All Books
Synopsis: Since his childhood in the DeepWoods, young Twig has always longed to soar above the forest canopy and explore the sky. Now a crew member on his father’s sky pirate ship, the Stormchaser, his dream seems fulfilled. But a much higher destiny awaits Twig. The lofty city of Sanctaphrax—built on a giant rock, floating high in the sky—is at the point of disaster. The city’s future is dependent on stormphrax—a valuable substance available only from the heart of a Great Storm. And only the Stormchaser, with Twig onboard, could risk entering a storm. . . .
Publication Date: 06/22/04
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Synopsis: Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read
Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement.
Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement.
Publication Date: 06/08/04
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Synopsis: After his puppet Tolstoy begins to take over his thoughts, ventriloquist Frank decides to lock his puppet away for his own safety, but when Frank's son decides that he wants to get into the act, Tolstoy decides to use young Jason's new career choice to break free from his attic prison and seek his revenge.
Publication Date: 06/01/04
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Synopsis: A bullied boy is lured by the dark power of revenge in this haunting fantasy by the author of COLD TOM.
Stevie, 13, has started at a new school and is desperate for acceptance. Like any teenager, he is self-conscious and embarrassed by his family. But he also hates himself for being cruelly bullied at his old school, and he will do anything to be accepted by bullies here rather than be their victim. Then he finds an odd fossil called a Devil's Toenail, which fills him with an almost evil sense of daring. The Devil's Toenail's tauntings and urgings to take revenge on the world are relentless, but in the end, Stevie discovers that believing in himself is what brings true power and happiness.
Stevie, 13, has started at a new school and is desperate for acceptance. Like any teenager, he is self-conscious and embarrassed by his family. But he also hates himself for being cruelly bullied at his old school, and he will do anything to be accepted by bullies here rather than be their victim. Then he finds an odd fossil called a Devil's Toenail, which fills him with an almost evil sense of daring. The Devil's Toenail's tauntings and urgings to take revenge on the world are relentless, but in the end, Stevie discovers that believing in himself is what brings true power and happiness.
Publication Date: 06/01/04
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Synopsis:
A secret kingdom of trolls, and their legendary gold, lies in the mysterious shadows of Troll Fell. It is to this eerie and dangerous place that Peer must go after his father's sudden death, to live with his greedy uncles, Baldur and Grim, at their mill.
When Peer discovers his uncles' plan to sell children to the trolls, he has to bury his fears and set out to stop them somehow. In a world filled with magic and mystery, Peer has only his bravery, his wits, and two new allies -- a daring girl looking for adventure and a mischievous house spirit looking for a good meal. Their story will become part of the legends and lore that fill this extraordinary land by the sea.
Publication Date: 06/01/04
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis: "I refuse to speak further of the Ten-legged One...but the more I think about it, the more I like it. Why mess around with Catholicism when you can have your own customized religion? All you need is a disciple or two...and a god."
Fed up with his parents' boring old religion, agnostic-going-on-atheist Jason Bock invents a new god -- the town's water tower. He recruits an unlikely group of worshippers: his snail-farming best friend, Shin, cute-as-a-button (whatever that means) Magda Price, and the violent and unpredictable Henry Stagg. As their religion grows, it takes on a life of its own. While Jason struggles to keep the faith pure, Shin obsesses over writing their bible, and the explosive Henry schemes to make the new faith even more exciting -- and dangerous.
When the Chutengodians hold their first ceremony high atop the dome of the water tower, things quickly go from merely dangerous to terrifying and deadly. Jason soon realizes that inventing a religion is a lot easier than controlling it, but control it he must, before his creation destroys both his friends and himself.
Pete Hautman, author of Sweetblood and Mr. Was, has written a compelling novel about the power of religion on those who believe, and on those who don't.
Fed up with his parents' boring old religion, agnostic-going-on-atheist Jason Bock invents a new god -- the town's water tower. He recruits an unlikely group of worshippers: his snail-farming best friend, Shin, cute-as-a-button (whatever that means) Magda Price, and the violent and unpredictable Henry Stagg. As their religion grows, it takes on a life of its own. While Jason struggles to keep the faith pure, Shin obsesses over writing their bible, and the explosive Henry schemes to make the new faith even more exciting -- and dangerous.
When the Chutengodians hold their first ceremony high atop the dome of the water tower, things quickly go from merely dangerous to terrifying and deadly. Jason soon realizes that inventing a religion is a lot easier than controlling it, but control it he must, before his creation destroys both his friends and himself.
Pete Hautman, author of Sweetblood and Mr. Was, has written a compelling novel about the power of religion on those who believe, and on those who don't.
Publication Date: 06/01/04
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Historical Fiction
Synopsis:
Publication Date: 05/30/04
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Chick Lit
Synopsis: A Maori boy with the gift of sight in 1803--a slave to Maori warriors hunting for the Moa bird--and fourteen-year-old Jordan--a plane crash survivor marooned on a deserted New Zealand island in the present day--experience interconnecting visions.
Publication Date: 05/24/04
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Environment
Synopsis: A bestselling modern classic—both poignant and funny—about a boy with autism who sets out to solve the murder of a neighbor's dog and discovers unexpected truths about himself and the world.
Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read
Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.
This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.
Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read
Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.
This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.
Publication Date: 05/18/04
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Humor
Synopsis:
Sailing toward dawn, and I was perched atop the crow's nest, being the ship's eyes. We were two nights out of Sydney, and there'd been no weather to speak of so far. I was keeping watch on a dark stack of nimbus clouds off to the northwest, but we were leaving it far behind, and it looked to be smooth going all the way back to Lionsgate City. Like riding a cloud. . . .
Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the Aurora, a huge airship that sails hundreds of feet above the ocean, ferrying wealthy passengers from city to city. It is the life Matt's always wanted; convinced he's lighter than air, he imagines himself as buoyant as the hydrium gas that powers his ship. One night he meets a dying balloonist who speaks of beautiful creatures drifting through the skies. It is only after Matt meets the balloonist's granddaughter that he realizes that the man's ravings may, in fact, have been true, and that the creatures are completely real and utterly mysterious.
In a swashbuckling adventure reminiscent of Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson, Kenneth Oppel, author of the best-selling Silverwing trilogy, creates an imagined world in which the air is populated by transcontinental voyagers, pirates, and beings never before dreamed of by the humans who sail the skies.
Publication Date: 05/11/04
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis: As students at a special high school that trains them to be secret agents, six teenagers struggle to complete the training exercises as a team before being sent out into the field to sink or swim.
Publication Date: 05/05/04
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Adventure
Synopsis: Sequel to: The Frankenstein factory.
Publication Date: 05/05/04
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Series
Synopsis: Describes the changes that occur during puberty and encourages young people to be less self-critical and to accept, be patient with, and care for their changing bodies.
Publication Date: 05/04/04
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Nonfiction
Synopsis: "What story will you tell with your life?"
In this jewel of a novel, Sid Hite addresses this question and delivers his most commanding and resplendent performance yet.
Lewis Hinton is in pursuit of two things--an elusive giant trout & his true identity. His adoptive parents, Martha & Avery Hinton, know they must let him search for clues about his past. His eccentric neighbor, Mrs Baderhoovernisterah, advises him to heed the plot twisters in life. His best friend, Amanda Dot, just wants him to fall in love w/ her. And the townspeople of Slippery Falls are determined to discover if the letter from Lewis's birth mother confirms the rumor--Is he descended from French royalty? Could this simple boy from Idaho really be a king?
In this jewel of a novel, Sid Hite addresses this question and delivers his most commanding and resplendent performance yet.
Lewis Hinton is in pursuit of two things--an elusive giant trout & his true identity. His adoptive parents, Martha & Avery Hinton, know they must let him search for clues about his past. His eccentric neighbor, Mrs Baderhoovernisterah, advises him to heed the plot twisters in life. His best friend, Amanda Dot, just wants him to fall in love w/ her. And the townspeople of Slippery Falls are determined to discover if the letter from Lewis's birth mother confirms the rumor--Is he descended from French royalty? Could this simple boy from Idaho really be a king?
Publication Date: 05/01/04
Age Level: 8 - 12
Genre: Humor
Synopsis: A whimsical, funny, heart-warming story for seven-to-nine year-olds, from a talented new storyteller.
This is the story of Toby, a little boy found in a room at a hotel by the sea. It is also the story of the Flots, a family of mermaids who are marooned under the pier. Together, the Flots and Toby plan how to help each other, find some buried treasure, and outwit Mr. Harris, the mean-minded hotel proprietor. In the process, Toby and the mermaids bring smiles to the faces of everyone they meet!
This is the story of Toby, a little boy found in a room at a hotel by the sea. It is also the story of the Flots, a family of mermaids who are marooned under the pier. Together, the Flots and Toby plan how to help each other, find some buried treasure, and outwit Mr. Harris, the mean-minded hotel proprietor. In the process, Toby and the mermaids bring smiles to the faces of everyone they meet!
Publication Date: 05/01/04
Age Level: 8 - 12
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Synopsis: Cameron, Carla, and Len were fascinated (for different reasons) with guns and target shooting at the Patriots' club range until the day Len brought his Kalashnikov rifle, his AR-18, and his Ruger pistol to school, and shot and killed football jock Brad Williams, and then himself. Here is yet another school shooting story that begins with bullying and ends with disaster--a type that is becoming almost a sub-genre of YA fiction. Yet Walter Dean Myers, winner of many awards for his young adult novels, brings freshness and new anguish to this familiar tale (and growing social problem) of unstable victim tormented by bullies to homicidal rage. Following the example of his own masterwork Monster, Myers uses different perspectives in the aftermath of the "incident" to reveal the characters and to tell the story: interviews with Cameron and Carla by The Harrison County School Safety Committee, newspaper reports, a police report, Len's handwritten "die-ary" of his deranged thoughts, and finally, a grim medical examiner's report. The contrasts and contradictions in these various perspectives challenge readers to produce their own versions of why Cameron and Carla became Len's followers and what could have prevented this tragedy and others like it in real life. (ages 12 and up) --Patty Campbell
Publication Date: 05/01/04
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction