A CERTAIN STRAIN OF PECULIAR
Gigi Amateau
Candlewick Press
ISBN: 9780763630096
Ages 12-up
272 pages

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This is the last time Mary Harold will have a panic attack at school when kids call her "the grossest girl." If Mom won’t move back to Alabama, her 13-year-old daughter will just have to drive herself 691 miles to Grandma Ayma’s farmhouse --- and a whole new life. With Ayma’s loving support, Mary Harold is soon strong enough to help Bud, the Cherokee farm manager, wrangle the cows, and confident enough to stand up for his daughter, Dixie, a girl with a strain of peculiar that makes her whinny and stamp like a horse to keep the world at bay. Mary Harold still misses her mom, but has started to have dreams of the Black Warrior Forest that are offering clues. As she listens to their message, and to her own heart, she discovers how powerful and surprising the bonds of family can be.

IF I STAY
Gayle Forman
Dutton Juvenile
ISBN: 9780525421030
Ages 14-up
208 pages

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In a single moment, everything changes. Seventeen-year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall riding along the snow-wet Oregon road with her family. Then, in a blink, she finds herself watching as her own damaged body is taken from the wreck.

IF I STAY is a sophisticated, layered and heartachingly beautiful story about the power of family and friends, the choices we all make --- and the ultimate choice Mia commands.

KING OF THE SCREWUPS
K. L. Going
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780152062583
Ages 12-up
320 pages

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Liam Geller is Mr. Popularity. Everybody loves him. He excels at sports; he knows exactly what clothes to wear; he always ends up with the most beautiful girls in school. But he has an uncanny ability to screw up in the very ways that tick off his father the most.

When Liam was finally kicked out of the house, his father's brother takes him in. What could a teenage chick magnet possibly have in common with his gay, glam rocker, DJ uncle who lives in a trailer in upstate New York? A lot more than you'd think. And when Liam attempts to make himself over as a nerd in a desperate attempt to impress his father, it's his "aunt" Pete and the guys in his band who convince Liam there's much more to him than his father will ever see.

A KISS IN TIME
Alex Flinn
HarperTeen
ISBN: 9780060874193
Ages 12-up
384 pages

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From the moment their lips meet, Talia thinks Jack is her prince charming. He's not so sure. The girl he found sleeping in a moldy old castle is a hottie, but she's also pushy, demanding, selfish and one big pain! Jack wishes he had never taken that lame detour past the thorn thickets during his vacation. Now he's stuck smuggling Talia out of Europe. She has no papers, no clothes and no money (if you don't count a chest of eye-popping jewels). And how is he going to explain a 316-year-old princess when he gets home to Miami?

A MAP OF THE KNOWN WORLD
Lisa Ann Sandell
Scholastic Press
ISBN: 9780545069700
Ages 12-up
272 pages

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Cora Bradley dreams of escape. Ever since her reckless older brother, Nate, died in a car crash, Cora has felt suffocated by her small town and high school. She seeks solace in drawing beautiful maps, envisioning herself in exotic locales. When Cora begins to fall for Damian, the handsome, brooding boy who was in the car with Nate the night he died, she uncovers her brother's secret artistic life and realizes she had more in common with him than she ever imagined.

NO SUCH THING AS THE REAL WORLD
M. T. Anderson, K. L. Going, Beth Kephart, Chris Lynch, An Na and Jacqueline Woodson
HarperTeen
ISBN: 9780061470585
Ages 14-up
256 pages

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What's the line that separates childhood from the "real world"? And what happens when the "real world" is nothing you imagined it would be? Six award-winning authors --- M. T. Anderson, K. L. Going, Beth Kephart, Chris Lynch, An Na and Jacqueline Woodson --- tackle the subject of the "real world" in this stunning collection of pieces about graduation, suicide, pregnancy, death, pain, love and loss.

PURE
Simon Pulse
Simon Pulse
ISBN: 9781416978725
Ages 14-up
336 pages

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Tabitha and her four best friends all wear Purity Rings, symbols of the virginity-until-marriage pledge they made as tweens. Now the girls are 15, and their rings have come to symbolize not only their purity, but also the friendships and identities they've built based on their shared faith. Simmering tensions rise to the surface and the group is split apart when one of Tab's friends admits that she and her long-term boyfriend have broken the pledge. In the midst of the confrontations, betrayals, confessions and revenge that follow, each girl is forced to reexamine her friendships, her faith, and what exactly it means to be pure.

REALITY CHECK
Peter Abrahams
HarperTeen
ISBN: 9780061227660
Ages 12-up
336 pages

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QB of the varsity football team. Passing grades in all his classes. Dating the hottest --- and smartest --- girl at school. Summer job paying more than minimum wage. Things in Cody's world seem to be going pretty well. Until, that is, his girlfriend, Clea, is sent off to boarding school across the country, and a torn ACL ends his high school football career. But the worst is yet to come. While limping through town one day, Cody sees a newspaper headline: "Local Girl Missing." Clea, now his ex, has disappeared from her boarding school in Vermont, and the only clue is a letter she sent to Cody the morning of her disappearance. With that as his guide, Cody sets out to find out what happened.

THE REFORMED VAMPIRE SUPPORT GROUP
Catherine Jinks
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780152066093
Ages 12-up
368 pages

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Think vampires are romantic, sexy and powerful? Think again. Vampires are dead. And unless they want to end up staked, they have to give up fanging people, admit their addiction, join a support group and reform themselves.

Nina Harrison, fanged at 15 and still living with her mother, hates the Reformed Vampire Support Group meetings every Tuesday night. Even if she does appreciate Dave, who was in a punk band when he was alive, nothing exciting ever happens. That is, until one of the group members is mysteriously destroyed by a silver bullet. With Nina (determined to prove that vamps aren't useless or weak) and Dave (secretly in love with Nina) at the helm, the misfit vampires soon band together to track down the hunter, save a werewolf, and keep the world safe from the likes of themselves.

THE SECRET LIFE OF PRINCE CHARMING
Deb Caletti
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
ISBN: 9781416959403
Ages 12-up
336 pages

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Quinn is surrounded by women who have had their hearts broken. Between her mother, her aunt and her grandmother, Quinn hears nothing but cautionary tales. She tries to be an optimist --- after all, she's the dependable one, the girl who never makes foolish choices. But when she is abruptly and unceremoniously dumped, Quinn starts to think maybe there really are no good men.

It doesn't help that she's gingerly handling a renewed relationship with her formerly absent father. He's a little bit of a lot of things: charming, selfish, eccentric, lazy...but he's her dad, and Quinn is just happy to have him around again. Until she realizes how horribly he has treated the many women in his life, how he has stolen more than just their hearts. Determined to, for once, take action in her life, Quinn joins forces with the half sister she has never met and the little sister she will do anything to protect. Together, they set out to right her father's wrongs.

SWIM THE FLY
Don Calame
Candlewick Press
ISBN: 9780763641573
Ages 14-up
352 pages

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Fifteen-year-old Matt Gratton and his two best friends, Coop and Sean, always set themselves a summertime goal. This year's? To see a real-live naked girl for the first time --- quite a challenge, given that none of the guys has the nerve to even ask a girl out on a date. But catching a girl in the buff starts to look easy compared to Matt's other summertime aspiration: to swim the 100-yard butterfly (the hardest stroke known to God or man) as a way to impress Kelly West, the sizzling new star of the swim team.

WILLOW
Julia Hoban
Dial Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780803733565
Ages 14-up
336 pages

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Seven months ago, on a rainy March night, 16-year-old Willow’s parents died in a horrible car accident. Willow was driving. Now her older brother barely speaks to her, her new classmates know her as the killer orphan girl, and Willow is blocking the pain by secretly cutting herself. But when one boy --- one sensitive, soulful boy --- discovers Willow’s secret, it sparks an intense relationship that turns the “safe” world Willow has created for herself upside down.

BLOODHOUND: Beka Cooper, Book Two
Tamora Pierce
Random House Children’s Books
ISBN: 9780375814693
Ages 12-up
560 pages

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Beka Cooper is finally a Dog --- a full-fledged member of the Provost’s Guard, dedicated to keeping peace in Corus’s streets. But there’s unrest in Tortall’s capital. Counterfeit coins are turning up in shops all over the city, and merchants are raising prices to cover their losses. The Dogs discover that gamblers are bringing the counterfeit money from Port Caynn. In Port Caynn, Beka delves deep into the gambling world, where she meets a charming banking clerk named Dale Rowan. Beka thinks she may be falling for Rowan, but she won’t let anything --- or anyone --- jeopardize her mission. As she heads north to an abandoned silver mine, it won’t be enough for Beka to be her usual “terrier” self. She’ll have to learn from Achoo to sniff out the criminals --- to be a Bloodhound.

DISTANT WAVES: A Novel of The Titanic
Suzanne Weyn
Scholastic Press
ISBN: 9780545085724
Ages 12-up
336 pages

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Science, spiritualism, history and romance intertwine in Suzanne Weyn's newest novel. Four sisters and their mother make their way from a spiritualist town in New York to London, becoming acquainted with journalist W. T. Stead, scientist Nikola Tesla and industrialist John Jacob Astor. When they all find themselves on the Titanic, one of Tesla's inventions dooms them...and one could save them.

THIRTEENTH CHILD
Patricia C. Wrede
Scholastic Press
ISBN: 9780545033428
Ages 12-up
320 pages

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Eff was born a thirteenth child. Her twin brother, Lan, is the seventh son of a seventh son. This means he's supposed to possess amazing talent --- and she's supposed to bring only bad things to her family and her town. Undeterred, her family moves to the frontier, where her father will be a professor of magic at a school perilously close to the magical divide that separates settlers from the beasts of the wild.

NECROPOLIS: Book Four of The Gatekeepers
Anthony Horowitz
Scholastic Press
ISBN: 9780439680035
Ages 10-up
400 pages

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As the fourth novel in the spellbinding Gatekeepers series begins, the world is under the greatest threat it's ever known. The evil corporation Nightrise has amassed an immense amount of power…and the devastating force of the Old Ones is about to be unleashed around the globe. To stop this from happening, Matt and three of the Gatekeepers head to Hong Kong --- not just the modern city of skyscrapers and wealth, but the secretive underworld beneath. In Hong Kong they will meet the final Gatekeeper, a girl named Scarlet, whose fate is inextricably joined to their own.

JAKE RANSOM AND THE SKULL KING’S SHADOW
James Rollins
HarperCollins Children’s Books
ISBN: 9780061473791
Ages 10-up
416 pages

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When a mysterious envelope arrives for Jake Ransom, he and his older sister, Kady, are plunged into a gripping chain of events. An artifact found by their parents --- on the expedition from which they never returned --- leads Jake and Kady to a strange world inhabited by a peculiar mix of long-lost civilizations, a world that may hold the key to their parents' disappearance.

But even as they enter the gate to this extraordinary place, savage grackyls soar across the sky, diving to attack. Jake's new friends, the pretty Mayan girl Marika and the Roman Pindor, say the grackyls were created by an evil alchemist --- the Skull King. And as Jake struggles to find a way home, it becomes obvious that what the Skull King wants most is Jake and Kady --- dead or alive.

LOOK BOTH WAYS: A Midnight Twins Novel
Jacquelyn Mitchard
Razorbill/Penguin Young Readers Group
ISBN: 9781595141613
Ages 12-up
256 pages

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In the second book of the Midnight Twins trilogy, Meredith and Mallory Brynn are finally coming to terms with their special gifts: Meredith to see into the past, Mallory to see into the future. But they never expect that their powers will reveal danger so close to home. Mallory must help her best friend, Eden, find the strength to defy her destiny as a shape-shifter, before Eden gets hurt --- or hurts somebody else. And Merry has her own friends to worry about when her visions reveal trouble brewing on the cheerleading squad in the form of Kim Jellico. Both Mallory and Meredith must join together to rescue their friends before it’s too late.

FRAGILE ETERNITY
Melissa Marr
HarperCollins Children’s Books
ISBN: 9780061214714
Ages 12-up
400 pages

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Seth never expected he would want to settle down with anyone --- but that was before Aislinn. She is everything he had ever dreamed of, and he wants to be with her forever. Forever takes on new meaning, though, when your girlfriend is an immortal faery queen.

Aislinn never expected to rule the very creatures who had always terrified her --- but that was before Keenan. He stole her mortality to make her a monarch, and now she faces challenges and enticements beyond any she had ever imagined.

In Melissa Marr's third mesmerizing tale of Faerie, Seth and Aislinn struggle to stay true to themselves and each other in a milieu of shadowy rules and shifting allegiances, where old friends become new enemies and one wrong move could plunge the Earth into chaos.