Grade: 9

Brian Robertson, sole passenger on a Cessna 406, is on his way to visit his father when the tiny bush plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness. With nothing but his clothing, a tattered windbreaker, and the hatchet his mother had given him as a present, Brian finds himself completely alone. Challenged by his fear and despair — and plagued with the weight of a dreadful secret he’s been keeping since his parent’s divorce — brian must tame his inner demons in order to survive. It will take all his know-how and determination, and more courage than he knew he possessed.

Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnats. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys’ detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the warden makes the boys “build character” by spending all day, every day, digging holes: five feet wide and five feet deep. It doesn’t take long for Stanley to realize there’s more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment—and redemption.

Shannon Lanier was in the first grade when he stood up in class and announced that Thomas Jefferson was his ancestor. No one believed him because he was black. In 1998, when Lanier was 19, DNA evidence proved he truly was a descendant of Jefferson’s. This is his story and his family’s story as told through interviews, photographs, and family trees. The various voices provide fascinating details and tie together nine generations of Jeffersons.

Wilborn Hampton was only a cub reporter at United Press International in Dallas when he answered the phone and heard these fateful words: “Three shots fired at the motorcade!” This is his account of how reporters collected the facts for the news story about Kennedy’s assassination. Black-and-white photos and Wilborn’s voice bring to life the shock and grief felt by Americans that day.

As the math education crisis in this country continues to make headlines, research continues to prove that it is in middle school when math scores begin to drop-especially for girls-in large part due to the relentless social conditioning that tells girls they “can’t do” math, and that math is “uncool.” Young girls today need strong female role models to embrace the idea that it’s okay to be smart-in fact, it’s sexy to be smart!

It’s Danica McKellar’s mission to be this role model, and demonstrate on a large scale that math doesn’t suck. In this fun and accessible guide, McKellar-dubbed a “math superstar” by The New York Times-gives girls and their parents the tools they need to master the math concepts that confuse middle-schoolers most, including fractions, percentages, pre-algebra, and more. The book features hip, real-world examples, step-by-step instruction, and engaging stories of Danica’s own childhood struggles in math (and stardom). In addition, borrowing from the style of today’s teen magazines, it even includes a Math Horoscope section, Math Personality Quizzes, and Real-Life Testimonials-ultimately revealing why math is easier and cooler than readers think.

There’s one last chance to save the world in MAXIMUM RIDE: SAVING THE WORLD AND OTHER EXTREME SPORTS, the closing chapter of James Patterson’s thrilling trilogy. The time has arrived for Max and her winged “flock” to face their ultimate enemy and discover their original purpose: to defeat the takeover of “Re-evolution”–a sinister experiment to re-engineer a select population into a scientifically superior master race…and to terminate the rest. Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman, and Angel have always worked together to defeat the forces working against them–but can they save the world when they are torn apart, living in hiding and captivity, halfway across the globe from one another?

When November Nelson loses her boyfriend, Josh, to a pledge stunt gone horribly wrong, she thinks her life can’t possibly get any worse. But Josh left something behind that will change November’s life forever, and now she’s faced with the biggest decision she could ever imagine. How in the world will she tell her mom? And how will Josh’s parents take the news? She’s never needed a friend more.

Jericho Prescott lost his best friend when he lost his cousin, Josh, and the pain is almost more than he can bear. His world becomes divided into “before” and “after” Josh’s death. He finds the only way he can escape the emptiness he feels is to quit doing the things that made him happy when his cousin was alive, such as playing his beloved trumpet, and take up football, where he hopes the physical pain will suppress the emotional.
But will hiding behind shoulder pads really help? And will his gridiron obsession prevent him from being there for his cousin’s girlfriend when she needs him most?

This sequel to The Battle of Jericho is a no-holds-barred look at
what happens when life doesn’t go as planned, by the acclaimed author of the 2007 Coretta Scott King Award winner Copper Sun.

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 discover the dark and deadly slithering part-man/part-creature Lord Ombra, who is intent on recovering the missing starstuff - celestial dust that contains unimagined powers. In London, Peter attempts to track down the indomitable Molly, hoping that together they can combat Ombra’s determined forces. But London is not Mollusk Island; Peter is not the boy he used to be; and Lord Ombra - the Shadow Master - is unlike anything Peter, or the world, has ever seen.