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SNY |
Fool's Gold
(age 10+) by Zilpha Keatley Snyder realistic ... adventure ... friendship Publisher comments: For as long as he can remember, people have warned fourteen-year-old Rudy and other kids in the neighborhood not to play in Pyramid Hill's abandoned gold mines. Even Rudy's best friend, Barney, a true daredevil, won't go near those cavernous death traps. That is, until Tyler Lewis moves in from L.A. Ty's determined to go in, and he's got a map. |
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VAN |
Dear Mom, You're Ruining My Life
(age 10+) by Jean Van Leeuwen realistic ... growing up ... family Samantha Slayton's eleventh year includes losing her last baby teeth, towering over every boy in dance school, and being mortified by everything her mother does. |
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SHE |
Canned
(age 10+) by Alex Shearer mystery ... realistic ... adventure Fergal Bamfield doesn't collect stamps like normal kids. He's an oddball (his mother prefers to call him "clever"), and his collection is as strange as everything else about him. Fergal Bamfield collects tin cans. Then one day he finds a can without a label. What could be in it? Peaches, soup, perhaps revolting spam? But instead it's something gruesome: a human finger. Then Fergal finds another can, this time containing a one-word message, HELP! Now Fergal and his friend Charlotte are knee-deep in an adventure, and they're about to learn something horrible: Everybody has an expiration date. |
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MAS |
Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life
(age 10+) by Wendy Mass mystery ... realistic ... growing up In one month Jeremy Fink will turn thirteen. But does he have what it takes to be a teenager? He collects mutant candy, he won't venture more than four blocks from his apartment if he can help it, and he definitely doesn't like surprises. On the other hand, his best friend, Lizzy, isn't afraid of anything, even if that might get her into trouble now and then. Jeremy's summer takes an unexpected turn when a mysterious wooden box arrives in the mail. According to the writing on the box, it holds the meaning of life Jeremy is supposed to open it on his thirteenth birthday. The problem is, the keys are missing, and the box is made so that only the keys will open it without destroying what's inside. Jeremy and Lizzy set off to find the keys, but when one of their efforts goes very wrong, Jeremy starts to lose hope that he'll ever be able to open the box. But he soon discovers that when you're meeting people named Oswald Oswald and using a private limo to deliver unusual objects to strangers all over the city, there might be other ways of finding out the meaning of life. |
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PAT |
Jacob Have I Loved
(age 10+) by Katherine Patterson identity ... realistic ... growing up ... family Sara Louise Bradshaw is sick and tired of her beautiful twin Caroline. Ever since they were born, Caroline has been the pretty one, the talented one, the better sister. Even now, Caroline seems to take everything: Louise's friends, their parents' love, her dreams for the future. For once in her life, Louise wants to be the special one. But in order to do that, she must first figure out who she is, and find a way to make a place for herself outside her sister's shadow. |
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PAT |
Bridge to Terabithia
(age 10+) by Katherine Paterson realistic ... friendship Jess Aaron's greatest ambition is to be the fastest runner in the fifth grade. He's been practicing all summer and can't wait to see his classmates' faces when he beats them all. But on the first day of school, a new kid, a new girl, boldly crosses over to the boys' side of the playground and outruns everyone. That's not a very promising beginning for a friendship, but Jess and Leslie Burke become inseparable. It doesn't matter to Jess that Leslie dresses funny, or that her family has a lot of money, but no TV. Leslie has amazing imagination. |
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NAY |
The Alice Series (age 10+) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor friendship ... school ... identity ... realistic ... growing up Eleven-year-old, motherless Alice decides she needs a gorgeous role model who does everything right. Denied her wish to be in lovely Miss Cole's class, she learns that what she needs is not always what she expects. title: The Agony of Alice |