Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Blood Wounds


by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Lexile: ???
Genre: Realistic Fiction

Willa's life is going along okay. She has some challenges adjusting to life with a stepfather and two stepsisters, but all in all, things have been okay. Until one day when a phone call changes everything. Willa unexpectedly has to come face to face with her past; a past that she doesn't know much about. Will it change who she thinks she is?

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Dirty Little Secrets


by C.J. Omololu
Lexile: 890
Genre: Realistic Fiction

Lucy appears to be a normal high school student. But she is hiding a terrible secret. Her mother is a hoarder and the home she lives in is full of filth and garbage. Lucy has just two years left before her high school graduation and then she plans to leave home and never look back. As she attempts to lead a normal life, she is forced to lie to her friends about what her home is really like. One morning something happens that she isn't going to be able to hide. Will she be able to share the truth of her situation with the world?

Empty


by Suzanne Weyn
Lexile: 790
Genre: Science Fiction

Fossil fuels are a finite resource, but nobody actually believed they would run out. Suddenly gas tanks are empty, electricity is running out, and food is disappearing off the shelves. Niki, Tom and Gwen are slowly realizing that the life they knew as normal is going to cease to exist. How will they adjust? What sacrifices will they have to make?

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Ralph S. Mouse


by Beverly Cleary
Lexile: 860
Genre: Fantasy

Ralph S. Mouse is going to school. He's had enough of his pesky younger cousins at the Inn where he lives. He convinces his friend Ryan to smuggle him into Room 5 at Sneed Elementary School. Ralph longs for the nights when he can race his motorcycle up and down the long, smooth corridors of the school. But he and Ryan have an argument and Ralph finds himself alone - without his motorcycle or his home. Can he and Ryan patch things up so that Ralph can get back on the road?

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Accomplice


by Eireann Corrigan
Lexile: 750
Genre: Realistic Fiction

Chloe and Finn seem to lead perfect lives. They are good students, do lots of community service and are about to begin to apply to colleges. But then Chloe decides they aren't perfect enough and that if they want to get into their dream schools, they need to do something that will make them stand out. So the girls devise a scheme in which Chloe mysteriously disappears. Only Finn will know where she went and where she is hiding. But things don't go as planned, and suddenly others are becoming victims in ways Finn could not have foreseen.

The Fourth Stall


by Chris Rylander
Lexile: ???
Genre: Realistic Fiction

Do you have a problem? Well, Mac in the Fourth Stall can solve it for you. But for a price, of course. Mac and Vince have devised a success way to earn money by solving problems for their fellow classmates. They are on top of their game until Fred, a third grader, shows up with a problem. A big problem. Will this be Mac and Vince's greatest solution or will it be the end of their entire business?

Monday, September 5, 2011

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Hidden Gallery


by MaryRose Wood
Lexile: ???
Genre: Mystery

The Incorrigibles are back - Cassiopeia, Alexander, and Beowulf, along with their governess, Miss Penelope Lumley. This time the quartet journeys to London where all kinds of mysterious things occur. Despite Miss Lumley's hard work at curbing the children's wolfish behaviors, there are still things they do that she doesn't expect. From Buckingham Palace, to the zoo, to the opera...a day with the Incorrigibles is always an adventure.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Moon Over Manifest


by Clare Vanderpool
Lexile: 800
Genre: Historical Fiction

Abilene Tucker has been put on a train. She feels as though her father has abandoned her as she journeys to spend the summer with unknown friends of his in a place she has never seen. When she arrives in Manifest, Kansas, she decides that she will do whatever she can to uncover the truth about who her father was in the past and how that has shaped him to be the person she know today.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Who was Rosa Parks?


by Yona Zeldis McDonough
Lexile: 700
Genre: Biography

Rosa Parks grew up in the South during the days of the Jim Crow laws and segregation. But she decided to join with others and do something about the unfairness and inequality of life in the South. Her work with the NAACP and her infamous ride on the bus, led her to a life long mission of obtaining equal rights for all.