Trickster's Queen by TAMORA PIERCE
Reading level: Young Adult

Alyâ??s adventure continues. . . . No longer a slave, Alannaâ??s daughter is now spying as part of an underground rebellion against the colonial rulers of the Copper Isles. The people in the rebellion believe that a prophecy in which a new queen will rise up to take the throne is about to be realized. Aly is busy keeping the potential teenage queen and her younger siblings safe, while also keeping her in the dark about her future. But Aly, who is usually adept at anticipating danger and changes, is in for a few nasty surprises.

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Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin
Reading level: Young Adult

Scattered among poor, desolate farms, the clans of the Uplands possess gifts. Wondrous gifts: the ability--with a glance, a gesture, a word--to summon animals, bring forth fire, move the land. Fearsome gifts: They can twist a limb, chain a mind, inflict a wasting illness.

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Tithe : A Modern Faeire Tale by Holly Black
Reading level: Young Adult

Sixteen-year-old Kaye Fierch is not human, but she doesn't know it. Sure, she knows she's interacted with faeries since she was little--but she never imagined she was one of them, her blond Asian human appearance only a magically crafted cover-up for her true, green-skinned pixie self. First-time author Holly Black explores Kaye's self-discovery and dual worlds in her riveting, suspenseful novel Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale.

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Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War (Abarat) by Clive Barker
Reading level: Young Adult

The eagerly anticipated second volume of Clive Barkerâ??s four part fantasy series, Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War, picks up right where the highly praised first novel leaves off. Candy Quakenbush is still on the run from the Lord of Midnight, Christopher Carrion, who plans to establish a Permanent Midnight throughout the 25 islanads that make up Abarat. Candy, aided and abetted by a host of colorful new characters, including Malingo (the affable geshrat she rescued in Book One), continues to dodge Carrionâ??s hired assassins, as forces gather on both sides of Day and Night to prepare for the inevitable war between the Hours.

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The Purple Emperor : Faerie Wars II by Herbie Brennan
Reading level: Young Adult

Book Description
Henry Atherton, his faerie prince friend Pyrgus, and Pyrgus's fearless sister, Holly Blue, return in this fantastic adventure to save the Faerie Realm from the evil Hairstreak and his henchmen, Chalkhill and Brimstone. With the help of forest faeries, some silk mistresses, a sewer-dwelling creature of unknown dimensions, and additional creatures magical and otherwise, the three intrepid young friends find their way from exile back to the home they all would die to preserve and protect.

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Saving Francesca by MELINA MARCHETTA
Reading level: Young Adult

"This morning, my mother didn't get out of bed." So begins the saga of Francesca Spinelli, the hilarious and achingly real creation of Aussie author Melina Marchetta. Francesca used to think her biggest problem was transferring to St. Sebastian's--a school only recently turned coed: "What a dream come true, right? Seven hundred and fifty boys and thirty girls? But the reality is that it's either like living in a fish bowl or like you don't exist."

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On the Wing : To the Edge of the Earth with the Peregrine Falcon by ALAN TENNANT
Reading level: Young Adult

On a mission to map the migration of the peregrine falcon, Alan Tennant and his friend George Vose logged thousands of miles in a rattletrap Cessna. On the Wing is as much quest narrative as nature book, and the tale of the two men's voyage is unforgettable. At their first meeting, when Tennant suggested that they track a radio-tagged falcon by air, WWII vet Vose assessed naturalist Tennant with a keen eye.

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Messenger
by Lois Lowry
Reading level: Young Adult

Strange changes are taking place in Village. Once a utopian community that prided itself on its welcome to new strangers, Village will soon be closed to all outsiders. As one of the few people able to travel through the dangerous Forest, Matty must deliver the message of Village's closing and try to convince Seer's daughter to return with him before it"s too late. But Forest has become hostile to Matty as well, and he must risk everything to fight his way through it, armed only with an emerging power he cannot yet explain or understand.

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Belles on Their Toes
by Frank B. Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Reading level: Young Adult

Life is very different now in the rambling Gilbreth house. When the youngest was two and the oldest eighteen, Dad died and Mother bravely took over his business. Now, to keep the family together, everyone has to pitch in and pinch pennies. The resourceful clan rises to every crisis with a marvelous sense of fun -- whether it's battling chicken pox, giving the boot to an unwelcome boyfriend, or even meeting the President. And the few distasteful things they can't overcome -- like castor oil -- they swallow with good humor and good graces. Belles On Their Toes is a warm, wonderful and entertaining sequel to Cheaper By The Dozen.

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Among the books submitted for the Guardian children's fiction prize this year, many stood out for all kinds of reasons, but nothing was as engaging, original, and life-changing as Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time.

Published on both an adult and a children's list, it is one of the few titles for which the ubiquitous claim of "crossover" is not a gimmick. It genuinely has equal, though different, appeal to all readers - 15-year-old Christopher Boone's narrative voice is at once childlike in its observations, and adult in its profundity.

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