The Titan's Curse
School Library Journal: Gr 6-9 – In this installment, Riordan continues to enliven ancient mythology with wit, contemporary staging, and teenage heroics. Percy Jackson is now 14, a bit older and wiser, yet still entangled with the Fates. Friends, monsters, dysfunctional gods, and the romantic stirrings of all things natural and mythological are encountered. His […]
Stoneheart
A city has many lives and layers. London has more than most. Not all the layers are underground, and not all the lives belong to the living. A twelve year old boy named George Chapman is about to find this out the hard way. On a school trip he's punished for something he didn't do. […]
The Talented Clementine
Publishers Weekly The Talented Clementine by Sara Pennypacker, illus. by Marla Frazee, brings back the third-grader that made such a splash in last season's Clementine (in our Best Books citation, PW called her "an eight-year-old whose spirit rivals Ramona and Judy Moody"). Here her teacher's announcement of a school talent show sends the heroine into […]
Clementine
Publishers Weekly: I have had not so good of a week," begins the irrepressible narrator of this winning caper. Pennypacker (Stuart's Cape) then takes readers straight through that week, making clear that Clementine has an unfailing nose for trouble and a comical way with words. The eight-year-old proclaims herself lucky because "spectacularful ideas are always […]
The Last Dragon
Publishers Weekly: Italian author De Mari turns the "prophecy genre" on its ear with this clever and humane fantasy/comedy. Young elf Yorsh lives in a world of constant rain, in an "Elf Camp" and threatened with dire punishment if he strays outside it. He befriends two humans, a woman and a hunter, and the three […]
Artemis Fowl : the Lost Colony
From the Publisher: Ten thousand years ago, humans and fairies fought a great battle. When the fairies realized they?d never win, they moved their civilization underground and hid. All the families agreed, except the demons. The demons planned to lift themselves out of time until they were ready to wage war on the humans once […]
Peter & the Shadow Thieves
FROM THE PUBLISHER In this riveting and adventure-packed follow-up to the award-winning New York Times bestseller Peter and the Starcatchers, Peter leaves the relative safety of Mollusk Island – along with his trusted companion, Tinker Bell – for the cold, damp, dangerous streets of London. On a difficult journey across the sea, he and Tink […]
The Sea of Monsters
School Library Journal Review: Gr 5-9?In this second installment in the series, Percy, Poseidon 13-year-old demigod son, is desperate to rescue his friend Grover, captive of the bloodthirsty Cyclops Polyphemus, and to retrieve the healing Golden Fleece. The sheepskin is needed to restore the protection around Camp Half-Blood, the only safe haven for the children […]
John, Paul, George & Ben
Publisher Weekly Review: Starred Review. For those constitutionally opposed to history lessons, Smith (Math Curse) profiles the Founding Fathers as the nonconformist kids they might have been. Beatles allusions, like the title, are mercifully few but well-placed ("Say, you want a revolution?" the narrator asks, referring to 1776) as Smith introduces each fellow. "Once there […]
The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog!
A Pigeon learns about sharing when a curious duckling keeps asking questions about the hot dog Pigeon has found.