New in January

Ashfall
By Mike Mullin

After the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano destroys his city and its surroundings, fifteen-year-old Alex must journey from Cedar Falls, Iowa, to Illinois to find his parents and sister, trying to survive in a transformed landscape and a new society in which all the old rules of living have vanished.






Just Your Average Princess
By Kristina Springer

Working in her family's pumpkin patch every year, seventeen-year-old Jamie has dreamed of two things--dating co-worker Danny and being crowned Pumpkin Princess--but her beautiful and famous cousin Milan's visit may squash all of her hopes.






Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917
By Sally M. Walker

When two ships collided in Halifax Harbour, on December 6, 1917, one of them was full of munitions for World War I. The ensuing explosion, aftershocks, and tsunami wrecked unbelievable devastation. It was the largest explosion in the world until the atomic bomb was detonated in World War II in 1945.





A Sword in Her Hand
By Jean-Claude van Rijckeghem & Pat van Beirs

A disappointment to her father since the day she was born, Marguerite resists her father's will for her to marry a man she doesn't love, as well as other forces which threaten her home, such as the plague.







My Name Is Not Easy
By Debby Dahl Edwardson

Alaskans Luke, Chickie, Sonny, Donna, and Amiq relate their experiences in the early 1960s when they are forced to attend a Catholic boarding school where, despite different tribal affiliations, they come to find a sort of family and home.






Wherever You Go
By Heather Davis

Seventeen-year-old Holly Mullen, overwhelmed with responsibility at home, grieving over her boyfriend Rob's tragic death, and confused by the sudden attention of his best friend, Jason, is further upset when her Alzheimer's-stricken Papa Aldo claims to be having conversations with Rob's ghost.





Charles Dickens and the Street Children of London
By Andrea Warren

Warren takes the reader on a journey into the workhouses, slums, factories, and schools of Victorian England, and into the world of Charles Dickens who used his pen to do battle on behalf of the poor.







Belle's Song
By K. M. Grant

In 1387, fifteen-year-old Belle joins Geoffrey Chaucer, his scribe Luke, squire Walter, and others on a pilgrimage from London to Canterbury to atone and pray for a cure for her father's crippling injury, but political intrigue threatens them all.






Deviant
By Adrian McKinty

Fourteen-year-old Danny Lopez reviews the path that led him from Las Vegas, Nevada, to an experimental school near Colorado Springs and then to his imminent death at the hands of a cat-killer ready for bigger prey.







What You Wish For: Stories and Poems for Darfur

Your favorite authors write to honor Darfur.










Signing Their Rights Away
By Denise Kiernan & Joseph D'Agnese

Presents the lives, deaths, and scandals involving the thirty-nine signers of the United States Constitution, including Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and James McHenry.







Sizzle
By Lee McClain

When the aunt she lives with becomes ill, orphaned Linda Delgado must leave Arizona for Philadelphia, where she struggles to adapt to a huge foster family, eating canned food, and finding an outlet for her love of cooking.







The Traitor's Smile
By Patricia Elliott

In 1793, Eugenie de Boncoeur arrives at the home of her English uncle and cousin, but the French Revolution has pursued her in the form of Guy Deschamps, who is determined to bring her back to Paris to marry the Pale Assassin.

New in December

Ashes
By Ilsa J. Bick

Alex, a resourceful seventeen-year-old running from her incurable brain tumor, Tom, who has left the war in Afghanistan, and Ellie, an angry eight-year-old, join forces after an electromagnetic pulse sweeps through the sky and kills most of the world's population, turning some of those who remain into zombies and giving the others superhuman senses.





iBoy
By Kevin Brooks

Sixteen-year-old Tom Harvey was an ordinary Londoner until an attack that caused fragments of an iPhone to be embedded in his brain, giving him incredible knowledge and power, but using that power against the gang that attacked him and a friend could have deadly consequences.






Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre World of Food: Brains, Bugs, and Blood Sausage
By Andrew Zimmern

Shares the author's adventures and experiences gained while traveling the world in search of highly unusual meals.







Little Women and Me
By Lauren Baratz-Logsted

Modern-day teen Emily March turns to Louisa May Alcott's famous book for a school assignment and finds herself mysteriously transported to the world of "Little Women," where she undergoes surprising changes.







Dark Inside
By Jeyn Roberts

After tremendous earthquakes destroy the Earth's major cities, an ancient evil emerges, turning ordinary people into hunters, killers, and insane monsters, but a small group of teens comes together in a fight for survival and safety.






You Are My Only
By Beth Kephart

Tells, in their separate voices and at a space of fourteen years, of Emmy, whose baby has been stolen, and Sophie, a teenager who defies her nomadic, controlling mother by making friends with a neighbor boy and his elderly aunts.






The Hunger Games Companion
By Lois H. Gresh

Go behind the scenes of the popular trilogy, examining characters, themes, and more.








Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories
Edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant

A collection of fourteen fantasy stories by well-known authors, set in the age of steam engines and featuring automatons, clockworks, calculating machines, and other marvels that never existed.







The Beginning of After
By Jennifer Castle

In the aftermath of a car accident that killed her family, sixteen-year-old Laurel must face a new world of guilt, painful memories, and the possibility of new relationships.







Saga of the Sioux
Adapted by Dwight Jon Zimmerman

Chronicles the tragic saga of the Sioux nation from 1860 to the 1890 massacre through the experiences of its chiefs and warriors, allowing their voices to be heard about what befell their people.







Misfit
By Jon Skovron

Seattle sixteen-year-old Jael must negotiate normal life in Catholic school while learning to control the abilities she inherited from her mother, a demon, and protect those she loves from Belial, the Duke of Hell.







Past Perfect
By Leila Sales

Sixteen-year-old Chelsea knows what to expect when she returns for a summer of historical reenactment at Colonial Essex Village until she learns that her ex-boyfriend is working there, too, and then meets the very attractive Dan who works at a rival historical village.






Unforgettable
By Loretta Ellsworth

When Baxter Green was three years old he developed a condition that causes him to remember absolutely everything, and now that he is fifteen, he and his mother have moved to Minnesota to escape her criminal boyfriend and, Baxter hopes, to reconnect with a girl he has been thinking about since kindergarten.

New in November

Sign Language
By Amy Ackley

Teenaged Abby must deal with her feelings about her father's cancer and its aftermath while simultaneously navigating the difficult problems of growing up.







Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction 2: Build a Secret Agent Arsenal
By John Austin

This hilarious book provides instructions for building 30 miniature spy gear, such as a toothpaste periscope and a bionic ear. Also includes tips for how to conceal your gear.







Following Christopher Creed
By Carol Plum-Ucci

Legally-blind college reporter Mike Mavic hopes to get a story about a body found in Steepleton, believed to be that of long-missing teen Christopher Creed, but finds something odd about the town, including Justin Creed's obsessive drive to learn what really happened to his older brother.






Battle Fatigue
By Mark Kurlansky

Joel Bloom chronicles his life experiences during the 1960's which eventually lead him to oppose the war in Vietnam and to flee to Canada rather than be forced to kill Vietnamese.







The Siren's Cry
By Jennifer Anne Kogler

During a trouble-filled school field trip to Washington, D.C., twelve-year-old Fern finds and tries to rescue fellow Unusual Miles Zapo, who is imprisoned at the National Zoological Park, using her abilities with teleportation and telekinesis.






The Name of the Star
By Maureen Johnson

Rory, of Boueuxlieu, Louisiana, is spending a year at a London boarding school when she witnesses a murder by a Jack the Ripper copycat and becomes involved with the very unusual investigation.







Ghosts in the Fog
By Samantha Seiple

Tells the story of the Japanese invasion of Alaska's Aleutian Islands during WWII from the point of view of American civilians, and American and Japanese soldiers.







Fostergirls
By Liane Shaw

Sadie has been in thirteen group homes, and wants to get out of the system. But it isn't easy to be invisible in a small town.








Frost
By Wendy Delsol

After her boyfriend Jack conjures up a record-breaking snow storm, sixteen-year-old Kat LeBlanc finds herself facing an unusual rival in the form of an environmental researcher from Greenland who is drawn to their small town of Norse Falls, Minnesota, by the storm.






Stuff That Scares Your Pants Off!
By Glenn Murphy

Presents useful information and facts on some of the most common fears, from poisonous spiders and shark bites in the ocean to the probability of being struck by lightning or killed by a flesh-eating bacteria.






Crush Control
By Jennifer Jabaley

When Willow Grey was nine years old she hypnotized her best friend Max to ensure that they would remain best friends forever, but finds that she feels something different for Max now that she is seventeen.

New in October

A Plague Year
By Edward Bloor

A ninth-grader who works with his father in the local supermarket describes the plague of meth addiction that consumes many people in his Pennsylvania coal mining town from 9/11 and the nearby crash of United Flight 93 in Shanksville to the Quecreek Mine disaster in Somerset the following summer.





All These Things I've Done
By Gabrielle Zevin

In a dystopian future where chocolate and caffeine are contraband, teenage cellphone use is illegal, and water and paper are carefully rationed, sixteen-year-old Anya Balanchine finds herself thrust unwillingly into the spotlight as heir apparent to an important New York City crime family.





Top Secret: Shady Tales of Spies and Spying
By Dorling Kindersley

This entertaining look at spying throughout history covers gadgets and tools, techniques, famous spies, tips for aspiring secret agents, and more.







The Poisoned House
By Michael Ford

As the widowed master of an elegant house in Victorian-era London slips slowly into madness and his tyrannical housekeeper takes on more power, a ghostly presence distracts a teenaged maidservant with clues to a deadly secret.






Dark of the Moon
By Tracy Barrett

Retells the story of the minotaur through the eyes of his fifteen-year-old sister, Ariadne, a lonely girl destined to become a goddess of the moon, and her new friend, Theseus, the son of Athens' king who was sent to Crete as a sacrifice to her misshapen brother.






Every Thing on It
By Shel Silverstein

This poetry collection includes more than 130 never-before-seen poems and drawings selected by Silverstein's family from his archives.







The Only Ones
By Aaron Starmer

After setting off from the island where he has been leading a solitary existence, thirteen-year-old Martin discovers a village with other children who have been living similarly without any adults, since the grown-ups have all been spirited away.






Silhouetted by the Blue
By Traci L. Jones

After the death of her mother in an automobile accident, seventh-grader Serena, who has gotten the ead in her middle school play, is left to handle the day-to-day challenges of caring for herself and her younger brother when their father cannot pull himself out of his depression.






First Kill
By Heather Brewer

The summer before ninth grade, when Joss sets off to meet his uncle and hunt down the beast that murdered his younger sister three years earlier, he learns he is destined to join the Slayer Society.







Alice in Time
By Penelope Bush

As her self-centered behavior spirals out of control, fourteen-year-old Alice gets an unusual chance to fix her whole disastrous life when she is mysteriously spirited back in time.







Children's Book of Mythical Beasts & Magical Monsters
By Dorling Kindersley

Shares tales of adventure, quests, magical creatures from around the world.








The Day Before
By Lisa Schroeder

Sixteen-year-old Amber, hoping to spend one perfect day alone at the beach before her world is turned upside down, meets and feels a strong connection to Cade, who is looking for his own escape, for a very different reason.






Wolf Mark
By Joseph Bruchac

When Lucas King's covert-ops father is kidnapped and his best friend Meena is put in danger, Luke's only chance to save them--a skin that will let him walk as a wolf--is hidden away in an abandoned mansion guarded by monsters.