, the police believed he ran away, and his girlfriend thought he was murdered.

Decades later, certain she saw his ghost in the town cemetery, fourteen-year-old Iris Rhame is determined to find out the truth behind "The Incident With the Landry Boy."

Enlisting the help of her best friend Collette, and forced to endure the company of Collette's latest crush, Ben, Iris spends a summer digging into the past and stirring old ghosts, in search of a boy she never knew.

What she doesn't realize is that in a town as small as Ondine, every secret is a family secret.
Publication Date: 02/10/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Project Sweet Life
Brent Hartinger
Synopsis:

For most kids, fifteen is the year of the optional summer job: Sure, you can get a job if you really want one, but it isn't required or anything. Too bad Dave's dad doesn't agree! Instead of enjoying long days of biking, swimming, and sitting around, Dave and his two best friends are being forced by their fathers into a summer of hard labor.

The friends have something else in mind, though: Not only will they not work over the summer, but they're determined to trick everyone into believing they really do have jobs. So what if the lifeguard doesn't have a tan or the fast-food worker isn't bringing home buckets of free chicken? There's only one problem: Dave's dad wants evidence that his son is actually bringing in money. And that means Dave, Curtis, and Victor will have to get some . . . without breaking the law and without doing any work!

Project Sweet Life is designed for the funny and lazy bone in all of us—a true comedy of errors (without any effort!) from seasoned storyteller Brent Hartinger.

Publication Date: 02/03/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
North of Beautiful
Justina Chen Headley
Synopsis: As he continued to stare, I wanted to point to my cheek and remind him, But you were the one who wanted this, remember? You're the one who asked-and I repeat-Why not fix your face?

It's hard not to notice Terra Cooper.

She's tall, blond, and has an enviable body. But with one turn of her cheek, all people notice is her unmistakably "flawed" face. Terra secretly plans to leave her stifling small town in the Northwest and escape to an East Coast college, but gets pushed off-course by her controlling father. When an unexpected collision puts Terra directly in Jacob's path, the handsome but quirky Goth boy immediately challenges her assumptions about herself and her life, and she is forced in yet another direction. With her carefully laid plans disrupted, will Terra be able to find her true path?

Written in lively, artful prose, award-winning author Justina Chen Headley has woven together a powerful novel about a fractured family, falling in love, travel, and the meaning of true beauty.
Publication Date: 02/01/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction

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