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The Battle of Nashville
Benson Bobrick
Synopsis: A dynamic Civil War book with a fresh angle from an award-winning writer.  Bobrick profiles General George H. Thomas, an overlooked scion of the Civil War, and shows the military choices that saved the Union.  Also examined are President Lincoln, the causes of the war and the various personalities who have shaped our understanding of the war today.  This compelling book, rich with visuals including maps, photos, original documents, and more, offers new insights into a key topic for American homes and classrooms. A particularly exciting read for boys.

The Battle of Nashville is another contribution to Knopf's list of high quality nonfiction such as Children of the Dust Bowl by Jerry Stanley and Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World by Jennifer Armstrong.
Publication Date: 10/12/10
Age Level: 8 - 12
Genre: Historical Nonfiction
For The Love of Strangers
Mary Kelly, Jacqueline Horsfall
Synopsis: Philoxenia. When the police call using this code word, 16-year-old Darya knows she will be sheltering strangers: women with missing teeth, dislocated jaws, black eyes - and stalking husbands. Other strangers - nonhuman strangers - seek Darya's protection too, whispering from the depths of the forest in voices only she can hear. If she obeys the voices, she risks her adoptive mother's rage, the taunts of a surly island boy, and the wrath of her community. If she refuses the voices, a primeval species faces extermination. What if you discovered your birth fulfilled an ancient prophecy? What if you were destined to save an entire wild species? Would you heed the call?
Publication Date: 10/11/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Filtration System
Jo Ramsey
Synopsis: Jonah Leighton never expected to have a close friend, especially one he met at his school, where he's usually either picked on or ignored. A few weeks after meeting Shanna Bailey, he's realized that she's a kindred spirit. Intelligent, funny, and interested in the things he can teach her, Shanna is the first person with whom Jonah's ever been comfortable sharing his knowledge. However, Shanna's frequent injuries cast a pall over their friendship. Jonah suspects that Shanna's mother abuses her, but without proof, he can't do anything. And his concerns about Shanna take a back seat when he becomes aware of a threat to our universe: An entity from another reality wants to cross over into ours, and the resulting energetic backwash will vaporize our world.
Publication Date: 10/10/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Beyond the Shadows of Summer
Synopsis: In the summer of 1955, a young artist embarks on a journey of the heart to revive the passion and hope he once had before losing his brother.
Publication Date: 10/08/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Witch On Oak Street
Major L. Mitchell
Synopsis: Nine year-old Debbie Folino believes she can do most anything, but when she takes a dare to trick-or-treat the old witch living in the spooky house at the end of Oak Street, she discovers eighty-year-old Sara Baker, who will change her life forever. Sara becomes the mentor who opens a new world for her young friend. She guides her through the trials of growing, loving, sharing, and even death. Most of all, Sara introduces Debbie and her family to someone who will become an even more important person in their lives, Jesus Christ.
Publication Date: 10/08/10
Age Level: 8 - 12
Genre: Fiction
The Perfect Season
Caileb Feik
Synopsis: Alex Freeman is your typical 17 year old All-American boy. He has everything a young man could ask for. He's the football star, straight A student, everybody's best friend and the guy all the girls want, but growing up on farm and attending a small 1A school presents a ton of pressure. He bears the pressure of being the team's go-to guy in a rural area that revolves around high school football; It's more of a religion than a game around here. As Alex journeys through the trials and tibulations of leading his high school football team to the State Championship and making his life long dream come true, he struggles to prioritize and balance work, family, friends, his girlfriend and his first true love; football.
Publication Date: 10/05/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Unidentified
Rae Mariz
Synopsis:

Fifteen-year-old Katey (aka Kid) goes to school in the Game—a mall converted into a “school” run by corporate sponsors. As the students play their way through the levels, they are also creatingproducts and being used for market research by the sponsors, who are watching them 24/7 on video cameras.

Kid has a vague sense of unease but doesn’t question this existence until one day she witnesses a shocking anticorporateprank. She follows the clues to uncover the identities of the people behind it and discovers an anonymous group that callsitself the Unidentified. Intrigued by their countercultureideas and enigmatic leader, Kid is drawn into the group. But when the Unidentified’s pranks and even Kid’s own identity are co-opted by the sponsors, Kid decides to do something bigger—something that could change the Game forever.

This funny, sharp, and thought-provoking novel heralds the arrival of a stunning new voice in teen fiction.

Publication Date: 10/05/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Mostly Good Girls
Leila Sales
Synopsis: The higher you aim, the farther you fall….

It’s Violet’s junior year at the Westfield School. She thought she’d be focusing on getting straight As, editing the lit mag, and figuring out how to talk to boys without choking on her own saliva. Instead, she’s just trying to hold it together in the face of cutthroat academics, her crush’s new girlfriend, and the sense that things are going irreversibly wrong with her best friend, Katie.

When Katie starts making choices that Violet can’t even begin to fathom, Violet has no idea how to set things right between them. Westfield girls are trained for success—but how can Violet keep her junior year from being one huge, epic failure?
Publication Date: 10/05/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Humor
Gwenhwyfar
Mercedes Lackey
Synopsis: The bestselling author of the Valdemar novels pens a classic tale about King Arthur's legendary queen.

Gwenhwyfar moves in a world where gods walk among their pagan worshipers, where nebulous visions warn of future perils, and where there are two paths for a woman: the path of the Blessing or the rarer path of the Warrior. Gwenhwyfar chooses the latter, giving up the power that she is born into. Yet the daughter of a King is never truly free to follow her own calling. Acting as the "son" her father never had, when called upon to serve another purpose by the Ladies of the Well, she bows to circumstances to become Arthur's queen-only to find herself facing temptation and treachery, intrigue, love and redemption.
Publication Date: 10/05/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Contagion
Joanne Dahme
Synopsis: Rose Dugan is a young and beautiful woman living in Philadelphia in the late 19th century passionate about keeping Philadelphia's water reservoir clean and healthy. But when Rose starts receiving threatening letters, warning her to convince her husband to shut down his plans for a water filtration system or else, things take a turn for the worse. A conspicuous murder and butting heads cause Rose to search for the culprit, the truth, and a way to keep the people of Philadelphia safe from contagion in more ways than one.
Publication Date: 10/05/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Mystery
History of the United States
Mangesh Hattikudur, Will Pearson, Erik Sass
Synopsis: Smarter than your old history teacher, funnier than the founding fathers, and more American than apple pie, The Mental Floss History of the United States is an almost (but not entirely) comprehensive primer on American history (or at least, the good stuff). From the editors of MentalFloss.com and mental_floss magazine—with its tagline: “Feel smart again”—comes an American History text packed with hilarious (but true!) trivia written in the smart-aleck tradition of The Mental Floss History of the World, Mental Floss Presents In the Beginning, and the first mental_floss book, Condensed Knowledge. Perfect for trivia buffs, history lovers, college students, and anyone who likes to laugh and learn. United States history has never been so fun.
Publication Date: 10/05/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Nonfiction
The Charlatan's Boy
Jonathan Rogers
Synopsis: “I only know one man who might be able to tell me where I come from, and that man is a liar and a fraud.” 
 

As far back as he can remember, the orphan Grady has tramped from village to village in the company of a huckster named Floyd. With his adolescent accomplice, Floyd perpetrates a variety of hoaxes and flimflams on the good citizens of the Corenwald frontier, such as the Ugliest Boy in the World act.
 
It’s a hard way to make a living, made harder by the memory of fatter times when audiences thronged to see young Grady perform as “The Wild Man of the Feechiefen Swamp.” But what can they do? Nobody believes in feechies anymore.
 
When Floyd stages an elaborate plot to revive Corenwalders’ belief in the mythical swamp-dwellers known as the feechiefolk, he overshoots the mark. Floyd’s Great Feechie Scare becomes widespread panic. Eager audiences become angry mobs, and in the ensuing chaos, the Charlatan’s Boy discovers the truth that has evaded him all his life—and will change his path forever.
Publication Date: 10/05/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Annexed
Sharon Dogar
Synopsis: Everyone knows about Anne Frank and her life hidden in the secret annex – but what about the boy who was also trapped there with her?

In this powerful and gripping novel, Sharon Dogar explores what this might have been like from Peter’s point of view. What was it like to be forced into hiding with Anne Frank, first to hate her and then to find yourself falling in love with her? Especially with your parents and her parents all watching almost everything you do together. To know you’re being written about in Anne’s diary, day after day? What’s it like to start questioning your religion, wondering why simply being Jewish inspires such hatred and persecution? Or to just sit and wait and watch while others die, and wish you were fighting.

As Peter and Anne become closer and closer in their confined quarters, how can they make sense of what they see happening around them?

Anne’s diary ends on August 4, 1944, but Peter’s story takes us on, beyond their betrayal and into the Nazi death camps. He details with accuracy, clarity and compassion the reality of day to day survival in Auschwitz – and ultimately the horrific fates of the Annex’s occupants.
Publication Date: 10/04/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Historical Fiction
The Mermaid's Mirror
L. K. Madigan
Synopsis: Lena has lived her whole life near the beach – walking for miles up and down the shore and breathing the salty air, swimming in the cold water, and watching the surfers rule the waves – the problem is, she’s spent her whole life just watching.

As her sixteenth birthday approaches, Lena vows she will no longer watch from the sand: she will learn to surf.

But her father – a former surfer himself – refuses to allow her to take lessons. After a near drowning in his past, he can’t bear to let Lena take up the risky sport.  

Yet something lures Lena to the water … an ancient, powerful magic. One morning Lena catches sight of this magic: a beautiful woman – with a silvery tail.

Nothing will keep Lena from seeking the mermaid, not even the dangerous waves at Magic Crescent Cove.

And soon … what she sees in the mermaid’s mirror will change her life …

Publication Date: 10/04/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Draw the Dark
Ilsa J. Bick
Synopsis: There are things in Winter, Wisconsin, folks just don't talk about. The murder way back in '45 is one. The near-suicide of a first-grade teacher is another. And then there is 17-year old Christian Cage. Christian's parents disappeared when he was a little boy, and ever since he's drawn and painted obsessively, trying desperately to remember his mother. The problem is Christian doesn't just draw his own memories. He can draw the thoughts of those around him. Confronted with fears and nightmares they'd rather avoid, people have a bad habit of dying. So it's no surprise that Christian isn't exactly popular. What no one expects is for Christian to meet Winter's last surviving Jew and uncover one more thing best forgotten--the day the Nazis came to town. Based on a little-known fact of the United States' involvement in World War II, Draw the Dark is a dark fantasy about reclaiming the forgotten past and the redeeming power of love.
Publication Date: 10/02/10
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Sorghaghtani of Mongolia
Albert Nguyen, Shirin Yim Bridges
Synopsis: On the wind-swept steppes of Mongolia in the thirteenth century, a princess was given the chance to rule. She took lands that had been ruined by war and made them wealthy again, brought mutual respect and cooperation to a downtrodden and distrustful people, and in a battle of wits that was like a giant chess game, won for her sons the imperial throne. This is the story of Sorghaghtani, a real and remarkable princess who handed her sons the largest empire in the world.

Richly illustrated and narrated with humor, The Thinking Girl’s Treasury of Real Princesses brings to life the stories of real and remarkable princesses who managed to do what few thought possible.
Publication Date: 10/02/10
Age Level: 8 - 12
Genre: Biography

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