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Sign of the Raven
Julie Hearn
Synopsis: Mind the gap.

Something odd is going on in the basement of an old house in London. An inexplicable gap has formed, a gap in time that links the present to the past. And twelve-year-old Tom, who discovers the gap while on a visit to his grandmother, is torn between both worlds.

Lured by a mysterious voice, Tom leaps into the early eighteenth century, to a time when circus "freaks" like the Bendy Man and the Gorilla Woman appeared at Bartholomew Fair. The voice he hears belongs to Astra, a tiny changeling child, whose limbs are no bigger than a man's thumb. She has called him into the past, because she is convinced that Tom is the only one who can help her and her friends from danger. Doctors are paying a high price for unusual bodies to dissect, and Astra and her friends are prime subjects.

But Tom is dealing with difficulties of his own. His mum has cancer and is constantly fighting with his gran. And then he discovers a dark secret in his family's past...a secret that pulls the strands of time together and might just close the gap forever.

Publication Date: 09/27/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Science Fiction
The Dark Flight Down
Marcus Sedgwick
Synopsis: In the morning you should think
You might not last unto the night
In the evening you should think
You might not last unto the morn
Boy has survived the terrors of life with the magician Valerian, dark magic, and deadly chases, but he is still on the run. Now, as the City lies frozen, he is captured and incarcerated in the Emperor Frederick’s palace. Boy is transported to a world of splendor, and wealth beyond his wildest imagining. But beneath its golden veneer, this world is full of madness and cruelty, closely guarded secrets, and terrifying revelations.
In a mesmerizing conclusion to the enthralling story begun in The Book of Dead Days, Boy and Willow are plunged into the heart of it–the furies of the Emperor; the tricks of necromancers; a trail of blood that will lead to the grisly Phantom. Holding all their lives between its pages, The Book of Dead Days waits to deceive its next reader.
Publication Date: 09/27/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Series
Ball Don't Lie
Matt de la Pena
Synopsis: Sticky is a beat-around-the-head foster kid with nowhere to call home but the street, and an outer shell so tough that no one will take him in. He started out life so far behind the pack that the finish line seems nearly unreachable. He’s a white boy living and playing in a world where he doesn’t seem to belong.

But Sticky can ball. And basketball might just be his ticket out . . . if he can only realize that he doesn’t have to be the person everyone else expects him to be.

A breakout urban masterpiece by newcomer Matt de la Peña, Ball Don’t Lie takes place where the street and the court meet and where a boy can be anything if he puts his mind to it.
Publication Date: 09/27/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Sports
The Misadventures of Maude March
Synopsis: Eleven-year-old Sallie March is a whip-smart tomboy and voracious reader of Western adventure novels. When she and her sister, Maude, are orphaned for the second time, they decide to escape their new self-serving guardians for the wilds of the frontier and an adventure the likes of which Sallie has only read about. This time, however, the wanted woman isn’t a villain out of a dime novel–it’s Sallie’s very own sister!
Narrated by the irrepressible Sallie, what follows is the rollicking story of what really happened out there on the range. Not the lies the papers printed, but the honest-to-goodness truth of how things went from bad to worse and how two very different sisters went from being orphans to being outlaws–and lived to tell the tale! Bursting with memorable characters, fast-paced action, and laugh-out-loud moments, this is Newbery Honor winner Audrey Couloumbis’s most unforgettable work yet.


From the Hardcover Library Binding edition.
Publication Date: 09/27/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Me, Dead Dad, and Alcatraz
Synopsis: Having always lived with his mother, young Elvin gets the surprise of his life when his high-spirited uncle appears and introduces him to the realities of the world--causing young Elvin to meet himself, understand his roots, realize his own inner strengths, and live for real for the very first time.
Publication Date: 09/20/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Orphan Prince
Jeremy Lee
Synopsis: The silhouette of a man on horseback stood on the knoll against the brilliant backdrop of the lightning, a man with flowing long hair and a large cape that flapped wildly in the wind. Apparently, King Idan had also seen the horse rider, for he pulled on the reins and halted the horse's advance. Leaning back against his father, Ari remained still and peered ahead into the gloom, his heart beating with apprehension.At the age of six, Prince Ari witnessed his father's assassination. Five years later, he continues to have recurring nightmares about the tragedy.Although he's still heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Dinan, Ari's life since King Idan's death has been full of loneliness and misery. His uncle, Lord Peran, harbors no love for him, and his cousin, Roi, hates him.Ari blames his misery on his father's assassin, Black Wolf, a legendary swordsman from the Empire of Narsus whose faceless, shadowy figure haunts Ari's dreams. But Black Wolf's name inspires great fear and deep fascination in Ari.A few days after his eleventh birthday, Ari embarks on a perilous journey to Narsus in search of Black Wolf. What he finds at the end of the journey changes his life forever.
Publication Date: 09/19/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
The Queen of Second Place
Laura Peyton Roberts
Synopsis: No matter how hard she tries, Cassie is always second best—in school, in life, and especially in love. And lately, Sterling Carter is always one pedicured step ahead of her. Cassie is used to it. Mostly. The problem is, right now she and Sterling both want Kevin Matthews. He’s only the hottest new student ever to grace their high school halls. And for the record, Cassie saw him first. But, naturally, Sterling wants him. So Cassie might as well just give up now.

Except who says Cassie can’t have an equal chance too? Just because she’s been in second place all her life doesn’t mean things can’t change. . . .
Publication Date: 09/13/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Chick Lit
The Power of One
Bryce Courtenay
Synopsis: In 1939, hatred took root in South Africa, where the seeds of apartheid were newly sown. There a boy called Peekay was born. He spoke the wrong language–English. He was nursed by a woman of the wrong color–black. His childhood was marked by humiliation and abandonment. Yet he vowed to survive–he would become welterweight champion of the world, he would dream heroic dreams.
But his dreams were nothing compared to what awaited him. For he embarked on an epic journey, where he would learn the power of words, the power to transform lives, and the mystical power that would sustain him even when it appeared that villainy would rule the world: The Power of One.
Publication Date: 09/13/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Historical Fiction
Confessions of a Boyfriend Stealer
Synopsis: MESSAGE BOARD
About Genesis Bell Queensheba at 1:02 a.m.
i’ve heard you’d better not leave your guy alone with her! not if you DON’T want to lose him >:p
It’s not her fault 007ugo at 1:45 a.m.
You got it all wrong! If anyone’s taught Genesis about stealing guys, it was her best friends, The Terribles–CJ and Tasha!
Re: It’s not her fault GenBell at 1:52 a.m.
You don’t know the real story. It’s not what you think. Just read my side of it, and then decide. Okay?
Publication Date: 09/13/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Romance
Chloe Leiberman (Sometimes Wong)
Synopsis: This is the deal with Chloe Leiberman (sometimes Wong):

· She lives, breathes, sleeps, eats and drinks fashion.

· She's half Jewish (father) and half Chinese (mother).

· She has one bow-tie(like Tucker Carlson)-wearing brother.

· She’s stuck in the OC.

· She always knows the right thing to wear. And what you should be wearing, too.

· She is a senior in high school.

· She didn't apply to college, even though her parents think she did.

· She has two best friends–Spring, 100% WASP, and Sue, 100% NOT.

· She's talented but doesn't know it yet.

· She dreams about going to design school in London.

This is her application.
Publication Date: 09/13/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Falcondance
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Synopsis: Nicias has never felt completely at home among the avians and serpiente in Wyvern’s Court, despite his loyalty to Oliza Shardae Cobriana, the heir to both thrones. He is a falcon, the son of two exiles from Anhmik–and images of this distant island have always haunted his dreams. But when Nicias’s visions become more like reality, his parents have no choice but to send him back to the homeland–and a royal falcon–they’ve tried their best to forget.
If Araceli won’t bind Nicias’s newfound magic, it could destroy him. In a place where everyone is a pawn, only one other woman has the potential to save Nicias. But she holds the keys to a dangerous power struggle that will force Nicias to choose between his duty–and his destiny.
Publication Date: 09/13/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Flush
Carl Hiaasen
Synopsis: Take a romp in the swamp with this New York Times bestselling mystery adventure set in the Florida Keys from Newbery Honoree Carl Hiaasen!

Noah's dad is sure that the owner of the Coral Queen casino boat is flushing raw sewage into the harbor—which has made taking a dip at the local beach like swimming in a toilet. He can't prove it though, and so he decides that sinking the boat will make an effective statement. Right. The boat is pumped out and back in business within days and Noah's dad is in the local lock-up.

Now Noah is determined to succeed where his dad failed. He will prove that the Coral Queen is dumping illegally . . . somehow.


“The writing is pitch perfect.” —The New York Times
 
“A royal flush.” —Chicago Sun-Times
 
“Classic Hiaasen—laugh-out-loud satire in a Florida setting.” —Life
Publication Date: 09/13/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Nicky Deuce: Welcome to the Family
Charles Fleming, Steven R. Schirripa
Synopsis: It’s July, and Nicholas Borelli II’s parents are scheduled to spend two weeks on a cruise. Nicholas will spend those two weeks, as he does every summer, at Camp Wannameka. The night before he’s to leave, however, there’s a phone call: thanks to an explosion in the septic system, camp is canceled. The only place for Nicholas to go instead is to his grandmother’s house in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York.
Nicholas’s father grew up in Brooklyn, but you’d hardly know it. An Italian dinner at Nicholas’s house in the suburbs is whole wheat pasta, organic tomato sauce, and, if he’s lucky, a tofu meatball. And Brooklyn? Well, Brooklyn is the place his father left and never talks about. Nicholas has never been there, and he doesn’t want to go now.
But when Nicholas tastes his grandma Tutti’s meatballs for the first time, gets a nickname from his uncle Frankie, and makes a friend in the neighborhood, his feelings about Brooklyn–and family–begin to change.
Publication Date: 09/13/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Barry, Boyhound
Andy Spearman
Synopsis: This is the story of a boy named Barry. Some stuff happens, and overnight like magic he turns into a boyhound. Not a hound, but a boyhound–which means while he may still look like a boy, he is, in fact, a dog. And even in his boyhound brain, Barry knows there are lots of advantages to being a dog. You don’t have to clean your room or use dental floss, for example.
But things get crazy. He eats something too disgusting to mention. He’s attacked by telepathic squirrels. An innocent squashed frog becomes involved. Plus, his mother’s getting pretty mad. And that’s all before the really bad thing happens. . . .
Publication Date: 09/13/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Elsewhere
Gabrielle Zevin
Synopsis: Is it possible to grow up while getting younger?

Welcome to Elsewhere. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are marvelous. It’s quiet and peaceful. You can’t get sick or any older. Curious to see new paintings by Picasso? Swing by one of Elsewhere’s museums. Need to talk to someone about your problems? Stop by Marilyn Monroe’s psychiatric practice.  Elsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died. It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different. Here Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. She wants to get her driver’s license. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. And now that she’s dead, Liz is being forced to live a life she doesn’t want with a grandmother she has only just met. And it is not going well. How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one? Is it possible that a life lived in reverse is no different from a life lived forward? This moving, often funny book about grief, death, and loss will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned. Elsewhere is a 2006 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
Publication Date: 09/09/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
The Seven Professors of the Far North
Synopsis: Eleven-year-old Sam finds himself involved in a dangerous adventure when he and his new friends, brother and sister Ben and Zara, set off for the Arctic to try and rescue the siblings' great-uncle and five other professors from the mad scientist holding them prisoner.
Publication Date: 09/08/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure

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