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Warriors: The New Prophecy #2: Moonrise
Dave Stevenson, Erin Hunter
Synopsis:

Erin Hunter’s #1 nationally bestselling Warriors series continues with the second book in the New Prophecy series!

The second book in this second series, Warriors: The New Prophecy #2: Moonrise, brings more adventure, intrigue, and thrilling battles to the epic world of the warrior Clans.

Moons have passed since six cats set out on a journey to save their Clans. Now they are traveling home again, but on their way through the mountains, they meet a tribe of wild cats with a secret…and their own mysterious prophecy to fulfill.

In the forest, Firestar and Leafpaw watch ThunderClan’s world crumbling around them. Will the questing cats make it back in time to save the Clans, or will they be too late?

Publication Date: 08/02/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Mary GrandPré, J. K. Rowling
Synopsis: As the Harry Potter sequence draws to a close, Harry's most dangerous adventure yet is just beginning . . . and it starts July 16, 2005.

We could tell you, but then we'd have to Obliviate your memory.
Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: Any Age
Genre: Fiction
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Synopsis: Selling more than 300,000 copies the first year it was published, Stowe's powerful abolitionist novel fueled the fire of the human rights debate in 1852. Denouncing the institution of slavery in dramatic terms, the incendiary novel quickly draws the reader into the world of slaves and their masters.
Stowe's characters are powerfully and humanly realized in Uncle Tom, a majestic and heroic slave whose faith and dignity are never corrupted; Eliza and her husband, George, who elude slave catchers and eventually flee a country that condones slavery; Simon Legree, a brutal plantation owner; Little Eva, who suffers emotionally and physically from the suffering of slaves; and fun-loving Topsy, Eva's slave playmate.
Critics, scholars, and students are today revisiting this monumental work with a new objectivity, focusing on Stowe's compelling portrayal of women and the novel's theological underpinnings.
Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Historical Fiction
Dragon Blade:The Book of the Rowan
Sasha Miller, Andre Norton
Synopsis: Over a year has passed since the defeat of the Great Foulness, and the ravaged earth has begun to heal. Lost for generations, the signet rings of the Four Great Houses---Oak, Yew, Ash, and Rowan---have been restored to their rightful heirs. And Ashen NordornQueen, mistress of the Land of Ever Snow, looks forward to a life of peace and happiness with her beloved husband and their newborn son---only to learn that an ancient evil still threatens all that she holds dear.

The Mother Ice Dragon, the fearsome progenitor of her deadly breed, has awakened from slumber to menace the world anew. Legend holds that only the Dragon Blade, forged from the scales of her vanquished mate, can slay the deadly female dragon, but the Dragon Blade has been lost for ages.

As Ashen embarks on a perilous quest to find the mystic sword, she leaves her castle and homeland in the care of her closest friends, including Rannore, Lady of the Rowan, who soon faces danger of a different sort....

Dragon Blade continues the saga begun in To the King a Daughter and continued in Knight or Knave and A Crown Disowned.
Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The World of Eldaterra: The Dragon Conspiracy
Synopsis:

They've been kicked out of their world. Now they want ours.

In 1895 . . . a policeman follows a trail of murders that leads to a discovery too incredible to believe.

In 1990 . . . fourteen-year-old James Kinghorn finds an entrance to Eldaterra, the Old World, where magic forces -- good and evil -- struggle for domination. With the help of some unexpected friends, including two dwarf brothers, a beguiling elf, parlanimals, and a wizard with many secrets. James uncovers a deadly conspiracy that began fifteen years before. IF the enemy's plans are not stopped, both worlds will plunge into unthinkable chaos. . . .

The first book of the World of Eldaterra series weaves mystery and fantasy into an extraordinary, heart-stopping adventure.

Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Mystery
Poppy's Return
Brian Floca, Avi
Synopsis:

Poppy returns ... with big trouble. Family trouble.

Poppy and Rye don't know what to do about their son Ragweed Junior's attitude. He is rude, he is crude, and he has dyed his fur to look like Mephitis, his skunk friend. In short, Ragweed Junior is very much a teenager. Even Ereth, the cantankerous porcupine, with his salty swearing, can't straighten him out. Then Poppy gets an urgent request to return to her old home, Gray House, where her aging parents, Sweet Cicely and Lungwort, are in difficulties. Not only does she agree to go back, she decides to take Junior, in hopes traveling together will bring them together. But when Junior's skunk pal and Ereth join the party, the trip doesn't quite go as expected. And when Poppy recalls she did not get along with her parents, things become even more complicated.

Poppy's Return is a hilarious adventure tale about family: the gleeful joys, the farcical sorrows, the high emotions, and the low comedy of living with and without relations. It's also about bears, bulldozers, and the boisterous antics of young mice doing the stinky red. And sugared slug soup, there's always Ereth to stir the stew of Poppy’s rich and rewarding life.

Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Lambkins
Jonathan Keegan, Eve Bunting
Synopsis:

Kidnapped.
Injected with a shrinking formula.
Held prisoner in a bizarre dollhouse.

Kyle Wilson, once a regular kid, is now the size of a doll, but still alive. He is the fourth Lambkin in crazy Mrs. Shepherd's collection. She'll keep them safe, she says. She loves them like her own children, she says. She would never harm them ... as long as they don't make her angry.

John made her angry.

Look what happened to him.

One thing is certain. Kyle and the others must figure out how to escape, and fast. Otherwise they'll end up as Lambkins forever ... or worse.

Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Ready or Not : An All-American Girl Novel
Synopsis:

Top ten things Samantha Madison isn't ready for:

10. Spending Thanksgiving at Camp David

9. With her boyfriend, the president's son

8. Who appears to want to take their relationship to the Next Level

7. Which Sam inadvertently and shockingly announces live on MTV

6. While appearing to support the president's dubious policies on families, morals, and yes, sex

5. Juggling her new after-school job at Potomac Video

4. Even though she already has a job as teen ambassador to the UN (that she doesn't get paid for)

3. Riding the Metro and getting accosted because she's "the redheaded girl who saved the president's life," in spite of her new, semipermanent Midnight Ebony tresses

2. Experiencing total role reversal with her popular sister Lucy, who for once can't get the guy she wants and the number-one thing Sam isn't ready for?

1. Finding out the hard way that in art class, "life drawing" means "naked people."

Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Chick Lit
A Princess of Roumania
Synopsis: This is a truly magical tale, full of strangeness, terrors and wonders. Many girls daydream that they are really a princess adopted by commoners. In the case of teenager Miranda Popescu, this is literally true. Because she is at the fulcrum of a deadly political battle between conjurers in an alternate world where "Roumania" is a leading European power, Miranda was hidden by her aunt in our world, where she was adopted and raised in a quiet Massachusetts college town.
The narrative is split between our world and the people in Roumania working to protect or to capture Miranda: her Aunt Aegypta Schenck versus the mad Baroness Ceaucescu in Bucharest, and the sinister alchemist, the Elector of Ratisbon, who holds her true mother prisoner in Germany. This is the story of how Miranda -- with her two best friends, Peter and Andromeda -- is brought back to her home reality. Each of them is changed in the process and all will have much to learn about their true identities and the strange world they find themselves in.
This story is a triumph of contemporary fantasy.
Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
The Web:Lightstorm
Peter F. Hamilton
Synopsis: Welcome to the infinite worlds of The Web
Ghostly lights out on the marsh have been the subject of tales and rumors for as long as anyone can remember. Thirteen-year-old Aynsley suspects that the "lightstorms" are connected to a problem at the nearby power company. The company is trying to keep it a secret, but someone in authority needs to be told--and Aynsley is the one to do it. With the help of a network of friends across the world, Aynsley knows he just might be able to use The Web to get past the company security to find out exactly what's going on. But the Web works both ways. If Aynsley can get to the company, then the company can get to him. And the company has a way of dealing with intruders....
Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Chopstick
Sandra, Byrd
Synopsis: Thirteen-year-olds Paige and Kate find themselves competing for the same worship-music contest and the same $500 prize. Each girl is so sure she will win that each has already promised the prize money to a favorite worthy cause. Via the contest's Web site, Paige and Kate meet and begin a friendship that will make both girls examine their ideas about their faith and what worship really is. They realize that, like a single chopstick, the body of Christ cannot work well alone. Each girl decides to share a bit of her strongest gift with the other, thereby increasing the chances that one of them--but only one of them--will win. Friends For a Season Book 2.
Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Faith-based
The Bubblegum Babes' Guide to Sixth Grade
Synopsis: Meet the best friends who call themselves The Bubblebum Babes: Emily – the sweet, shy girl, Megan – cool and sassy, Sara - the smart tomboy, and Kelly –all-American girl. The stories of four twelve year old girls’ first year in middle school are told by Kelly, who plays a part in each of the girl’s life struggles -- from boy problems to report card issues, jealousy, and the trouble with parents. The girls share it all at “Bubblegum Babe Meets” -- weekend sleepovers that include eating pizza, girl talk, and much laughing and crying. Sixth grade isn’t easy. But the Bubblegum Babes survive it because, well, very simply – they have each other. The Bubblegum Babes’ Guide to Sixth Grade is the first in a series of books about friendship and growing up. Written in vignette style by Novelist, Doreen Lewis, the Babe characters are inspired by the real lives of Lewis’s children and their friends.
Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: Any Age
Genre: Chick Lit
The Sea Singer
Craig Moodie
Synopsis: Craig Moodie's finely crafted adventure novel tells the story of twelve-year-old Finn, who stows away to search for his lost father and brothers. It's a journey that brings storms, shipwreck, tense encounters with the inhabitants of an unexplored continent -- and a coming of age for Finn, who will in the end, face his father as a young man and a Viking. Dramatic and beautifully told, The Sea Singer is a first-rate literary sea story.

Publication Date: 08/01/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Heart's Desire
Laura Pedersen
Synopsis: Card sharp and former wild child Hallie Palmer is in college now–and Bernard Stockton, her legal guardian, has suddenly appeared during final exams. He’s hysterical about his recent breakup with his longtime boyfriend, Gil, and wants to enlist Hallie in a scheme to win Gil back. So Hallie returns to Cosgrove County, Ohio, for the summer, to her job as live-in yard person for Bernard and his delightfully oddball mother, Olivia. Also present are Ottavio, Olivia’s hot-tempered Italian lover, who’s desperate for a wedding; Rocky, a chimpanzee who’s one Singapore Sling away from an AA meeting for primates; and Hallie’s own ever-expanding family, which she fled as soon as she could slide down the drainpipe.

Around town, folks assume that since Hallie isn’t in jail, she clearly has no problems of her own and can therefore tackle theirs. But Hallie has plenty of troubles–a looming tuition bill, gambling temptations, and an ex-boyfriend who’s back in town for the summer to upset any potential if highly unlikely (a girl can dream!) romantic flings.

Yet as Hallie and company navigate life’s unexpected paths of games lost and love found, the real truth begins to emerge: With friends, family, and a place to call home, your heart’s desire is always within reach.
Publication Date: 07/26/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Tofu and T. Rex
Greg Leitich Smith
Synopsis: Hans-Peter, who enjoys working in his family's Chicago delicatessen, applies for admission to the prestigious Peshtigo School that his cousin Freddie, a vegan and outspoken animal rights activist, attends. By the author of Ninjas, Piranhas, and Galileo.
Publication Date: 07/06/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Confessions of a Teen Nanny
Victoria Ashton
Synopsis:

Sixteen-year-old Adrienne Lewis is in charge of eight-year-old Emma Warner, the youngest member of the snooty Warner family. Emma is an evil genius who has gotten all five previous nannies fired -- and she's the good news. Because then there's Emma's half brother, Graydon, who goes to college -- yet always seems to be lurking around waiting to hit on Adrienne. But worst of all is Emma's beautiful seventeen-year-old half sister, Cameron, whose reputation as a wild girl, a liar, and a user is known to everyone . . . everyone, that is, except Adrienne.

Publication Date: 07/05/05
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Romance

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