Stand-Alone Titles

BABYLONNE
Catherine Jinks
Candlewick Press
ISBN: 9780763636500
Ages 12-up
400 pages

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Early 13th-century Languedoc is a place of valor, violence and persecution. At age 16, Babylonne has survived six bloody sieges. She's tough, resourceful, and --- now that her strict aunt and abusive grandmother intend to marry her off to a senile old man --- desperate. Disguised as a boy, Babylonne embarks on an action-packed adventure that amounts to a choice: trust the mysterious Catholic priest --- a sworn enemy to her Cathar faith --- who says he's a friend of her dead father, Pagan. Or pursue a fairy-tale version of her future, one in which she'll fight and likely die in a vicious war with the French.

BURN
Suzanne Phillips
Little, Brown for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780316001656
Ages 12-up
288 pages

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With thought-provoking prose, Suzanne Phillips explores the psyche of Cameron, a bullied freshman who ultimately does the unthinkable: he kills another student. As she did with CHLOE DOE, Phillips has found a way to make this seemingly dark story ultimately redemptive. But she also dares readers to look at the behavior that provokes violence as having the potential to be as dangerous as the violence itself.

THE DARKNESS UNDER THE WATER
Beth Kanell
Candlewick Press
ISBN: 9780763637194
Ages 12-up
320 pages

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Just as the waters of a river roar through her town, Molly Ballou's life is riding on a swift current, where change comes faster than a spring flood. As a half-Abenaki Indian, half-French Canadian girl in Vermont, Molly is slowly realizing that her family and others like them are being targeted by a governmental effort to rid the state of so-called "poor citizens." Not only is Molly facing discrimination, but she is also haunted by the ghostly presence of her drowned older sister and her grieving mother's evasive love. Curious about her family's traditions, Molly finds herself drawn to Henry, an Abenaki boy whose connection to the natural world provides solace when Molly's mother tragically loses a baby and grows increasingly ill.

EXPOSED
Susan Vaught
Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books
ISBN: 9781599901619
Ages 14-up
336 pages

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Chan Shealy has most things going right in her life --- straight A’s, a shot at the regional majorette championships in baton twirling, and the best best friend a girl could wish for. But after the football quarterback spreads a vicious lie about her, and the whole school decides she’s too trashy for words, Chan begins to wonder if the only place she’ll find love is online.

She’s careful. She follows all her parents’ rules (mostly anyway). A girl has to trust herself at a certain point, right? But what if your gut is telling you something that you’re just not hearing…until it’s too late?  

GUARDIAN
Julius Lester
Amistad/HarperTeen
ISBN: 9780061558900
Ages 14-up
144 pages

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In a time and place without moral conscience, 14-year-old Ansel knows what is right and what is true.

But it is dangerous to choose honesty, and so he chooses silence.

Now an innocent man is dead, and Ansel feels the burden of his decision. He must also bear the pain of losing a friend, his family and the love of a lifetime.

HERE LIES ARTHUR
Philip Reeve
Scholastic Press
ISBN: 9780545093347
Ages 12-up
352 pages

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Gwynna is just a girl who is forced to run when her village is attacked and burns to the ground. To her horror, she is discovered in the wood. But it is Myrddin the bard who has found her, a traveler and spinner of tales. He agrees to protect Gwynna if she will agree to be bound in service to him. Gwynna is frightened but intrigued --- and says yes --- for this Myrddin serves the young, rough and powerful Arthur. In the course of their travels, Myrddin transforms Gwynna into the mysterious Lady of the Lake, a boy warrior, and a spy. It is part of a plot to transform Arthur from the leader of a ragtag war band into King Arthur, the greatest hero of all time.

THE LETTER WRITER
Ann Rinaldi
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780152064020
Ages 10-up
224 pages

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Eleven-year-old Harriet Whitehead is an outsider in her own family. She feels accepted and important only when she is entrusted to write letters for her blind stepmother. Then Nat Turner, a slave preacher, arrives on her family’s plantation and Harriet befriends him, entranced by his gentle manner and eloquent sermons about an all-forgiving God. When Nat asks Harriet for a map of the county to help him spread the word, she draws it for him --- wanting to be part of something important. But the map turns out to be the missing piece that sets Nat’s secret plan in motion and makes Harriet an unwitting accomplice to the bloodiest slave uprising in U.S. history.

LOVE IS HELL
Melissa Marr, Scott Westerfeld, Justine Larbalestier, Gabrielle Zevin and Laurie Faria Stolarz
HarperTeen
ISBN: 9780061443046
Ages 14-up
272 pages

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In these supernatural stories by Melissa Marr (WICKED LOVELY), Scott Westerfeld (SPECIALS), Justine Larbalestier (MAGIC OR MADNESS), Gabrielle Zevin (ELSEWHERE) and Laurie Faria Stolarz (BLUE IS FOR NIGHTMARES), love may be twisted and turned around, but it's more potent than ever on its quest to conquer all. From two students who let the power of attraction guide them to break the hard-and-fast rules of their world to the girl who falls hard for a good-looking ghost with a score to settle, the clever, quirky characters in this collection will break your heart, then leave you believing in love more than ever.

THE MUSICIAN’S DAUGHTER
Susanne Dunlap
Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books
ISBN: 9781599903323
Ages 12-up
336 pages

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Amid the glamour of Prince Nicholas Esterhazy’s court in 18th-century Vienna, murder is afoot. Or so 15-year-old Theresa Maria is convinced when her musician father turns up dead on Christmas Eve, his valuable violin missing, and the only clue to his death a strange gold pendant around his neck. Then her father’s mentor, the acclaimed composer Franz Joseph Haydn, helps her through a difficult time by making her his copyist and giving her insight into her father’s secret life. It’s there that Theresa begins to uncover a trail of blackmail and extortion, even as she discovers honor --- and the possibility of a first, tentative love.

NEED
Carrie Jones
Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books
ISBN: 9781599903385
Ages 12-up
320 pages

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Zara collects phobias the way other high school girls collect lipsticks. Little wonder, since life has been pretty rough so far. Her father left, her stepfather just died and her mother is pretty much checked out. Now Zara is living with her grandmother in sleepy, cold Maine so that she stays “safe.” Zara doesn’t believe she’s in danger; she thinks her mother can’t deal.

Wrong. It turns out that the guy she sees everywhere, the one leaving trails of gold glitter, isn’t a figment of her imagination. He’s a pixie --- and not the cute, lovable kind with wings. He’s the kind who has dreadful, uncontrollable needs. And he’s trailing Zara.

PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Delacorte Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780385734370
Ages 12-up
224 pages

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Sixteen-year-old Erin Misrahe just wants to be like everyone else in her new school. But Erin has more to worry about than passing AP Chemistry or making friends. In times of stress, she has always been overcome by her alter ego, Shevaun, whose violent behavior wreaks havoc on those around her. Erin can never remember anything about these episodes, and she’s grateful to have been spared them for a while.

But when a protective friend comes back into Erin’s life, he insists that Shevaun is a vampire who actually exists apart from Erin. Shevaun has dangerous allies, like the handsome witch Adjila --- and they’re determined to sever Shevaun’s connection to Erin once and for all.

THE TALES OF BEEDLE THE BARD
J. K. Rowling
Children's High Level Group/Arthur A. Levine Books
ISBN: 9780545128285
Ages 9-18
128 pages

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THE TALES OF BEEDLE THE BARD, a Wizarding classic, first came to Muggle readers’ attention in the book known as HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS. Now, thanks to Hermione Granger’s new translation from the ancient runes, the Children's High Level Group, in association with Arthur A. Levine Books, presents a stunning edition with an introduction, notes and illustrations by J. K. Rowling, and extensive commentary by Albus Dumbledore. Never before have Muggles been privy to these richly imaginative tales: “The Wizard and the Hopping Pot,” “The Fountain of Fair Fortune,” “The Warlock’s Hairy Heart,” “Babbitty Rabbitty and Her Cackling Stump,” and of course, “The Tale of the Three Brothers.” But not only are they the equal of fairy tales we now know and love, reading them gives new insight into the world of Harry Potter.

TIGER MOON
Antonia Michaelis
Amulet Books
ISBN: 9780810994812
Ages 12-up
464 pages

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A young bride awaiting certain death at the hands of her evil husband spins a tale of rescue to a kindly servant. She tells of an India where magic still happens, where a rascally young thief takes an amulet that belongs to the gods. He is given the dangerous task of rescuing a princess imprisoned by a demon king. His companion in this journey is a sacred --- and often sarcastic --- white tiger with an unnatural fear of water. It is the unlikely friendship between boy and tiger, and the sacrifice their mission demands, that is the soul of this novel about the power of story to change the course of lives.

WHAT I SAW AND HOW I LIED
Judy Blundell
Scholastic Press
ISBN: 9780439903462
Ages 12-up
288 pages

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When Evie's father returned home from World War II, the family fell back into its normal life pretty quickly. But Joe Spooner brought more back with him than just good war stories. When movie-star handsome Peter Coleridge, a young ex-GI who served in Joe's company in postwar Austria, shows up, Evie is suddenly caught in a complicated web of lies that she only slowly recognizes. She finds herself falling for Peter, ignoring the secrets that surround him…until a tragedy occurs that shatters her family and breaks her life in two.

Series Books

The Demonata

DEATH’S SHADOW: The Demonata #7
Darren Shan
Little, Brown for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780316003810
Ages 15-up
216 pages

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With Beranabus, Grubbs and Kernel off exploring the universe of the Demonata for clues about the Shadow behind the demon invasion, Bec is left behind in Carcery Vale for safekeeping. But with Dervish's health on the decline, Lord Loss knows she's the most vulnerable piece of the Kah-Gash. As hoards of demons, werewolves and zombies advance, Bec needs to figure how to reach Beranabus with crucial information about the Shadow-fast.

The It Girl

INFAMOUS: The It Girl #7
created by Cecily von Ziegesar
Little, Brown for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780316025072
Ages 15-up
272 pages

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When Jenny Humphrey confessed to a crime she didn't commit --- starting the rampant fire that burned down Miller Farm --- she thought her life at elite Waverly Academy was over. But her last-minute escape from expulsion made Jenny the most talked-about girl in school. What nobody knows is who saved her. Now at the annual Halloween masquerade ball, she has a plan to unveil her secret admirer.

Callie Vernon knows who her Prince Charming is: Easy Walsh. But when he discovered she and Tinsley Carmichael tried to get Jenny kicked out, Easy dumped her on the spot. Now Callie is dressing up as Cinderella in hopes of winning back his heart. Can she convince Easy she's the one before the clock strikes midnight? Or will her glass slipper --- and her heart --- be permanently broken?

Lily Dale

LILY DALE: CONNECTING
Wendy Corsi Staub
Walker Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780802797858
Ages 12-up
304 pages

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Now that Calla has accepted her ability to communicate with the Other Side, she’s desperate to connect with the one spirit whose energy she can’t seem to feel anywhere: her late mother. As ominous supernatural signs imply that the devastating loss might not have been an accident, Calla sets out to uncover the truth, convinced that a shadowy stranger may hold the key. But she gets more than she bargained for when she stumbles across a shocking secret about her mom’s past --- one that will change Calla’s own future forever. 

Magic in Manhattan

PARTIES & POTIONS
Sarah Mlynowski
Delacorte Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780385736459
Ages 12-up
352 pages

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Perfect hair, cute clothes, healthy tans --- life is a breeze when you’re a witch! Even special witchcraft classes Rachel agrees to attend with Miri turn out to be fun, and the sisters meet other teen witches just like them. Everyone is preparing for a magical party called a Samsorta, a debutante ball for witches. And it wouldn’t be a ball without warlocks --- cute ones like Adam, who wants to slow dance with Rachel and ski with her in the Rockies on a school night. Of course, Rachel is madly in love with her boyfriend, Raf. So why can’t she bring herself to tell Adam that Raf exists?

Touch

DEADLY LITTLE SECRET
Laurie Faria Stolarz
Disney-Hyperion
ISBN: 9781423111443
Ages 12-up
256 pages

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Up until three months ago, everything in 16-year-old Camelia's life had been fairly ordinary: decent grades, an okay relationship with her parents, and a pretty cool part-time job at the art studio downtown. But when Ben, the mysterious new guy, starts junior year at her high school, Camelia's life becomes anything but ordinary.

Rumored to be somehow responsible for his ex-girlfriend's accidental death, Ben is immediately ostracized by everyone on campus. Except for Camelia. She's reluctant to believe the rumors, even when her friends try to convince her otherwise. She's inexplicably drawn to Ben...and to his touch. But soon, Camelia is receiving eerie phone calls and strange packages with threatening notes. Ben insists she is in danger, and that he can help --- but can he be trusted? She knows he's hiding something...but he's not the only one with a secret.

Sequel to THE DEATH COLLECTOR

THE PARLIAMENT OF BLOOD
Justin Richards
Bloomsbury USA Children's Books
ISBN: 9781599901404
Ages 12-up
368 pages

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George Archer, Liz Oldfield and Eddie Hopkins have made a rather unfortunate discovery: vampires actually exist, and they really do feed on human blood. Using an underground labyrinth of tunnels beneath Victorian London, these sinister creatures intend on destroying the human race, and they’ll start by taking over the most powerful place in London: the House of Parliament. Through their research on ancient mysteries and a secret London Gentlemen’s Club, George, Liz and Eddie come up with a plan to beat the vampires at their own game. And they better do it soon before they become the vampires’ next meal.