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Horse Sense: The Saddle Club
Synopsis: Lisa love being a member of the Saddle Club. But lately, Stevie and Carole haven't had time for her or their friendship. And if she can'tconvince her friends that their club is just as important, she may have to find new members to replace them. . . .
Publication Date: 04/01/96
Age Level: 8 - 12
Genre: Fiction
Anthem
Leonard Peikoff, Ayn Rand
Synopsis: Ayn Rand’s classic tale of a dystopian future of the great “We”—a world that deprives individuals of a name or independence—that anticipates her later masterpieces, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

They existed only to serve the state. They were conceived in controlled Palaces of Mating. They died in the Home of the Useless. From cradle to grave, the crowd was one—the great WE.

In all that was left of humanity there was only one man who dared to think, seek, and love. He lived in the dark ages of the future. In a loveless world, he dared to love the woman of his choice. In an age that had lost all trace of science and civilization, he had the courage to seek and find knowledge. But these were not the crimes for which he would be hunted. He was marked for death because he had committed the unpardonable sin: He had stood forth from the mindless human herd. He was a man alone. He had rediscovered the lost and holy word—I.

“I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals, and I loathe humanity, for its failure to live up to these possibilities.”—Ayn Rand
Publication Date: 03/01/96
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Treasure Seekers
Cecil Leslie, E. Nesbit
Synopsis: When their father's business fails, the six Bastable children decide to restore the family fortunes. But although they think of many ingenious ways to do so, their well meant efforts are either more fun than profitable, or lead to trouble...
Publication Date: 02/01/96
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Incredible Journey
Carl Burger, Sheila Burnford
Synopsis: Instinct told them that the way home lay to the west. And so the doughty young Labrador retriever, the roguish bull terrier and the indomitable Siamese set out through the Canadian wilderness. Separately, they would soon have died. But, together, the three house pets faced starvation, exposure, and wild forest animals to make their way home to the family they love. The Incredible Journey is one of the great children's stories of all time--and has been popular ever since its debut in 1961.
Publication Date: 12/18/95
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Jayhawker
Stephen Marchesi, Patricia B. Uhr, Patricia Beatty
Synopsis: UNDERCOVER IN THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES

With the United States on the verge of civil war, Elijah Tully and his father ride out of Kansas as Jayhawkers, guerrilla fighters against slavery. After his father is killed, Lije goes undercover among the proslavery bushwhackers. Swept into a grisly raid, Lije unexpectedly stands face-to-face with his father's killer -- but is vengeance as simple as he once thought?

Publication Date: 10/19/95
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Historical Fiction
The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm
Synopsis: In Zimbabwe in the year 2194, General Matsika calls in Africa's most unusual detectives--the Ear, the Eye, and the Arm--to find his missing children. By the author of Do You Know Me. Reprint.
Publication Date: 10/01/95
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Synopsis: “Douglas Adams is a terrific satirist.”—The Washington Post Book World

Facing annihilation at the hands of the warlike Vogons? Time for a cup of tea! Join the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his uncommon comrades in arms in their desperate search for a place to eat, as they hurtle across space powered by pure improbability.

Among Arthur’s motley shipmates are Ford Prefect, a longtime friend and expert contributor to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the three-armed, two-headed ex-president of the galaxy; Tricia McMillan, a fellow Earth refugee who’s gone native (her name is Trillian now); and Marvin, the moody android. Their destination? The ultimate hot spot for an evening of apocalyptic entertainment and fine dining, where the food speaks for itself (literally).

“What’s such fun is how amusing the galaxy looks through Adams’s sardonically silly eyes.”—Detroit Free Press
Publication Date: 09/27/95
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway
Synopsis: In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight," For Whom the Bell Tolls.

The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving, and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.
Publication Date: 07/01/95
Age Level: Mature Young Adult
Genre: Classic
Thunder on the Tennessee
G. Clifton Wisler
Synopsis: Dreaming of honor and glory when he leaves home to fight the Yankees with his father, Willie Delamer is completely unprepared for the harsh realities of war and the tragedy that hits his family. Reprint.
Publication Date: 07/01/95
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Historical Fiction
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Robin H. Waterfield, Jules Verne
Synopsis: A mission to rid the seas of a monstrous creature becomes a terrifying nightmare when Professor Arronax, Conseil and Ned Land are thrown overboard. The huge marine animal which has haunted the water is no living beast, but a spectacular man-made vessel, and the three men find themselves the helpless prisoners of Captain Nemo. Resigned to their fate, they begin a miraculous journey on the submarine ship which can travel through waters never before explored. For the Professor, at least, this voyage is one he would not have missed for the world.
Publication Date: 07/01/95
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Interstellar Pig
William Sleator
Synopsis: When three unusually attractive young adults rent the summer cottage next door, Barney's boring vacation at the beach seemingly takes a turn for the better. However, after the neighbors unwittingly reveal their extraterrestrial identities, the board game they have taught him becomes a real-life battle, and Barney must outsmart the aliens to save Earth from destruction. The fantastical tale contains some of Sleator's most inventive characters.
Publication Date: 06/01/95
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway
Synopsis: The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal -- a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.

Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss. Written in 1952, this hugely successful novella confirmed his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Publication Date: 05/05/95
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Rob Roy
Sir Walter Scott
Synopsis: When young Francis Osbaldistone discovers that his vicious and scheming cousin Rashleigh has designs both on his father's business and his beloved Diana Vernon, he turns in desperation to Rob Roy for help. Chieftain of the MacGregor clan, Rob Roy is a brave and fearless man, able and cunning. But he is also an outlaw with a price on his head, and as he and Francis join forces to pursue Rashleigh, he is constantly aware that he, too, is being pursued—and could be captured at any moment. Set on the eve of the 1715 Jacobite uprising, Rob Roy brilliantly evokes a Scotland on the verge of rebellion, blending historical fact and a novelist's imagination to create an incomparable portrait of intrigue, rivalry and romance.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Publication Date: 05/01/95
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Historical Fiction
Bull Run
Paul Fleischman
Synopsis:

Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction * ALA Best Book for Young Adults * ALA Notable Children's Book

In this brilliant fictional tour de force, which the New York Times called "a deft, poignant novel," Newbery Medal-winning author Paul Fleischman re-creates the first great battle of the Civil War from the points of view of sixteen participants.

Northern and Southern, male and female, white and black. Here are voices that tell of the dreams of glory, the grim reality, the hopes, horror, and folly of a nation discovering the true nature of war.

Publication Date: 03/31/95
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Nonfiction
Hide and Seek
Inez Smidt, Terese Edelstein, Ida Vos
Synopsis: Eight-year-old Rachel Hartog, her sister Esther and her parents are forced to go into hiding as the Germans take over their town. At first they stay with Father Thijssen at the Rectory but have to be moved on because they have been discovered. Separated from their parents, the girls go to another house in Venjuizen to stay with Aunt Nel and Uncle Jaap De Lange (to whom the book is dedicated) where they remain until the end of the war. 

Rachel's first person, present tense narrative draws the reader into her experiences feeling the hurt and confusion. Vos acknowledges that the story of Rachel Herzog is her own. The girls intense fear of going outside after the German defeat, caused by their many years of living inside in fear of discovery, and the letters their family receive telling them of their relatives deaths in concentration camps add depth to the story.
Publication Date: 03/01/95
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Historical Fiction
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Synopsis: Hilariously picaresque, epic in scope, alive with the poetry and vigor of the American people, Mark Twain's story about a young boy and his journey down the Mississippi was the first great novel to speak in a truly American voice. Influencing subsequent generations of writers -- from Sherwood Anderson to Twain's fellow Missourian, T.S. Eliot, from Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner to J.D. Salinger -- "Huckleberry Finn," like the river which flows through its pages, is one of the great sources which nourished and still nourishes the literature of America.
Publication Date: 03/01/95
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction

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