Time is running out on a desperate rescue mission…
After an argument with her father, a sullen Lila Cooper boards an Air Force flight from Japan to the U.S. Her brooding is interrupted when a sudden hijacking leads to a scuffle and an explosion, causing the plane to plummet toward the Pacific Ocean. Trapped inside a secret weapons pod on the ocean floor, Lila can do nothing but pray that rescuers will find her before her oxygen supply runs out.
Meanwhile, Jay Cooper and his father team up with journalist Meaghan Flaherty in a frantic struggle to beat a group of angry terrorists to the pod. You will be holding your breath to find out what happens next.
Acclaimed author Cynthia Lord received the Newbery Honor for her debut novel Rules, which School Library Journal called "a lovely, warm read." In Touch Blue, Lord pens a moving tale about the meaning of home. Tess is heartbroken when she learns the state of Maine is about to shut down her small island's schoolhouse, forcing her family to move to the mainland. But Tess' parents have a plan. Increasing the school's attendance by having families take in foster children just might change the state's mind. Tess is sure the plan will work, but she makes a wish on some blue seaglass just in case.
Tornadoes are funnel-shaped clouds that can cause massive destruction on the ground. Their winds can swirl faster than 260 miles per hour! In addition to factual information, youngsters will learn about how such extreme weather affects the lives of people in areas where these atmospheric storms are common. Using her acclaimed combination of clear wording and detailed illustrations, Gibbons explains how tornadoes form, the scale used for classifying them, and what to do in case one should be near you.
An angry terror lurks at the bottom of a dark pit…
Jay and Lila Cooper are back for another adventure, this time in search of a young treasure-seeker whose ambitions drove him to the bottom of a pit, never to return. In their struggle to understand what happened to him, the Coopers learn of a greedy, man-eating creature known as Ha-Raphah, who terrorizes locals into worshiping him. Although they are certain he is extremely dangerous, Jay and Lila are determined to uncover the truth.
This story of dangerous exploits and a mission to stop an evil that holds a population in its crushing grip will have you hooked from start to finish.
Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, bosom buddies and magnets for trouble, are at it again in this suspenseful adventure filled with intrigue, mistaken identity, and betrayal. On their way to visit relatives in Arkansas, Tom and Huck find themselves in the midst of a robbery scam and murder conspiracy.
Will Tom's keen intelligence uncover the truth in time to save an innocent man from imprisonment?
Twelve-year-old Phoebe Callahan longs to enjoy a storybook Christmas. So after she learns that she and her three girl cousins will spend their holiday vacation in New England on their grandma's island estate, she plans the Christmas of her dreams. When she reaches Gull Island, the cold breeze and cloudy skies foster her fondest fantasy-a white Christmas. Phoebe imagines her grandma's stately three-story home with lights in every window. But after Grandma Gee's heirloom angel shatters, Phoebe learns that life's greatest joy comes from giving to others.
The eleventh title in the New York Times bestselling Guardians of Ga'Hoole series brings Hoole to kingship and the legends to fulfillment, signaling a return to the adventures of Coryn, Soren, and the Band.
In this next adventure, Hoole reclaims the throne of his father and goes on to wage a war against the forces of chaos, greed, and oppression led by the powerful warlord-tyrants. Grank, the first collier, uses his skills with fire and metals to forge weapons for battle. With great trepidation, Hoole uses the power of the ember in the final, decisive battle and wins. At the dawn of a new era of peace, Hoole searches for the ideal place to establish not a kingdom but an order of free owls-and finds the Great Tree.
"Friendship, loyalty, and the possibility of love abound in the last legend read to the new generation of Guardians."-Children's Literature
Timothy Freshwater's father can't control him, his mother is always out of town, and now the boy too smart for his own good has been expelled from the last school in the city. After he meets Mr. Shen, a mysterious Chinese mailroom clerk at his father's office, Timothy winds up in more trouble than he has ever gotten himself into. It turns out the diminutive Mr. Shen is a dragon. Forced to take human shape for a thousand years, Mr. Shen cannot resume his true form until he scales an ancient Dragon's Gate during a festival for the 125th year of the dragon. Now Timothy finds himself Mr. Shen's latest keeper: stalked by a ninja, and chased by a menacing trio of black taxicabs. And when Mr. Shen falls into the wrong hands, Timothy must rescue the dragon from a fleet of Chinese pirate junks. All hope seems lost until a strange-looking black brig with red sails called the Ironic Gentleman appears on the horizon. Relying on his own ingenuity and an annoying new ally, a girl called Alex, Timothy must take on the fleet and its evil commander, the Man in the Beige Linen Suit. Told in Adrienne Kress's distinctive, sparkling prose, Timothy and the Dragon's Gate is a humorous and astounding story about a boy who ultimately uncovers his own ability to love and opens his heart to the world around him.
In this quietly beautiful coming-of-age story, eleven-year-old Valena lives with her family in rural Ohio where she and her cousin share experiences such as surviving a tornado and going to an amazing circus. Yet Valena lives in both the present and the past as she struggles with racism in her daily life and listens to and learns from her mother's tales of her family's proud history. Moving backward and forward in time, these pieces of Valena's life blend to form an extraordinary portrait of the ties that bind a family together over generations.
"...this semi-autobiographical novel weaves together some of [Hamilton's] childhood memories of growing up in a warm, extended family in rural Ohio....The real drama, however, is in the tales Valena hears about the people who came before her."-Booklist
