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The Junto Racing to the Bell
Synopsis: This is a story about an African American boy growing up poor on the streets of South Philadelphia, the same stomping grounds as Rocky. His name is Jamil Jamil and he was born with a special gift, a secret passed down through generations since time began. That secret is Jamil's ability to communicate with animals by exchanging mind messages with them. Communicating on a wave his Grandma Rody calls the "sixth dimension." When Jamil stumbles upon a terrorist plot to blow up Philadelphia at the Liberty Bell, and when no one believes him, he takes the advice of his Grandma Rody: "Boy, you've got to use those zoo animals and save the city." Then, it’s a race to the bell, a bell that once rang for freedom. Breaking out zoo animals is no easy feat; neither is hiding them in the city. It's an edge of the seat finish with twists and turns along the way. The Junto Racing to the Bell is an inspiring account of determination overcoming poverty. Jamil’s love of animals is equal to the love from his Grandma Rody, who is a guiding light in a storm of bullies and a bad home life. Kids 12 to 20 will love The Junto. It is fun to read and action packed. The Junto is also about teachers who care, tricks played on the principal, and sad tales from the ‘hood. It’s about having friends and loving animals. It’s about why kids learn in some schools and don’t in others. And, it’s about defending America.

Review

“I could not put this book down. In fact, I read it in two days. The main character, Jamil Jamil reveals the heart of so many of our African American students in urban settings. The author has captured the essence of Jamil Jamil– courageous, lonely, creative, isolated--has a grandmother who supplements a crack head mother—and he has a smart, engaging personality.
The setting is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the time is now. Jamil’s charter school provides an option for a safe effective education. Jamil has inherited a gift that allows him to transcend human communication; a secret gift that enables him to deal with a possible 9-11 terrorist attack on his beloved city. The book is rich with behind the scene information regarding governmental and international intrigue. Readers from elementary through high school as well as adults will find this an exciting and enjoyable experience. Whether the book is read to or read by youth and their family members, a good feeling will result.”
Fredricka Reisman, Ph.D.
Professor and Founder of the Drexel University School of Education
Director of the Drexel/Torrance Center for Creativity and Innovation
Drexel University
Philadelphia, PA

Publication Date: 06/03/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Lord Jim
Cathy Schlund-Vials, Linda Dryden, Joseph Conrad
Synopsis: A bold young English sailor has despised himself ever since an impulsive moment of cowardice. Jim moves East to Patusan, where natives worship him-and he may be able to find redemption...
Publication Date: 06/02/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
House of Suns
Alastair Reynolds
Synopsis: Six million years ago, at the dawn of the star-faring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones, which she called shatterlings. But now, someone is eliminating the Gentian line. Campion and Purslane-two shatterlings who have fallen in love and shared forbidden experiences-must determine exactly who, or what, their enemy is, before they are wiped out of existence.

Publication Date: 06/02/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Faery Moon
P. R. Frost
Synopsis: Bringing her bereaved mother along during a Las Vegas writers' conference, fantasy author and Celestial Blade Warrior Tess Noncioré attends a Vegas show and is astonished to see winged dancers flying about without any apparent wire support, a situation that is further complicated by Tess's discovery that the faeries are real. By the author of Moon in the Mirror.
Publication Date: 06/02/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Jonas Brothers: Inside Their World
Synopsis: An unauthorized exclusive Jonafied backstage pass to everything Jonas Brothers!

Nick, Joe and Kevin Jonas have stepped into the spotlight and taken the world by storm with their hit songs and adorable charm. Following them from their earliest beginnings to their sold out shows nationwide and beyond, this book is bursting with essential fan info. Written by a true fan, itÂ's a rare glimpse of them on tour, on the sets of Camp Rock and their 3D movie, and a behind-the-scenes look at what itÂ's like keeping up with the Jonases. These guys are seriously all over the scene and having an awesome time doing it—and now fans can share in the fun.

Loaded with over 100 color photos, quizzes, gossip and behind-the-scenes scoop, itÂ's the only book that truly gets inside the Jonas BrothersÂ' world.
Publication Date: 06/02/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Biography
Phantasm
Phaedra Weldon
Synopsis: Read Phaedra Weldon's posts on the Penguin Blog.

The newest in a series that's "part paranormal whodunit, part urban fantasy"(Publishers Weekly) by the author of Wraith and Spectre.

Just when Zoë Martinique, formerly ordinary twenty-something, was getting used to the idea that she was possessed of extraordinary powers, she lost them. Without cause or warning. And at the worst possible time.

Now, unless she can figure out how to go Wraith again, she won't be able to rescue her mother, whose soul is trapped on the Abysmal plane.

Her only hope is to join forces with an old enemy, who has his own dark reasons for helping her. From him she learns that only a traumatic experience can bring the Wraith back. To get out-of-body, Zoë will have to look for big, dangerous trouble-and fast.

For there is a deadly and powerful being within the Abysmal that wishes Zoë never existed...and it's coming for her.
Publication Date: 06/02/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
The Enchantment Emporium
Synopsis: The bestselling author of the Blood Books delivers a masterful new urban fantasy.

Alysha Gale is a member of a family capable of changing the world with the charms they cast. Then she receives word that she's inherited her grandmother's junk shop in Calgary, only to discover upon arriving that she'll be serving the fey community. And when Alysha learns just how much trouble is brewing in Calgary, even calling in the family to help may not be enough to save the day.
Publication Date: 06/02/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Charmed and Dangerous
Toni McGee Causey
Synopsis:

When Bobbie Faye wakes up on the morning of the Lake Charles Contraband Days Festival, she’s looking forward to balloons, booze, and babies in pirate costumes. Instead, she discovers that her trailer’s flooded, her no-good brother’s been kidnapped, and the criminals are demanding her mom’s tiara as ransom.

Soon Bobbie Faye is committing (unintentional) bank robbery and (fully intentional) car jacking to retrieve her family heirloom. The one bright spot comes in the hard-muscled, impossibly sexy form of Trevor, the guy whose truck she just took hostage. Luckily, Bobbie Faye knows how to outsmart angry bears, drive a speedboat, and handle a gun. As for handling Trevor? No gun-shyness there. Now, if only that pesky state police detective, who also happens to be a pissed-off ex-boyfriend, would stay out of her way . . .

 

 

Publication Date: 06/02/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Pretty Little Liars
Sara Shepard
Synopsis:

#1 New York Times bestselling series

The fifth book in the #1 New York Times bestselling series that inspired the hit ABC Family TV show Pretty Little Liars.

In idyllic Rosewood, Pennsylvania, four very pretty girls just can't help but be bad. Hanna will do anything to be Rosewood's queen bee. Spencer's digging up her family's secrets. Emily can't stop thinking about her new boyfriend. And Aria approves a little too strongly of her mom's taste in men. The girls think they’re in the clear now that Ali's killer is finally behind bars. But someone new is mimicking “A’s” blackmailing ways with wicked and mysterious messages. And it’s only a matter of time before they let some secrets slip.

Full of unexpected twists and shocking revelations, Wicked is the fifth book in New York Times bestselling author Sara Shepard’s compelling Pretty Little Liars series. 

Publication Date: 06/02/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Xtreme Art Ultimate Book of Trace and Draw Manga
Synopsis: Learn to Draw More than 80 Cool Manga Characters in 4 Easy Steps!

Are you ready for a crash course in drawing more than 80 cool characters from best-selling author Chris Hart? It only takes four simple steps: Just trace and draw what you see in step 1, then add the orange lines shown in steps 2, 3, and 4.

Learn to trace or draw manga kids; "chibi" characters with short, squat bodies and huge heads; and manga monsters. Before you know it, you’ll have drawn characters that will amaze your family and friends!
Publication Date: 06/02/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Educational
Valor's Trial
Tanya Huff
Synopsis: The fourth book in Tanya Huff's action-packed military sci-fi adventure Confederation series

After surviving the perils of the Crucible, the Marine Corps planet where a routine training assignment had taken a deadly twist—Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr returned to Ventris Station just in time to link up with her old platoon and head out to a new war zone, an area of space where the enemy known as the Others appeared to be building up its forces for a preemptive strike.

Sent to pull back troops who’d moved up to an indefensible position, Torin was caught in the heaviest fighting just as a devastating air strike reduced the whole area to slag. The Corps concluded that she was dead. But despite irrefutable evidence, neither Torin’s father nor salvager Craig Ryder agreed.

And the truth was that Torin had survived. She woke to discover that she was trapped in a series of underground caves that appeared to be an enemy-run POW camp. But everyone knew the Others never took prisoners—or did they?

Could Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr escape this prison that shouldn’t even exist, taking as many Marines as possible with her? Though she was determined to get herself and her Marines back to the Confederation, Torin had no idea how crucial her attempt could prove, not only to her own well-being, but to the course of the entire war.
Publication Date: 06/02/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Series
The Girl From Junchow
Kate Furnivall
Synopsis: An epic journey of love and discovery from the national bestselling author of The Russian Concubine and The Red Scarf.

China, 1929. For years Lydia Ivanova believed her father was killed by the Bolsheviks. But when she learns he is imprisoned in Stalin-controlled Russia, the fiery girl is willing to leave everything behind- even her Chinese lover, Chang An Lo.

Lydia begins a dangerous search, journeying to Moscow with her half-brother Alexei. But when Alexei abruptly disappears, Lydia is left alone, penniless in Soviet Russia.

All seems lost, but Chang An Lo has not forgotten Lydia. He knows things about her father that she does not. And while he races to protect her, she is prepared to risk treacherous consequences to discover the truth.
Publication Date: 06/02/09
Age Level: Mature Young Adult
Genre: Historical Fiction
Swordplay
Denise Little
Synopsis: Seventeen rapier-sharp stories of swordplay, magic, and adventure...

From a samurai's sword to an assassin's blade, from Custer's cavalry sword to D'Artagnan's deadly weapon, from the sword of Damocles to the legendary Excalibur, these all-new spellbinding tales get straight to the point. Whether it's a sword bespelled to crave blood, cold steel that magicks its wielder into a video game, or a dwarf-crafted blade meant to slay a dragon, these weapons each come sheathed in their own fascinating story that cuts right to the heart of fantasy adventure.
Publication Date: 06/02/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Series
Morgan's Pasture
Wallace J Swenson
Synopsis: Was death better or worse than walking half a continent to slavery?
Publication Date: 06/01/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
20 Boy Summer
Sarah Ockler
Synopsis: "Don't worry, Anna. I'll tell her, okay? Just let me think about the best way to do it."
"Okay."
"Promise me? Promise you won't say anything?"
"Don't worry." I laughed. "It's our secret, right?"

According to her best friend Frankie, twenty days in Zanzibar Bay is the perfect opportunity to have a summer fling, and if they meet one boy ever day, there's a pretty good chance Anna will find her first summer romance. Anna lightheartedly agrees to the game, but there's something she hasn't told Frankie---she's already had that kind of romance, and it was with Frankie's older brother, Matt, just before his tragic death one year ago.

Beautifully written and emotionally honest, this is a debut novel that explores what it truly means to love someone and what it means to grieve, and ultimately, how to make the most of every single moment this world has to offer.

Publication Date: 06/01/09
Age Level: Mature Young Adult
Genre: Romance
Gray Baby
Scott Loring Sanders
Synopsis: At six, Clifton watched as two white police officers beat his black father to death. The official report called it an accident. But Clifton and his mother, who was also there, know the truth.

Ten years later Clifton's life has been shaped by that horrible event. He's a social outcast, his mother has sunk deep into alcoholism, and the only connection has with a living thing is with the dog next door whose life is as bad as Clifton's.

But then Clifton's principal comes up with the idea to have all the students release balloons with notes attached. It's meant to build school spirit, but it also gives Clifton an idea. What if, somehow, he was able to reach someone somewhere far away, and actually make a connection? Maybe even have a friend. So instead of balloons he uses bottles, and sets them afloat with notes inside down the New River.

Amazingly, Clifton actually does here from someone. His name is Swamper, he's got to be at least 70, and he lives in a shack on the river, meaking out a living selling fish. Swamper and Clifton strike up a friendship and it looks like Clifton may be okay after all.

But then the kidnapping of a young girl that Clifton witnesses brings back all of his old demons. How can he go to the police after what they did to his father? And his mother, she's useless. So he turns to Swamper, and in the end, discovers truths about his family, his life, and himself, that he never would have imagined.
Publication Date: 06/01/09
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction

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