8 - 12

There's a Spaceship in My Tree
Robert West
Know Your Star-FightersBeamer: California transplant to a weird Midwestern town. Feels like he’s living on another planet. Scilla: the gangly tomboy next door. Ghoulie: the class nerd. Add one spaceship-shaped tree house capable of taking them most anywhere in the universe. Hop in and blast off for fantastic outer space adventures in Star-Fighters of Murphy Street―the quirky, funny, fast-paced new trilogy by Robert West.Newly arrived from California, thirteen-year-old Beamer MacIntyre feels like an alien in this bizarre Midwestern town. Strangest of all is the spaceship-shaped tree house in his yard. Surprises await Beamer and his two new friends, Ghoulie and Scilla, when they climb inside and blast off to a universe full of adventure―including a surefire way to make the school bully stop harassing Ghoulie (provided it doesn’t backfire!).
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The Gorgon's Gaze
Julia Golding
Connie Lionheart's calculating great-aunt and uncle try to take her away from the tantalizing reach of the Society for the Protection of Mythical Creatures. What they don't realize (or do they?) is that Connie is the Society's most important member--she is the only universal companion able to bond with all mythical creatures. Connie's great gift also puts her in great danger, as the evil shape-shifter Kullervo needs her power to destroy the Society once and for all. But how can Connie help anyone, even herself, when she hasn't learned how to use her gift yet? In this second book of the Companions Quartet, Connie and her friends team together again to protect the fragile bonds between humans, creatures, and the world we must share.
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Blue Like Friday
Siobhan Parkinson
NOT EVERYONE SEES THE WORLD THROUGH THE SAME LENS. From the author of Something Invisible comes this funny and poignant novel about the hues of friendship.Spunky Olivia and eccentric Hal are an unlikely pair. While Hal suffers from a neurological condition called synesthesia that causes him to associate things with colors, Olivia tends to see the world in black and white. Still, these two are friends through thick and thin, through rose-colored days and blue days, even when Hal’s plan to get rid of his mother’s boyfriend backfires by driving his mother away. Olivia’s honest, funny and always-opinionated voice tells this story with colorful perception.
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The Girl Who Could Fly
Victoria Forester
You just can't keep a good girl down . . . unless you use the proper methods.Piper McCloud can fly. Just like that. Easy as pie.Sure, she hasn't mastered reverse propulsion and her turns are kind of sloppy, but she's real good at loop-the-loops.Problem is, the good folk of Lowland County are afraid of Piper. And her ma's at her wit's end. So it seems only fitting that she leave her parents' farm to attend a top-secret, maximum-security school for kids with exceptional abilities.School is great at first with a bunch of new friends whose skills range from super-strength to super-genius. (Plus all the homemade apple pie she can eat!) But Piper is special, even among the special. And there are consequences.Consequences too dire to talk about. Too crazy to consider. And too dangerous to ignore.At turns exhilarating and terrifying, Victoria Forester's debut novel has been praised by Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight saga, as "the oddest/sweetest mix of Little House on the Prairie and X-Men...Prepare to have your heart warmed." The Girl Who Could Fly is an unforgettable story of defiance and courage about an irrepressible heroine who can, who will, who must . . . fly.This title has Common Core connections.Praise for Victoria Forester and The Girl Who Could Fly:"It's the oddest/sweetest mix of Little House on the Prairie and X-Men. I was smiling the whole time (except for the part where I cried). I gave it to my mom, and I'm reading it to my kids―it's absolutely multigenerational. Prepare to have your heart warmed." Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight saga"In this terrific debut novel, readers meet Piper McCloud, the late-in-life daughter of farmers...The story soars, just like Piper, with enough loop-de-loops to keep kids uncertain about what will come next....Best of all are the book's strong, lightly wrapped messages about friendship and authenticity and the difference between doing well and doing good."--Booklist, Starred Review "Forester's disparate settings (down-home farm and futuristic ice-bunker institute) are unified by the rock-solid point of view and unpretentious diction… any child who has felt different will take strength from Piper's fight to be herself against the tide of family, church, and society."--The Horn Book ReviewThe Girl Who Could Fly is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
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Misspelled
Julie E. Czerneda
strange magic...in 17 Fascinating tales of spells gone awry When it comes to magic, skipping the directions, changing the ingredients, or garbling the words of a spell can lead to unusual consequences-sometimes dire, sometimes comical. Included in these stories are just a few of the possible results: a cybermancer has her spell disk corrupted by some unexpected input; two students brewing up spells outside the curriculum forgo a critical ingredient; a young woman orders a fairy-tale life, but forgets to read the fine print. Now they're really spellbound...
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The Penderwicks on Gardam Street
Jeanne Birdsall
This series of modern classics about the charming Penderwick family from National Book Award winner and New York Times bestseller Jeanne Birdsall is perfect for fans of Noel Streatfeild and Edward Eager. Over one million copies sold, now with a bright new look!The Penderwick sisters are home on Gardam Street and ready for an adventure! But the adventure they get isn’t quite what they had in mind. Mr. Penderwick’s sister has decided it’s time for him to start dating—and the girls know that can only mean one thing: disaster. Enter the Save-Daddy Plan—a plot so brilliant, so bold, so funny, that only the Penderwick girls could have come up with it. It’s high jinks, big laughs, and loads of family warmth as the Penderwicks triumphantly return.
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Shooting The Moon
Frances O'Roark Dowell
JAMIE THINKS HER FATHER CAN DO ANYTHING.... UNTIL THE ONE TIME HE CAN DO NOTHING. When twelve-year-old Jamie Dexter's brother joins the Army and is sent to Vietnam, Jamie is plum thrilled. She can't wait to get letters from the front lines describing the excitement of real-life combat: the sound of helicopters, the smell of gunpowder, the exhilaration of being right in the thick of it. After all, they've both dreamed of following in the footsteps of their father, the Colonel. But TJ's first letter isn't a letter at all. It's a roll of undeveloped film, the first of many. What Jamie sees when she develops TJ's photographs reveals a whole new side of the war. Slowly the shine begins to fade off of Army life - and the Colonel. How can someone she's worshipped her entire life be just as helpless to save her brother as she is? From the author of the Edgar Award-winning Dovey Coe comes a novel, both timely and timeless, about the sacrifices we make for what we believe and the people we love.
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The Dragon's Eye
Dugald A. Steer, Douglas Carrel
"Steer infuses the exciting story with the flavor of a nineteenth-century novel and incorporates dragon lore found in his earlier books. Dragon lovers will be well pleased." —-BOOKLISTAdventure! Villains! And dragons, dragons, dragons! From the creators of the best-selling Dragonology series, this first volume of the Dragonology Chronicles finds Daniel Cook and his sister, Beatrice, studying with eccentric dragonologist Dr. Ernest Drake. Soon they’re caught up in a race to find the stolen Dragon’s Eye —- a jewel that has the power to reflect the true Dragon Master —- before it is stolen by the evil Ignatius Crook. Working with Dr. Drake (and many friendly dragons), can these young siblings foil Ignatius and recover the Dragon’s Eye?
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The God of Mischief
Bret Bertholf, Paul Bajoria
Sent to live at Cloy Mansion with a distant relative, twins Mog and Nick begin to explore their surroundings and soon discover strange goings-on within its walls, thus when a governess is found hanging in a room and old documents reveal dangerous secrets, the twins must work quickly to find out who or what is behind the evil deeds taking place.
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The Lycan Journal
Chad Long
In The Lycan Journal, Gordo Gates, a thirteen-year-old boy, makes a startling discovery, concerning the history of werewolves, and a hidden treasure of silver, which needs to be exposed no matter what the personal consequences are to the fretful narrator of the story.