COSMIC
Frank Cottrell Boyce
Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins Children’s Books
ISBN: 9780061836831
Ages 8-12
320 pages

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Liam has always felt a bit like he's stuck between two worlds. This is primarily because he's a 12-year-old kid who looks like he's about 30. Sometimes it's not so bad, like when his new principal mistakes him for a teacher on the first day of school or when he convinces a car dealer to let him take a Porsche out on a test drive. But mostly it's just frustrating, being a kid trapped in an adult world. And so he decides to flip things around. Liam cons his way onto the first spaceship to take civilians into space, a special flight for a group of kids and an adult chaperone, and he is going as the adult chaperone. It's not long before Liam, along with his friends, is stuck between two worlds again --- only this time he's 239,000 miles from home.

THE DEATH-DEFYING PEPPER ROUX
Geraldine McCaughrean
HarperCollins Children’s Books
ISBN: 9780061836657
Ages 10-up
336 pages

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Pepper's 14th birthday is a momentous one. It's the day he's supposed to die.
 
Everyone seems resigned to it --- even Pepper, although he would much prefer to live. But can you sidestep Fate? Jump sideways into a different life? Naive and trusting, Pepper sets a course through dangerous waters, inviting disaster and mayhem at every turn, one eye on the sky for fear of angels, one on the magnificent possibilities of being alive.

GREEN
Laura Peyton Roberts
Delacorte Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780385735582
Ages 10-up
272 pages

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Turning 13 starts off with a bang for Lily. Literally. A birthday present explodes on her porch…and soon after a trio of leprechauns (yes, leprechauns) appears in her bedroom. They whisk her away to a land of clover, piskies, a new friend, a cute boy, and lots of glimmering, glittering gold. A world of Green.

It turns out that Lily, like her grandmother before her, is next in line to be keeper for the Clan of Green and in charge of all their gold. That is, if she passes three tests. And she has to pass them. Because if she doesn’t, she may never get to go home again. She’ll be stuck with the Greens forever.

A MILLION SHADES OF GRAY
Cynthia Kadohata
Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 9781416918837
Ages 10-up
224 pages

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Y'Tin is brave. No one in his village denies that. And while his mother may wish that he'd spend more time on schoolwork than on training his elephant, she knows that it takes a great deal of courage and calm to handle elephants the way that Y'Tin does. He is the best handler in the village --- and at 13 years old, the youngest. Maybe he'll even open up his own school someday to teach other Dega how to train wild elephants!
 
That was the plan, anyway --- back before the American troops pulled out of the Vietnam War, back before Y'Tin's village was attacked by North Vietnamese forces, back before they had to start digging a massive, menacing pit, back before Y'Tin watched his life change in a million terrible ways.
 
Now, his bravery is truly put to the test: He can stay in his village, held captive by the North Vietnamese, or he can risk his life (and save his elephant's) by fleeing into the jungle.

ONE CRAZY SUMMER
Rita Williams-Garcia
Amistad/HarperCollins Children’s Books
ISBN: 9780060760885
Ages 9-12
224 pages

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Eleven-year-old Delphine has it together. Even though her mother, Cecile, abandoned her and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, seven years ago. Even though her father and Big Ma will send them from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to stay with Cecile for the summer. And even though Delphine will have to take care of her sisters, as usual, and learn the truth about the missing pieces of the past.
 
When the girls arrive in Oakland in the summer of 1968, Cecile wants nothing to do with them. She makes them eat Chinese takeout dinners, forbids them to enter her kitchen, and never explains the strange visitors with Afros and black berets who knock on her door. Rather than spend time with them, Cecile sends Delphine, Vonetta and Fern to a summer camp sponsored by a revolutionary group, the Black Panthers, where the girls get a radical new education.

THE TOTAL TRAGEDY OF A GIRL NAMED HAMLET
Erin Dionne
Dial Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780803732988
Ages 8-12
304 pages

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Hamlet Kennedy just wants to be your average, happy, vanilla eighth grader. But with Shakespearean scholar parents who dress in Elizabethan regalia and generally go about in public as if it were the 16th century, that’s not terribly easy. It gets worse when they decide that Hamlet’s genius seven-year-old sister will attend middle school with her --- and even worse when the Shakespeare project is announced and her sister is named the new math tutor. By the time an in-class recitation reveals that our heroine is an extraordinary Shakespearean actress, Hamlet can no longer hide from the fact that she --- like her family --- is anything but average.

100 Cupboards

THE CHESTNUT KING: Book 3 of the 100 Cupboards
N. D. Wilson
Random House Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780375838859
Ages 9-12
496 pages

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When Henry York found 99 cupboards hidden behind his bedroom wall, he never dreamed they were doors to entirely new worlds. Unfortunately, Henry’s discovery freed an ancient, undying witch, whose hunger for power would destroy every world connected to the cupboards --- and every person whom Henry loves. Henry must seek out the legendary Chestnut King for help. Everything has a price, however, and the Chestnut King’s desire may be as dangerous as the witch herself.

The Gecko & Sticky

THE GECKO & STICKY: SINISTER SUBSTITUTE
written by Wendelin Van Draanen
illustrated by Stephen Gilpin
Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780375843785
Ages 8-12
224 pages

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Dave's most despised teacher, a gleeful frog dissector named Ms. Veronica Krockle, is absent. While her students are excited, Sticky is suspicious. Especially when the substitute teacher turns out to be strangely interested in geckos. Or rather, boys with pet geckos.

That’s no substitute! That’s Damien Black, dastardly treasure hunter and master of disguise! If Damien Black is in school, does that mean he isbehind Ms. Krockle’s absence? Could she have been kidnapped? And does that mean Dave has to rescue her? Ay chihuahua! The capped crusader is (reluctantly) on the case.

Ranger’s Apprentice

RANGER’S APPRENTICE Book 7: ERAK’S RANSOM
John Flanagan
Philomel Books
ISBN: 9780399252051
Ages 10-up
376 pages

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What does it mean to earn the Silver Oakleaf? So few men have done so. For Will, a mere boy, that symbol of honor has long felt out of reach. Now, in the wake of Araluen’s uneasy truce with the raiding Skandians comes word that the Skandian leader has been captured by a dangerous desert tribe. The Rangers are sent to free him. But the desert is like nothing these warriors have seen before. Strangers in a strange land, they are brutalized by sandstorms, beaten by the unrelenting heat, tricked by one tribe that plays by its own rules, and surprisingly befriended by another. Like a desert mirage, nothing is as it seems. Yet one thing is constant: the bravery of the Rangers.

Steel Trapp

STEEL TRAPP: THE ACADEMY
Ridley Pearson
Disney-Hyperion
ISBN: 9781423115328
Ages 10-up
416 pages

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Steven "Steel" Trapp has been placed in an East Coast boarding school for gifted kids by his FBI agent father. He soon discovers that there's a clubby element of the faculty and upper classmen that is very secretive and protective. To his surprise, his friend Kaleigh arrives to board at the school and it isn't long before the two realize that this is not your normal boarding school. It seems a select few students are recruited, while still minors, to serve as special "translators" for the U.S. government. People --- including diplomats and dignitaries --- will say things around kids that they wouldn't otherwise dare speak outside of embassies. The willing student "agent" takes a semester abroad and ends up spying for his country.

But there are dark elements at play at the school. Foreign agents may have penetrated the school's secrecy and may have sleepers in place: kids spying on future kid spies. There is conspiracy and competition among the elite faculty that threatens security. As Steel and Kaileigh are recruited for their first test run --- trying to break a ring of pickpockets in a Boston hotel --- things go impossibly wrong. Betrayal and conspiracy cloud what should have been a straightforward assignment. And all too soon, their very lives are in danger.

Sequel to A LITTLE PRINCESS

WISHING FOR TOMORROW: The Sequel to A Little Princess
Hilary McKay
Margaret K. McElderry Books/Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 9781442401693
Ages 8-12
288 pages

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Nothing is quite the same at Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary for Young Ladies since Sara Crewe went away with the Indian gentleman. Lavinia is once again the girls’ leader, but she hungers for a more interesting life. Lottie is still busy making mischief, as is the new neighbor, the red-headed boy. Alice, the new maid, brings a breath of fresh air and slapdash practicality to the school. But Sara is much missed --- especially by her best friend, Ermengarde. Can Ermengarde find her own way and be happy? Will she and Sara ever be able to be friends the way they were before?

Sequel to RAPUNZEL’S REVENGE

CALAMITY JACK
written by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale
illustrated by Nathan Hale
Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books
ISBN: 9781599900766
Ages 10-14
144 pages

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Jack likes to think of himself as a criminal mastermind…with an unfortunate amount of bad luck. A schemer, plotter, planner, trickster, swindler...maybe even thief? One fine day Jack picks a target a little more giant than the usual, and one little bean turns into a great big building-destroying beanstalk.
 
With help from Rapunzel (and her trusty braids), a pixie from Jack’s past, and a man with inventions from the future, they just might out-swindle the evil giants and put his beloved city back in the hands of good people...while catapulting themselves and readers into another fantastical adventure.

BACK OF THE BUS
written by Aaron Reynolds
illustrated by Floyd Cooper
Philomel Books
ISBN: 9780399250910
Ages 6-8
32 pages

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It seems like any other winter day in Montgomery, Alabama. Mama and child are riding where they’re supposed to --- way in the back of the bus. The boy passes the time by watching his marble roll up and down the aisle with the motion of the bus, until from way up front a big commotion breaks out. He can’t see what’s going on, but he can see the policeman arrive outside and he can see Mama’s chin grow strong. “There you go, Rosa Parks,” she says, “stirrin’ up a nest of hornets. Tomorrow all this’ll be forgot.” But they both know differently.

THE HALLELUJAH FLIGHT
written by Phil Bildner
illustrated by John Holyfield
Putnam Juvenile
ISBN: 9780399247897
Ages 5-8
32 pages

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During the Great Depression, the ace black pilot James Banning decided to fly from coast to coast to serve as an inspiration to people everywhere. So he fixed up the dilapidated OXX6 Eagle Rock plane with his co-pilot and mechanic, Thomas Allen, earning them the derisive nickname “The Flying Hoboes.” But with the help of friends and family, Banning and Allen
made it through treacherous weather and ruthless prejudice to receive a heroes’ welcome upon landing in New York on October 9, 1932.

HENRY AARON’S DREAM
written and illustrated by Matt Tavares
Candlewick Press
ISBN: 9780763632243
Ages 8-10
40 pages

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Before he was Hammerin' Hank, Henry Aaron was a young boy growing up in Mobile, Alabama, with what seemed like a foolhardy dream: to be a big-league baseball player. He didn't have a bat. He didn't have a ball. And there wasn't a single black ball player in the major leagues. But none of this could stop Henry Aaron. In a captivating biography of Henry Aaron's young life --- from his sandlot days through his time in the Negro Leagues to the day he played his first spring training game for the Braves --- Matt Tavares offers an inspiring homage to one of baseball's all-time greats.

LITTLE CLOUD AND LADY WIND
written by Toni Morrison and Slade Morrison
illustrated by Sean Qualls
Paula Wiseman Books/Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing
ISBN: 9781416985235
Ages 4-8
32 pages

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Little Cloud drifts in the sky with the other clouds and has a life that any cloud would want. But Little Cloud isn't happy. She doesn't want to make thunder and rain like the other clouds. The earth below is so beautiful --- purple mountains, scarves of snow, silver-topped waves. She wants to live and play on the earth and be on her own.
 
How will Little Cloud ever come to understand that everything has its special place in the world, most especially her?

MAMA MITI: WANGARI MAATHAI AND THE TREES OF KENYA
written by Donna Jo Napoli
illustrated by Kadir Nelson
Paula Wiseman Books/Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing
ISBN: 9781416935056
Ages 4-8
40 pages

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Wangari grew up in the shadow of Mount Kenya listening to the stories about the people and land around her. Though the trees towered over her, she had loved them for as long as she could remember. So strong, so beautiful, how the trees made her smile.
 
Wangari planted trees one by one to refresh her spirit. When the women came to her for help with their families, she told them to do the same. Soon the countryside was filled with trees. Kenya was strong once more. Wangari had changed her country, tree by tree.

SITTING DUCK
written and illustrated by Jackie Urbanovic
HarperCollins Children’s Books
ISBN: 9780061765834
Ages 4-7
40 pages

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When Brody's niece Anabel comes for a visit, Max and the gang's only job is to keep her out of trouble. How hard could it be to babysit a puppy anyway? To Max's surprise, this fun-loving pup can't help getting into trouble --- especially when set loose in the backyard. It turns out that being a “sitting duck” is a lot harder than Max expected!