F COO	Gossip from the Girls' Room: a Blogtastic! Novel (age 10+) by Rose Cooper friendship ... school ... letters/journal Publisher comments: Gossip from the Girls' Room fills readers in on all there is to learn about middle school life at Middlebrooke, where Sofia has her very own blog and discusses all the juicy gossip that comes out of the Girls' room; read along to find out just what happens when class is not in session.
F CAR	Skeleton Creek Series (age 10+) by Patrick Carman letters/journal ... mystery ... adventure Publisher comments: Strange things are happening in Skeleton Creek . . . and Ryan and Sarah are trying to get to the heart of it. But after an eerie accident leaves Ryan housebound and forbidden to see Sarah, their investigation takes two tracks: Ryan records everything in his journal, while Sarah uses her videocam to search things out. . .and then email the clips for Ryan to see. title: Skeleton Creek title: Ghost in the Machine title: Crossbones title: The Raven
F VEG	Click Here (To Find Out How I Survived Seventh Grade): A Novel (age 10+) by Denise Vega humor ... school ... letters/journal ... friendship Catalog: Seventh-grader Erin Swift writes about her friends and classmates in her private blog, but when it accidentally gets posted on the school Intranet site, she learns some important lessons about friendship.
F AVI	Nothing But the Truth: A Documentary Novel (age 10+) by Avi letters/journal ... school Publisher comments: Patriotism or practical joke? Harrison, NH: Ninth-grade student Philip Malloy was suspended from school for singing along to The Star-Spangled Banner in his homeroom, causing what his teacher, Margaret Narwin, called "a disturbance." But was he standing up for his patriotic ideals, only to be squelched by the school system? Was Ms. Narwin simply trying to be a good teacher? Or could it all be just a misunderstanding gone bad...very bad? What is the truth here? Can it ever be known? Heroism, hoax, or mistake, what happened at Harrison High changes everything for everyone in ways no one (least of all Philip) could have ever predicted.
F HOL	Letters From Rapunzel (age 10+) by Sara Holmes growing up ... realistic ... illness/loss ... letters/journal Publisher comments: Once upon a time, there was a girl. Let's call her Rapunzel. A modern-day version. Abandoned. Alone. Waiting for her hair to grow and dreaming of a way to escape from her tower. She was trapped, you see. Not in the conventional fairy-tale way; this was the dreaded after-school Homework Club. A desolate place, where no gum could be chewed, and where Rapunzel sat day after day, cursing the evil spell that had been cast over her father. The doctors called it something else, but a true heroine can smell an evil spell a mile away. So when a mysterious letter addressed to P.O. Box #5667 falls into her hands, she knows she's found the pea under her mattress. But since when is finding happily ever after as simple as Just Writing Back?
F MOW	The Guild Trilogy (age 10+) by Joshua Mowll historical ... letters/journal ... action ... adventure A sister and brother's search for their missing parents uncovers a mysterious secret society in an action-filled sea-and-land saga centered in 1920s Shanghai. For Joshua Mowll, it was the surprise of a lifetime. There, among the archives inherited from his great-aunt Rebecca MacKenzie, was a 1920s journal recounting the thrilling and dangerous adventures of fifteen-year-old Rebecca and her younger brother, Doug, in the wake of their parents' mysterious disappearance in the deserts of China. Now carefully re-created, the siblings' tale begins aboard the Expedient, their uncle's enigmatic research ship, and moves at a breathless pace through the streets of Shanghai and on to a terrifying island fortress. Along the way, Doug and Becca encounter an ancient order of Chinese mercenaries, a brutal pirate warlord, a feisty Texan heiress, and a stolen cache of a volatile explosive called zoridium. By their saga's end, the intrepid duo has exposed a murderous plot involving their parents and uncovered a high-minded secret society hidden from the world for hundreds of years. title: Operation Red Jericho title: Operation Typhoon Shore title: Operation Storm City
F MAC	Pendragon Series (age 10+) by D. J. MacHale letters/journal ... action ... science fiction ... adventure ... fantasy Bobby Pendragon is a seemingly normal fourteen-year-old boy. He has a family, a home, and even Marley, his beloved dog. But there is something very special about Bobby. He is going to save the world. And not just Earth as we know it. Bobby is slowly starting to realize that life in the cosmos isn't quite what he thought it was. And before he can object, he is swept off to an alternate dimension known as Denduron, a territory inhabited by strange beings, ruled by a magical tyrant, and plagued by dangerous revolution. If Bobby wants to see his family again, he's going to have to accept his role as savior, and accept it wholeheartedly. Because, as he is about to discover, Denduron is only the beginning.... title: The Merchant of Death title: Into the Storm title: The Lost City of Faar title: The Never War title: The Reality Bug title: Black Water title: The Rivers of Zadaa title: The Quillan Games title: The Pilgrims of Rayne title: Raven Rise title: The Soldiers of Halla
F HOL	Middle School Is Worse Than Meatloaf: a Year Told Through Stuff (age 10+) by Jennifer Holm growing up ... humor ... school ... letters/journal Told entirely through notes, grocery receipts, report cards, bottle caps, newspaper clippings, and other pieces of a young girls life, Newbery Honor winner Holm delivers the story of Ginnys seventh-grade year using all the things that "really" matter.
F BLO	Letters From the Corrugated Castle: a novel of Gold Rush California, 1850-1852 (age 10+) by Joan W. Blos adventure ... letters/journal ... historical "Dear Cousin Sallie, I begin with words I never thought to write: I am not an orphan!" Thirteen-year-old Eldora has always believed that her mother died when she was very little, and for nine years she has lived with people that she calls Aunt and Uncle. The year is 1850, and all three have exchanged their quiet lives in New Bedford, Massachusetts, for new ones in San Francisco, the rapidly growing city that is the heart of the California Gold Rush. Shortly after their arrival, they receive a letter from an unknown woman who believes she is Eldora's mother. She is eager to meet her long-lost daughter, and a visit is arranged. As Eldora deals with her conflicting feelings about this news, she must also adjust to the challenges ... and dangers ... of living in a brash and growing city. She finds herself teaching English to two Mexicano children and beginning to learn Spanish, and an unlikely friendship with a boy named Luke introduces her to the hard, sometimes humorous, and often violent world of the mining camps. Every day seems to bring something different and new to consider. But can Eldora discover where ... and to whom ... she belongs?
F BLO	Brothers of the Heart: a Story of the Old Northwest, 1837-1838 (age 10+) by Joan W. Blos letters/journal ... adventure ... growing up ... survival ... historical Fourteen-year-old Shem spends six months in the Michigan wilderness alone with a dying Indian woman, who helps him, not only to survive, but to mature to the point where he can return to his family and the difficulties of life as a cripple in a frontier village.
F LYO	Letters From a Slave Girl the Story of Harriet Jacobs (age 10+) by Mary E. Lyons letters/journal ... historical ... survival Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery; it's the only life she has ever known. Now, with the death of her mistress, there is a chance she will be given her freedom, and for the first time Harriet feels hopeful. But hoping can be dangerous, because disappointment is devastating. Harriet has one last hope, though: escape to the North. And as she faces numerous ordeals, this hope gives her the strength she needs to survive.
F AYR	North by Night: a Story of the Underground Railroad (age 10+) by Katherine Ayres letters/journal ... adventure ... historical Sixteen-year-old Lucy Spencer believes in the work she and her family are doing to help fugitive slaves escape to Canada. Yet, what will Lucy do when asked to make the ultimate sacrifice and leave all she loves behind.
F HES	Stowaway (age 10+) by Karen Hesse adventure ... voyages/journeys ... historical ... letters/journal It is known that in the summer of 1768, Captain James Cook sailed from England on H.M.S Endeavour, beginning a three-year voyage around the world on a secret mission to discover an unknown continent at the bottom of the globe. What is less known is that a boy by the name of Nicholas Young was a stowaway on that ship. Newbery winner Karen Hesse re-creates Cook's momentous voyage through the eyes of this remarkable boy, creating a fictional journal filled with fierce hurricanes, warring natives, and disease, as Nick discovers new lands, incredible creatures, and lifelong friends.
F GAN	Heads or Tails: Stories From the Sixth Grade (age 10+) by Jack Gantos growing up ... letters/journal ... family ... humor Jack's life is a crazy roller-coaster ride. At his fifth school in six years, he has a crackpot teacher who won't give him a break about his lousy handwriting and a secret crush who wants to be a policewoman. At home, he has a pesty little brother with a knack for breaking an arm whenever Jack's supposed to be looking after him, a terror for an older sister, all sorts of weird neighbors, and, last but not least, ferocious alligators in the canal behind his house.
F GAN	Jack on the Tracks: Four Seasons of Fifth Grade (age 10+) by Jack Gantos growing up ... letters/journal ... family ... humor Inspired by the author's childhood diaries, this new collection of Jack Henry stories depicts a fifth-grade year to end all fifth-grade years. Living in a Miami rental home with a busy railroad track running a stone's throw from the backyard, the author's alter ego is plagued by a know-it-all older sister, a bizarre Francophile teacher, a series of crazed cats, a slightly off-kilter father, a tapeworm, and a pair of escaped convicts ... to name just a few of his antagonists. But for Jack Henry, hailed by School Library Journal as "an 'everyboy' whose world may be wacko but whose heart and spirit are eminently sane," no matter how rough the ride, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.
F WOO	Dear Levi (age 10+) by Elvira Woodruff adventure ... historical ... letters/journal Twelve-year-old Austin Ives writes letters to his younger brother describing his three-thousand-mile journey from their home in Pennsylvania to Oregon in 1851.
F HES	Out of the Dust (age 10+) by Karen Hesse letters/journal ... historical ... poetry In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.

Sat Aug 25 11:55:25 2012 Other themes and genres