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Kids Novels
A prequel to the 1995 Newbery Medal winner "Walk Two Moons," "Absolutely Normal Chaos" proves that Sharon Creech is not the kind of author you meet once and forget -- she writes with a memorable voice that speaks directly to the thoughts and feelings of her readers. "Absolutely Normal Chaos" chronicles the daily life of 13-year-old Mary Lou Finney during her most chaotic and romantic summer ever.
Sharon Creech fans will recognize Mary Lou Finney and her infamous summer journal from their appearance in "Walk Two Moons."
Mary Lou's journal opens with a plea, " Here it is: my summer journal . . But please PLEEEASSSE DON'T READ IT!"
What begins grudgingly as a dreaded assignment for school becomes a hilarious chronicle of the circle of people and events that make her summer. There is Carl Ray, the mysterious and troublesome cousin that comes to visit; Beth Ann Bartels, the best friend who's recently gone boy crazy; Alex Cheevy, the boy that makes Mary Lou's brains " mushy" and, of course, the Finney clan, her " normally strange family." What follows is a story of a summer filled with lessons and observations on love, death, friendship and family.
Natty deals with moving after her mom's departure by pulling a "Ted Lasso" and starting a pep squad in this standalone middle-grade novel about friendship and toxic positivity by the author of TBH and the Friendship List series.
When Natty's mom kind of takes a break from her dad and sort of the whole family, Natty and her dad move to his childhood hometown of Miller Creek. Now she's starting middle school for the second time, this time in Miller Creek--without her mom--or her BFF. But Natty's doing great! Really. Anything is possible. And what's the point of dwelling on the stuff that stinks when there's so much good stuff to think about?
Natty is absolutely, positively sure that she can turn it all around. Like 1,000 percent sure. As long as she stays absolutely positive! She'll get her dad off the couch, make her tons of new friends, and even convince her mom to come live with them in Miller Creek. First step? Starting a pep squad to spread the good vibes.
But what happens when the leader of the pep squad has no more cheer to give?
From Lisa Greenwald comes a heartfelt and reassuring novel about the pros and cons of always looking on the bright side, the ups and downs of making a fresh start, and the power of friendship.
An unsent letter in a first edition copy of Charlotte's Web leads to a hunt for treasure in this heartwarming middle grade mystery from the author of The Mother-Daughter Book Club. Now that Truly Lovejoy's father has been injured by an IED in Afghanistan and is having trouble finding work back home, the family moves from Texas to tiny Pumpkin Falls, New Hampshire, to take over Lovejoy's Books, a struggling bookstore that's been in the family for one hundred years. With two older brothers and two younger sisters clamoring for attention, her mother back in school, and everyone up to their eyebrows trying to keep Lovejoy's Books afloat, Truly feels more overlooked than usual. So she pours herself into uncovering the mystery of an undelivered letter she finds stuck in a valuable autographed first edition of Charlotte's Web, which subsequently goes missing from the bookshop. What's inside the envelope leads Truly and her new Pumpkin Falls friends on a madcap treasure hunt around town, chasing clues that could spell danger. Fans of Heather Vogel Frederick's Mother-Daughter Book Club series "will rejoice for a new series with a similarly cozy New England setting, great characters, and literary references to beloved classics" (School Library Journal).
From the #1 bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars Michael L. Printz Honor Book
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist Katherine V thought boys were gross
Katherine X just wanted to be friends
Katherine XVIII dumped him in an e-mail
K-19 broke his heart
When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type happens to be girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun--but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl.
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist Katherine V thought boys were gross
Katherine X just wanted to be friends
Katherine XVIII dumped him in an e-mail
K-19 broke his heart
When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type happens to be girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun--but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl.
Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself.
FROM THE PLAYGROUND TO THE PREMIER LEAGUE.
Now a New York Times bestselling series! The inspiring, action-packed first book, perfect for young readers 7-13 and sports fans of all ages looking for their next summer read.
Born and raised in a small town, twelve-year-old Leo K. Doyle has never seen the ocean or stepped foot on a plane. But Leo is a star soccer player with big dreams in life.
Rock star, Olympic gold, dragon-slaying dreams.
While Leo longs to make the pros one day, he has no idea how to achieve this goal--until a professional scout pays a chance visit to one of Leo's games and extends an invitation to try out for the London Dragons youth squad, known as the Academy.
Leo is stunned. The London Dragons isn't just any old soccer team. It's a world-famous English Premier League team. Soon Leo is off to a whole new country, embarking on the greatest adventure of his life. The downside? Only eleven players can make the team.
Eleven out of two hundred of the very best twelve-year-old players on the planet.
Along with the grueling competition, Leo must also face a bully intent on torpedoing his summer, a roomie who doesn't know how to have fun, a terrifying camp director, and, most of all, Leo's own lack of formal training and the fear he'll never succeed.
By the end of the summer, Leo will become a much better player and forever changed by his experience. But will he be good enough to make the Academy?
Keep score with the other books in The Academy series:
FROM THE PLAYGROUND TO THE PREMIER LEAGUE
An inspiring, page-turning series perfect for young readers 7 to 13 years old, and for sports fans of all ages.
Born and raised in a small town, Leo K. Doyle has never seen the ocean or stepped foot on a plane. But Leo is a star soccer player with big dreams in life.
Rock-star, Olympic gold, dragon-slaying dreams.
While Leo has a pet lizard named Messi and longs to make the pros one day, he has no idea how to achieve his goal-until a professional scout pays a chance visit to one of Leo's games and extends an invitation to try out for the London Dragons youth squad, known as The Academy.
Leo is stunned. The London Dragons isn't just any old soccer team. It's a world-famous English Premier League team. Soon Leo is off to a whole new country, embarking on the greatest adventure of his life. The downside? Only eleven players can make the team.
Eleven out of two hundred of the very best youth players on the planet.
Along with the grueling competition, Leo must also face a bully intent on torpedoing his summer, a roomie who doesn't know how to have fun, a terrifying camp director, and, most of all, Leo's own lack of formal training and the fear he'll never succeed. By the end of the summer, Leo will become a much better player and forever changed by his experience.
But will he be good enough to make the Academy?
It's a hot, hot summer, and in the depths of the Toronto Transit Authority's Lost and Found, 17-year-old Duncan is cataloging lost things and sifting through accumulated junk. And between Jacob, the cranky old man who runs the place, and the endless dusty boxes overflowing with stuff no one will ever claim, Duncan's just about had enough. Then he finds a little leather book. It's a diary filled with the dark and dirty secrets of a twisted mind, a serial killer stalking his prey in the subway. And Duncan can't make himself stop reading.
What would you do with a book like that? How far would you go to catch a madman?
And what if time was running out. . . .
What would you do with a book like that? How far would you go to catch a madman?
And what if time was running out. . . .
"From the Hardcover edition."
"Thrilling and delightful!"--Pseudonymous Bosch, New York Times bestselling author The Navel Twins are at it again, for the fourth and final time! This time their travels take them to the North Pole where they are forced to sky dive, go dog sledding, get rescued by a man in a hot air balloon who looks vaguely like Santa, and finally find the long-lost Library of Alexandria. If they can get through that, they might have a fighting chance at finally going back to being couch potatoes. But that's a tall order for the world's most unenthusiastic siblings.
Eleven-year-old twins Oliver and Celia Navel live on the 4-1/2th floor of the Explorers Club with their father, Dr. Navel. Their mother, Dr. Navel, has been missing for years. So when an explorer shows up with a clue as to where his wife could be, Dr. Navel drags Oliver and Celia to Tibet to find her. Once there, the twins fall out of airplanes, encounter Yetis, travel through waterfalls, and end up in the Demon Fortress of the Warrior King where they-just possibly-might find their mother and save their father from the Poison Witches. Thing is, they would much rather be watching television. And if their trip doesn't work out as planned, the twins could end up as slaves to Sir Edmund Thitheltorpe III, an evil explorer with breath that smells like boiled carrots, who has it in for the whole Navel family.
When we last saw Oliver and Celia Navel, they had fallen into the clutches of Sir Edmund S. Titheltorpe-Schmidt III and were doomed to spend their entire summer vacation doing his deadly bidding.
In their second unwanted adventure, "We Dine with Cannibals," Oliver and Celia will travel from the ruins of ancient temples to the shadowy forests of the Amazon. They'll need all their reality TV survival skills when they ride a llama, race the rapids, and even fly an airplane! If that's not enough excitement for you (it is decidedly too much excitement for Oliver and Celia Navel), they'll be forced to learn the proper etiquette for a cannibal feast and confront the strangest and most brutal rite of passage ever devised by human imagination: dodgeball.
The second installment of the Accidental Adventures series is just as funny, just as exciting, and just as kid-friendly as the first.
In their second unwanted adventure, "We Dine with Cannibals," Oliver and Celia will travel from the ruins of ancient temples to the shadowy forests of the Amazon. They'll need all their reality TV survival skills when they ride a llama, race the rapids, and even fly an airplane! If that's not enough excitement for you (it is decidedly too much excitement for Oliver and Celia Navel), they'll be forced to learn the proper etiquette for a cannibal feast and confront the strangest and most brutal rite of passage ever devised by human imagination: dodgeball.
The second installment of the Accidental Adventures series is just as funny, just as exciting, and just as kid-friendly as the first.
What if you found your own grave--and it wasn't empty? Discover the dark delights of faeries and fortune-tellers in this gently spooky book from the author of Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times, sure to appeal to fans of Coraline. Grave robbing is a messy business. A bad business. And for Thomas Marsden, on what was previously an unremarkable spring night in London, it becomes a very spooky business. For lying in an unmarked grave and half covered with dirt is a boy the spitting image of Thomas himself. This is only the first clue that something very strange is happening. Others follow, but it is a fortune-teller's frightened screams that lead Thomas into a strange world of spiritualists, death, and faery folk. Faery folk with whom Thomas's life is bizarrely linked. Faery folk who need his help. Desperate to unearth the truth about himself and where he comes from, Thomas is about to discover magic, ritual, and the uncanny truth that sometimes the things that make a boy ordinary are what make him extraordinary.
Fans of Brandon Mull and James Riley will love this middle grade fantasy trilogy about a regular kid who discovers that the truth about his past could be the answer to saving the future. All Jack Blank knows is his bleak, dreary life at St. Barnaby's Home for the Hopeless, Abandoned, Forgotten, and Lost, an orphanage that sinks more and more into the swampland of New Jersey with each passing year. His aptitude tests project him as spending a long, unhappy career as a toilet brush cleaner. His only chance at escape comes through the comic books donated years ago to the orphanage that he secretly reads in the dark corners of the library. Everything changes one icy gray morning when Jack receives two visitors that alter his life forever. The first is a deadly robot straight out of one of his comic books that tries its best to blow him up. The second is an emissary from a secret country called the Imagine Nation, an astonishing place where all the fantastic and unbelievable things in our world originate--including Jack. Jack soon discovers that he has an amazing ability--one that could make him the savior of the Imagine Nation and the world beyond, or the biggest threat they've ever faced.
"The story has twists and turns galore...A fascinating, imaginative adventure." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
In this rollicking transatlantic romp set in 1910, a plucky girl named Patch accidentally stows away on a glamorous steamship, finding herself in the midst of a mystery. Twelve-year-old Patch hasn't found a real home yet, despite being passed like a package from one distant relative to the next. When she runs up the gangway of the massive steamship RMS Glorious, she isn't planning to hang around. But it's too late--the ship is setting sail! Patch has become an accidental stowaway. Luckily, she's fearless and resourceful and finds friends on board in both high and low places. But hiding from the stowaway-hunting chief steward becomes harder and harder. And to make matters worse, Patch's new friends urgently need her help: it turns out that some passengers are not what they seem, and there's a mystery that needs solving before they reach New York. Can Patch protect her friends and stop some dastardly criminals? And will she find a home at last, or will the excitement of life on the move keep calling her name? The elegant allure of Titanic-era steamships meets madcap escapades as our intrepid heroine finds adventure on every deck.
In this rollicking transatlantic romp set in 1910, a plucky girl named Patch accidentally stows away on a glamorous steamship, finding herself in the midst of a mystery. Twelve-year-old Patch hasn't found a real home yet, despite being passed like a package from one distant relative to the next. When she runs up the gangway of the massive steamship RMS Glorious, she isn't planning to hang around. But it's too late--the ship is setting sail! Patch has become an accidental stowaway. Luckily, she's fearless and resourceful and finds friends on board in both high and low places. But hiding from the stowaway-hunting chief steward becomes harder and harder. And to make matters worse, Patch's new friends urgently need her help: it turns out that some passengers are not what they seem, and there's a mystery that needs solving before they reach New York. Can Patch protect her friends and stop some dastardly criminals? And will she find a home at last, or will the excitement of life on the move keep calling her name? The elegant allure of Titanic-era steamships meets madcap escapades as our intrepid heroine finds adventure on every deck.
"The story has twists and turns galore...A fascinating, imaginative adventure." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
In this rollicking transatlantic romp set in 1910, a plucky girl named Patch accidentally stows away on a glamorous steamship, finding herself in the midst of a mystery. Twelve-year-old Patch hasn't found a real home yet, despite being passed like a package from one distant relative to the next. When she runs up the gangway of the massive steamship RMS Glorious, she isn't planning to hang around. But it's too late--the ship is setting sail! Patch has become an accidental stowaway. Luckily, she's fearless and resourceful and finds friends on board in both high and low places. But hiding from the stowaway-hunting chief steward becomes harder and harder. And to make matters worse, Patch's new friends urgently need her help: it turns out that some passengers are not what they seem, and there's a mystery that needs solving before they reach New York. Can Patch protect her friends and stop some dastardly criminals? And will she find a home at last, or will the excitement of life on the move keep calling her name? The elegant allure of Titanic-era steamships meets madcap escapades as our intrepid heroine finds adventure on every deck.
In this rollicking transatlantic romp set in 1910, a plucky girl named Patch accidentally stows away on a glamorous steamship, finding herself in the midst of a mystery. Twelve-year-old Patch hasn't found a real home yet, despite being passed like a package from one distant relative to the next. When she runs up the gangway of the massive steamship RMS Glorious, she isn't planning to hang around. But it's too late--the ship is setting sail! Patch has become an accidental stowaway. Luckily, she's fearless and resourceful and finds friends on board in both high and low places. But hiding from the stowaway-hunting chief steward becomes harder and harder. And to make matters worse, Patch's new friends urgently need her help: it turns out that some passengers are not what they seem, and there's a mystery that needs solving before they reach New York. Can Patch protect her friends and stop some dastardly criminals? And will she find a home at last, or will the excitement of life on the move keep calling her name? The elegant allure of Titanic-era steamships meets madcap escapades as our intrepid heroine finds adventure on every deck.
New from Candy Apple: Book two in a four book series about making it through middle school. It's sweet, fresh, and fun--take a bite! Meet Amy Flowers, a seventh grader who marches to her own beat: Being the new girl at exclusive Allington Academy doesn't break her stride!
Meet the League: They rule the school, and their queen is oh-so-mean Fiona, who doesn't exactly appreciate Amy's individuality.
This time, Amy is helping League lieutenant Jenelle with a charity fashion show. When Amy gets photographed in an original outfit (of her own creation, of course), she's no longer a fashion faux pas, and Fiona is furious! Will all the attention keep Amy from practicing for the upcoming Academic Challenge?
Meet the League: They rule the school, and their queen is oh-so-mean Fiona, who doesn't exactly appreciate Amy's individuality.
This time, Amy is helping League lieutenant Jenelle with a charity fashion show. When Amy gets photographed in an original outfit (of her own creation, of course), she's no longer a fashion faux pas, and Fiona is furious! Will all the attention keep Amy from practicing for the upcoming Academic Challenge?
Their plan: A fake abduction
The results: Unpredictable
Finn and Chloe s advisor says that colleges have enough kids with good grades and perfect attendance, so Chloe decides they ll have to attract attention another way. She and Finn will stage Chloe's disappearance, and then, when CNN is on their doorstep and the nation is riveted, Finn will find and save her. It seems like the perfect plan--until things start to go wrong. Very wrong.
It was supposed to be a victimless crime. Finn was supposed to be the good accomplice, and Chloe was supposed to be the hidden object of attention. But when things intensify, their plan isn't so innocent anymore."
The results: Unpredictable
Finn and Chloe s advisor says that colleges have enough kids with good grades and perfect attendance, so Chloe decides they ll have to attract attention another way. She and Finn will stage Chloe's disappearance, and then, when CNN is on their doorstep and the nation is riveted, Finn will find and save her. It seems like the perfect plan--until things start to go wrong. Very wrong.
It was supposed to be a victimless crime. Finn was supposed to be the good accomplice, and Chloe was supposed to be the hidden object of attention. But when things intensify, their plan isn't so innocent anymore."
The Newbery Award-winning author of Up a Road Slowly presents the unforgettable story of Jethro Creighton--a brave boy who comes of age during the turbulent years of the Civil War. In 1861, America is on the cusp of war, and young Jethro Creighton is just nine-years-old. His brother, Tom, and his cousin, Eb, are both of fighting age. As Jethro's family is pulled into the conflict between the North and the South, loyalties are divided, dreams are threatened, and their bonds are put to the test in this heart-wrenching, coming of age story. "Drawing from family records and from stories told by her grandfather, the author has, in an uncommonly fine narrative, created living characters and vividly reconstructed a crucial period of history."--Booklist
The Newbery Award-winning author of Up a Road Slowly presents the unforgettable story of Jethro Creighton--a brave boy who comes of age during the turbulent years of the Civil War. In 1861, America is on the cusp of war, and young Jethro Creighton is just nine-years-old. His brother, Tom, and his cousin, Eb, are both of fighting age. As Jethro's family is pulled into the conflict between the North and the South, loyalties are divided, dreams are threatened, and their bonds are put to the test in this heart-wrenching, coming of age story. "Drawing from family records and from stories told by her grandfather, the author has, in an uncommonly fine narrative, created living characters and vividly reconstructed a crucial period of history."--Booklist