Story Time. Since it's still March the topic for "Story Time" will be "Wind". Join Peggy at 10:30 this Tuesday.

Reads Like Stephan Cannell. Michael Connelly, Thomas Harris, Jonathon Kellerman, James Patterson, Stephen Walsh White, John Sanford, Robert Crais, and Martha Grimes.

NEW MATERIALS 

Adult

Shadow Fever  by Karen Marie Moning 
Product Description
“Evil is a completely different creature, Mac. Evil is bad that believes it’s good.”

MacKayla Lane was just a child when she and her sister, Alina, were given up for adoption and banished from Ireland forever.
Twenty years later, Alina is dead and Mac has returned to the country that expelled them to hunt her sister’s murderer. But after discovering that she descends from a bloodline both gifted and cursed, Mac is plunged into a secret history: an ancient conflict between humans and immortals who have lived concealed among us for thousands of years.
What follows is a shocking chain of events with devastating consequences, and now Mac struggles to cope with grief while continuing her mission to acquire and control the Sinsar Dubh—a book of dark, forbidden magic scribed by the mythical Unseelie King, containing the power to create and destroy worlds.

Zapped: Why Your Cell Phone Shouldn't Be Your Alarm Clock...  by Ann Louise Gittleman 
Product Description

How many electronic innovations have you dialed, watched, surfed, charged, listed to, booted up, commuted on, cooked with, and plugged in today?
Consider your typical day: If you’re like most people, it probably starts in front of your coffee maker and toaster, ends as you set the alarm on your cell phone, and involves no end of computers and gadgets, televisions and microwaves in between.
We’re being zapped: Today 84 percent of Americans own a cell phone, 89 million of us watch TV beamed in by satellite, and we can’t sip a cup of coffee at our local cafÉ without being exposed to Wi-Fi. The very electronic innovations that have changed our lives are also exposing us, in ways big and small, to an unprecedented number of electromagnetic fields. Invisible pollution surrounds us twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, interrupting our bodies’ natural flow of energy. And for some, that pollution has reached the point of toxicity, causing fatigue, irritability, weakness, and even illness.

The Border Lords  by T. Jefferson Parker 
From Publishers Weekly

At the start of Parker's adrenaline-fueled fourth thriller featuring L.A. sheriff's deputy Charlie Hood (after Iron River), Hood, who's still on loan to the ATF, and his ATF partners are watching a house in the border town of Buenavista, Calif., occupied by four young gunmen of the North Baja Cartel--and Hood's ATF agent friend, Sean Ozburn, who's operating undercover as a meth and gun dealer. When Ozburn goes rogue and fatally shoots the four cartel members, Hood knows he has to bring Ozburn in. Parker skillfully blends Hood's pursuit of the increasingly erratic Ozburn, who approaches a powerful cartel leader about buying the latest gun sensation, the Love 32, with that of L.A. deputy Bradley Jones, a man with connections both to Hood's past and the world of the cartels. The porousness of the U.S.-Mexico border and the ease with which guns, drugs, and killers pass back and forth is nowhere better illustrated than in Parker's white-hot series.

Fatal Error  by J.A. Jance 
From Booklist

After successfully completing training at the Arizona Police Academy, Ali Reynolds is furloughed by the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department because of budget cuts. So when Brenda Riley, a former TV journalist gone to seed, asks for help in finding her online fiancé, Ali is game. A background check by Ali’s boyfriend’s computer-security company, High Noon Enterprises, reveals Brenda’s fiancé to be Richard Lowensdale, an engineer laid off by failing defense contractor Rutherford International. It turns out Richard has a history of cyberstalking vulnerable women. Then Richard turns up murdered, and Brenda, after being labeled a suspect, disappears. Ali’s search for Brenda puts her in pursuit of a coldblooded killer and in the midst of an FBI investigation involving Rutherford’s unscrupulous dealings. A “pushy broad” who’s about to become a grandmother, Ali has the savvy and the resources (wealth from her late husband and technical assistance from High Noon) to go where an investigation leads. This sixth outing in the series (after Trial by Fire, 2009) offers an entertaining mix of sleuthing and human relationships.

Young Adult

The Trust: A Secret Society Novel  by Tom Dolby 
Product Description

Who can you trust when everything is secrets and lies?
It's a new semester at the Chadwick School, and even with the ankh tattoos that brand them, Phoebe, Nick, Lauren, and Patch are hoping for a fresh start. Each day, however, they are reminded of their membership as new Conscripts in the Society. The secret group that promised to help them achieve their every dream has instead turned their lives into a nightmare.
Exclusive membership lost its luster as the Society revealed its agenda to them and two of their classmates were found dead. Now they can't help but wonder: Who's next? While they search for the elusive truth about the Society, the Conscripts are forced to face their darkest fear—that they truly can't get out.
Will Nick and Phoebe's new relationship endure this strain? Can Patch and Nick's longtime friendship survive the truth that will come to light?

Exposed  by Kimberly Marcus 
From Booklist

Liz and Kate are forever-best friends preparing for the next chapter: college. There's no doubting Liz's major photography but she is frustrated with Kate's refusal to pursue her dream of dancing. It's partly this disagreement that leads to a fight during their monthly sleepover, after which Kate refuses to speak to Liz. Soon the secret of that night comes out: Kate was raped by Liz's brother. At least that's what she says. Liz's brother's denial sounds just as credible. Marcus, a writer without a melodramatic bone in her body, handles the plot with utmost naturalism: once spoken, the accusation splinters alliances among Liz's friends and family, and the courtroom conclusion is wonderfully devoid of theatrics. The novel is written in free-verse poetry (My mother has pinned / all her hopes on me. / And I can't pull out / the pins), though it's unclear why, other than that the book would struggle to reach novel length using standard paragraphs. The upside is that it reads in a single sitting and whets the appetite for whatever Marcus does next. Grades 7-10.

Picture Books

The Eleventh Hour: A Curious Mystery  by Graeme Base 
Amazon.com Review

Reading The Eleventh Hour is like running a marathon: one finishes exhausted but satisfied. Graeme Base, creator of the popular Animalia, has crafted another intricately wrought, gorgeously illustrated picture book, this time a mystery in verse. When Horace the Elephant decides to throw himself a party for his 11th birthday, he never suspects a crime will be committed by lunchtime. Who has stolen the birthday feast? As with any good mystery, everyone is guilty until proven innocent. The proof lies in the myriad clues embedded in each glorious illustration. Young sleuths will delight in decoding the complex messages that pop up in unexpected places. Graeme Base used the buildings he saw during his travels through Africa, Asia, and Europe to design and decorate Horace's fantastic house. Astute readers may recognize Roman cathedrals, Scottish palaces, and stone carvings from India. Best of all, secreted in these walls are cryptic messages in Egyptian hieroglyphics, anagrams, and even Morse code to challenge the perceptive and deductive abilities of any reader "of tender years or long in tooth." The Eleventh Hour is a brilliant, rigorous, creative romp that no child (or adult) should miss. (All Ages)

Write Reviews. If any of our patrons would like to write reviews of the latest book that they have read please contact webblibrary@gmail.com for more information. Use James Review for your subject.

Story Hour. Begins Tuesday with topics dealing with spring. Peggy hopes everyone will come and help produce the flowers for her paper garden.

Writes Like Jeffery Deaver. Thomas Harris, Dennis Lehane, Chris Mooney, Ridley Pearson, Rex Stout, David Baldacci, Jonathan Kellerman, James Patterson, Kathy Reichs, Lee Child, William Diehl, Greg Isles. 

NEW MATERIALS

Adult

15 Minutes: General Curtis LeMay and the Countdown to Nuclear Annihilation  by L. Douglas Keeney 
From Booklist

In the 1950s, before land- and submarine-based missiles formed the backbone of American nuclear deterrence, the U.S. relied primarily upon the Strategic Air Command (SAC). When an alert was issued, it was assumed that the crews of our long-range bombers had only 15 minutes to scramble to the runways and takeoff to guarantee the credibility of a retaliatory strike against the Soviet Union. Keeney, a military historian and co-founder of cable television’s Military Channel, has utilized great amounts of recently declassified documents to tell a fascinating, often chilling story of the policies, technologies, and men responsible for maintaining our nuclear defense posture in that period. At the center of the narrative is General Curtis LeMay, a brilliant, cigar-chomping innovator who was haunted by the specter of Pearl Harbor and determined that we wouldn’t be caught unprepared again. Keeney avoids excessive technical jargon and recounts in straightforward fashion the successes and sometimes dangerous and devasting failures and miscalculations of men operating on the razor’s edge while coping with the terror of unprecedented consequences for misjudgments.

The Metropolis Case  by Matthew Gallaway 
From Publishers Weekly

In his ambitious debut, Gallaway jumps backward and forward in time between two cities, spiraling in on four characters connected by music: Lucien, an opera singer coming-of-age in mid-19th-century Paris; Anna, an opera singer reaching the height of her career in 1960s New York; Maria, an extraordinarily promising young singer but a difficult student; and Martin, an aging lawyer whose love of music might save his life. The ties between them are at first so tenuous that readers may wonder when, how, or if their narratives will converge. But Wagner's Tristan and Isolde touches each in some way, as does, eventually, eternal life, a device that allows Gallaway to chronicle 1860s Paris and 1960s New York through the eyes of one character. Gallaway, a former musician, gives music a literary presence, intertwining opera and punk by illuminating their shared passion and chaos. But ambition sometimes gives way to pretension (particularly with chapter titles such as "Fashion Is a Canon for this Dialect Also") and purple prose, but the story remains grounded by characters grappling with love, in some cases for eternity.

Paranormal Investigator: True Accounts of the Paranormal  by Stephen David Lancaster II 
Product Description

Paranormal Investigator: True Accounts of the Paranormal, is a non-fiction book focusing on eight well documented cases of paranormal activity as chronicled by paranormal researcher Stephen David Lancaster II. From his first childhood encounter to experiences twenty years later, Lancaster opens the folders of his files sharing some of the most productive, memorable and indisputable cases from his years of paranormal research. The haunting evidence of the Webb Library in Morehead City, Poogan's Porch Restaurant, the Brentwood Wine Bistro, the Music House, Emily's House and others are included. The book also includes an in depth look into the Industrial Facility case that was featured on NBC Universal in October 2009 where they revealed Lancaster's video footage of the infamous Cowboy Ghost.

Young Adult 

You Killed Wesley Payne  by Sean Beaudoin 
From Booklist
*Starred Review*

The cliques rule the rackets in Salt River High. The two top outfits, the Balls (football players, wearers of no-irony crew cuts) and Pinker Casket (thrash rockers, most appropriate for funerals or virgin sacrifices), are hurtling toward a turf war, and all the assorted mid-level cliques (and even the crooked Fack Cult T) are constantly looking for an angle to ride to prominence. At the center of the maelstrom is a body, Wesley Payne, a former member of the Euclidians (nerds, fingertip sniffers), who was found wrapped in duct tape, hanging upside-down from the goalposts. Teenage private dick Dalton Rev arrives to sort out the murder, locate a missing hundred grand, and if everything rolls his way, ride off into the sunset with the adorable Macy Payne, Wesley’s sister. Ever checking his moves against what his crime-novel hero, Lexington Cole, would do, Dalton himself is so straight hard-boiled, it’s screwy: Dalton played it cool. He played it frozen. He was in full Deano at the Copa mode. But in the end, none of the stylistic pastiche and slick patter would matter if they weren’t hitched to such a propulsive mystery, with enough double-crosses and blindsiding reveals to give you vertigo. Moreover, the opening Clique Chart might just be the funniest four pages you’ll read all year. Grades 9-12.

Real Live Boyfriends* Yes Boyfriends Plural  by E. Lockhart 
From Booklist

Everyone’s favorite neurotic, prone-to-panic high-school student is back. As always, there is a lot going on in Ruby Oliver’s life, and she is trying to sort it all out. It is senior year, and although she should be concentrating on college applications, Ruby cannot get love out of her mind. First her parents are having problems, and now Noel isn’t acting like a very good boyfriend anymore. Then there is Gideon, the brother of her ex-best friend, who is acting like boyfriend material. What’s a girl to do? Make a documentary, of course. Fans of the series will clamor for Ruby’s latest adventure. Grades 9-12.

 Picture Books

The Giving Tree  by Shel Silverstein 
Amazon.com Review

To say that this particular apple tree is a "giving tree" is an understatement. In Shel Silverstein's popular tale of few words and simple line drawings, a tree starts out as a leafy playground, shade provider, and apple bearer for a rambunctious little boy. Making the boy happy makes the tree happy, but with time it becomes more challenging for the generous tree to meet his needs. When he asks for money, she suggests that he sell her apples. When he asks for a house, she offers her branches for lumber. When the boy is old, too old and sad to play in the tree, he asks the tree for a boat. She suggests that he cut her down to a stump so he can craft a boat out of her trunk. He unthinkingly does it. At this point in the story, the double-page spread shows a pathetic solitary stump, poignantly cut down to the heart the boy once carved into the tree as a child that said "M.E. + T." "And then the tree was happy... but not really." When there's nothing left of her, the boy returns again as an old man, needing a quiet place to sit and rest. The stump offers up her services, and he sits on it. "And the tree was happy." While the message of this book is unclear (Take and take and take? Give and give and give? Complete self-sacrifice is good? Complete self-sacrifice is infinitely sad?), Silverstein has perhaps deliberately left the book open to interpretation.

NC Collection

3 Books from the Images of America Collection

Johnston County  by Todd Johnson and Durwood Barbour 
Product Description

Photographs can bring history to life and help us to make connections between the past and our daily lives. With Johnston County, authors Todd Johnson and Durwood Barbour have created a work that truly teaches us and guides us from the past of this area into the new millennium. In this exciting new work, every one of the countyÂ’s seventeen townships has been covered, with rare images dating primarily from the turn of the century to 1945. Mostly candid shots of people who have influenced JohnstonÂ’s social, cultural, and economic development, these images bring us to a time when the pace of life was slower. Other, more well-known citizens we meet include film star Ava Gardner and Lunsford Richardson, inventor of VickÂ’s VapoRub. Also featured in this book are images of important events, like the highly publicized, catastrophic munitions truck explosion near Selma in 1942.

Raleigh, North Carolina's Capital City on Postcards  by Norman D. Anderson and B.T. Fowler

Contains more than 200 postcard images, which capture what life was like during the first half of the twentieth century. This wonderful book brings to life the history of this diverse and dynamic region.






Cape Fear Beaches  by Susan Taylor Block

With more than 200 rare, black-and-white photographs, you will step back into affectionate memory, when early residents slept in hammocks in precarious beach shacks, when grand buildings, such as Lumina and the Ocean Hotel, dotted the beachscape, when road repair meant a shovelful of oyster shells to mend a pothole, and when bathing suits left almost everything to the imagination. This volume also recounts the black community's experiences along these beaches, primarily at Seabreeze and Shell Island, and shares their personal stories and triumphs in a changing social scene, in which Reconstruction values slowly gave way to Civil Rights-era equality.

Friends

Friends of the Webb. Will now meet quarterly with the next meeting scheduled for Wednesday April 13, at 10:30 am.

Dan Brown Readalikes. Daniel Silva, Michael Crichton, Barbara Wood, Katherine Neville,  Dean Ing, David Poyer, Jonathan Rabb, Clive Cussler, Nelson DeMille, Robert Ludlum, Steve Berry, Raymond Khoury, Julia Navarro, Lincoln Child, Greg Iles, Dean Koontz, James Patterson, Frank Peretti, Randy Alcorn.

Another PIT Crew Visit. The Paranormal Investigation Team from  

MonsterVisionTV.com paid a visit in February and have posted their latest video on their website. It is episode 1 of season 6, but there is a problem with some of the language used by a few members of the team.


NEW MATERIALS 

Adult

The Cyprus House  by Michael Koryta 
From Booklist

After making his name with five strong crime novels, Koryta started adding chills to the thrills in the horror-tinged So Cold the River (2010). In this one, battle-hardened WWI veteran Arlen Wagner can foretell others’ deaths. With the Great Depression crippling the country, he works in the Civilian Conservation Corps and keeps his demons at bay with hard work and a flask full of whiskey. He and young friend Paul Brickhill are traveling by train to a new CCC camp in the Florida Keys when Arlen’s supernatural sense tells him they have to get off the train if they want to stay alive. They find themselves at Cypress House, a strangely empty fishing resort on the Gulf Coast run by beautiful but taciturn Rebecca Cady—and right in the middle of a vipers’ nest of small-town corruption and misery.

The Illumination  by Kevin Brockmeier 
Amazon.com Review 

Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2011: When wounds and illnesses, both superficial and severe, begin emitting a beautiful shimmering light--a phenomenon quickly coined "The Illumination"--a chain of characters learn to adapt to this unexpected change in Kevin Brockmeier's incandescent novel, The Illumination. No longer able hide their own pains from the world, and suddenly exposed to the discomfiting wounds of strangers, friends, and lovers, these characters struggle to adapt to a new way of experiencing life and, in very different ways, to understand the intrinsic connection between love and pain. "There was an ache inside people that seemed so wonderful sometimes," one character muses. And then, because this ache is also corporeal, "He wished he had brought his camera with him." While Brockmeier's brilliant novel is innately tied up in pain and loss, witnessing the lives he creates in the midst of this new wonder is not only a beautiful experience but, yes, an illuminating one.

When the Killings Done  by T.C. Boyle 

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Boyle (The Women) spins a grand environmental and family drama revolving around the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara in his fiery latest. Alma Boyd Takesue is an unassuming National Park Service biologist and the public face of a project to eradicate invasive species, such as rats and pigs, from the islands. Antagonizing her is Dave LaJoy, a short-tempered local business owner and founder of an organization called For the Protection of Animals. What begins as the disruption of public meetings and protests outside Alma's office escalates as Dave realizes he must take matters into his own hands to stop what he considers to be an unconscionable slaughter. Dave and Alma are at the center of a web of characters—among them Alma's grandmother, who lost her husband and nearly drowned herself in the channel, and Dave's girlfriend's mother, who lived on a sheep ranch on one of the islands—who provide a perspective that man's history on the islands is a flash compared to nature's evolution there.

Young Adult

Something Like Hope  by Shawn Goodman 
From School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up–Shavonne, who has gone from one juvenile detention center to another since junior high, will be moving out of the system on her 18th birthday. Fury and frustration are huge obstacles she must conquer by coming to grips with a drug-addicted prostitute mother; abusive foster parents who allowed her to be raped; a father who died in jail; giving up her own baby to the foster-care system; and forgiving herself for an accident that injured her beloved baby brother. Her personal challenges are compounded by troubled and desperate fellow inmates; several cruel, manipulative, corrupt guards who beat and taunt them; and youth counselors without a clue, who hurt more than help. Luckily, the last embers of hope deep within Shavonne's soul are flamed by one kind guard and an empathetic and straightforward counselor who successfully reaches through to her at the 11th hour. Shavonne's first-person narrative captures readers' attention and never lets go. Short, compelling chapters keep up the tempo as her shocking and sad past and present are revealed and her desire for a better future takes center stage.

Desires of the Dead  by Kimberly Derting 
Product Description  

The missing dead call to Violet. They want to be found.
Violet can sense the echoes of those who've been murdered—and the matching imprint that clings to their killers. Only those closest to her know what she is capable of, but when she discovers the body of a young boy she also draws the attention of the FBI, threatening her entire way of life.
As Violet works to keep her morbid ability a secret, she unwittingly becomes the object of a dangerous obsession. Normally she'd turn to her best friend, Jay, except now that they are officially a couple, the rules of their relationship seem to have changed. And with Jay spending more and more time with his new friend Mike, Violet is left with too much time on her hands as she wonders where things went wrong. But when she fills the void by digging into Mike's tragic family history, she stumbles upon a dark truth that could put everyone in danger.

Juvenile 

Young Fredle  by Cynthia Voigh  
From School Library Journal

Gr 3-5-It was a Peppermint Pattie that was Fredle's undoing. A kitchen mouse who was already too curious for his own good (his mother admonishes, "Curiosity killed the cat. Think about what a terrible monster curiosity must be, if it can kill a cat"), Fredle becomes ill from consuming too much chocolate and is pushed out of the family's nest. The Missus traps him and releases him outside, a terrifying place for a creature with no familiarity with grass and sky, let alone raptors, snakes, and raccoons. Fredle's adventures and attempts to return home (and what is home, anyway?) are chronicled in a way that makes readers begin to grasp what it must be like to be a mouse, and the struggle to understand where he fits in. The allure of the world versus the beauty of belonging is just one of the many complex issues addressed in this engaging story about a plucky little mouse who, after his adventures, returns to his family and sets out to change things for himself and others like him.

Audio Cassettes New to Us

Nora Roberts: Blue Smoke

                       Angels Fall

Stuart Woods: Capital Crimes
                       Orchid Blues
Janet Evanovich: Plum Lovin

                          Lean Mean Thirteen

Mary Higgins Clark: Two Little Girls in Blue

Webb Library Adult Book Club. Discussion of the book "The Forgotten Garden" by Kate Morton will highlight the April 6 meeting. On May 4 the book will be "Secrets of Eden" by Chris Bohjalian.

Read Alikes. The following read like Nevada Barr: Jessica Speart, Karen Kijewski, Taffy Cannon, Lise McClendon, Lee Wallingford, Tony Hillerman, Margaret Mann, Elizabeth Quinn, Dana Stabenow, Lillian Jackson Braun, Sue Grafton, Peater Bowen, C. J. Box, Sue Henry, Linda Fairstein, Deborah Crombie, Sue Henry, J. A. Jance, Elizabeth George.
 

NEW MATERIALS

Adult

Breach of Trust  by David Ellis 
From Booklist

Imagine tense confrontations over the board of education’s contract for school buses. Or white-knuckle clashes about veterans-first hiring laws. Ellis, the prosecutor who convicted former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, routinely turns these real-life dramas into compelling fiction. In his sixth novel, the Edgar winner gives us young criminal lawyer Jason Kolarich, about to settle into a career defending awful people with money. Then something horrible happens to his family. Trying to learn more, he takes a job on the governor’s staff. Now he’s surrounded by reptiles who rattle on about downstate poll numbers so they can keep the posts that let them steal the state blind. Then come the feds, who are not exactly driven by a longing for justice. There’s sex, suspense, and blood here, but it’s Ellis’ insider knowledge of this corrupt-wheels-within-corrupt-wheels world that sparks his narrative. He knows that power often goes to the wrong people because they’re the ones who want it, and he turns that knowledge into penetrating legal fiction reminiscent of George V. Higgins.

Rain Gardens  by Nigel Dunnett and Andy Clayton 
From Booklist

The demand for water is growing exponentially as supplies dwindle, so it becomes ever more critical for home gardeners, professional landscapers, construction engineers, and city planners to consider rainfall and snowfall management. Structures as small as a garden shed and hard surfaces as massive as an arena parking lot each have an environmental effect through the loss of water as uncontained runoff. Rain gardening emphasizes the capture and reuse of water within residential and commercial landscapes by using such techniques as bioretention ponds, storm-water chains, green roofs, and permeable paving. In this unique and essential resource, Dunnett and Clayden expertly and comprehensively explain the various methods of creating rain-gardening systems in clear, precise, and enthusiastic language; augment their proposals with simple line drawings and color photographs; provide a concise directory of suitable plants; and draw on inspiring case histories of successful rain-garden projects throughout the U.S and Europe.

Eyes of the Innocent  Brad Parks 
From Booklist

A house burns. Two children die. A newspaper reporter finds the house documents have disappeared from the courthouse. The investigation begins, and Parks and his hero, Newark newsman Carter Ross, show us that police and newshound procedures have much in common: knocking on doors, working the phones, staring at dusty paper until the eyes burn. Like other fictional star reporters—Gregory Mcdonald’s Fletch and Laura Lippmann’s reporter-turned-PI Tess Monaghan—Ross must rout the villains without a badge to flash or the power of officialdom. Also like them, he’s a reporter “type”; a veneer of cynicism covers a layer of mush, which in turn covers a core of titanium. The revelations involve the subprime mortgage swindle, a city councilman and his cookie, and a moneyman who knows which politicians are for sale. The novel reads like a bit of investigative journalism: told in reporter’s prose, with dollops of humor, suspense, and violence. Like his creator, Ross is aware of the pain in the things he writes about. He’s also aware that that makes for darned good reporting.

Young Adult

Subway Girl  by P. J. Converse 
Product Description

He is shy. Unassuming. Inexperienced.She is Subway Girl. Cool. Unattainable.From the moment he sees her on a Hong Kong subway, Simon is intrigued by Amy, but he doesn't have the nerve to talk to her. When he finally works up the courage, he realizes he can't. Because Amy doesn't speak Chinese, and Simon is failing English.
But somehow, Amy and Simon connect, and they find that they understand each other. Enough for Simon to admit that he is dropping out of school. Enough for Amy to confess that she is pregnant with her ex-boyfriend's baby. Amy and Simon feel lost in a world so much bigger than they are, and yet they still have each other.
In this brilliant debut by P. J. Converse, two unlikely teenagers discover that love has a language all its own.

Skate Fate  by Juan Felipe Herra  
Product Description

I wanted to roar out, touch things I had never touched. to see if it was true. was I still here was this life still here. on this side. whatever you call it dude. wanted to touch everything like van Gogh touched and smeared everything when he painted. so I wrote it and spoke it. maybe mama would hear me. cuz I could hear her. sayin' When your heart hurts, sing. wherever you go.
Lucky Z has always lived on the edge—he loved to skateboard, to drag race, to feel alive. But things have taken a turn—he's living with new foster parents and a tragic past. An accident changed everything. And only his voice will set him free.

Juvenile

How To Train your Dragon: The Heroic Misadventures of Hiccup the Pirate  by Cressida Cowell 
From School Library Journal

Grade 3-5–Young Hiccup may be the son of Stoick the Vast, chief of the Hairy Hooligans, but he isn't exactly heroic Viking material. When he and the other boys of his tribe are sent on a mission to fetch dragons to train, Hiccup comes back with the scrawniest creature ever seen. Toothless, as Hiccup names him, is also rude, lazy, and greedy, but when the tribe is faced with horrible danger, Hiccup's unorthodox dragon-training techniques prove successful and he and his unique beast become true heroes. Sprinkled throughout with funny sketches, scribbles, and ink blots, this is a goofy and exciting tale of an underdog who proves that brains can be just as important as brawn. Kids will hoot at the ridiculous names and sympathize with Hiccup's exasperation with his truly obstinate but strangely lovable dragon. A delightful read that fans of Ian Whybrow's "Little Wolf" series (Carolrhoda) will particularly enjoy.

Easy Readers

When I Grow Up  by Al Yankovic 
From School Library Journal

Grade 1–3—Eight-year-old Billy has an active imagination and a host of interests. So, when it's time for show-and-tell, he can barely contain himself as he describes, nonstop, what he'd like to be when he grows up. His career choices include chef, snail trainer, lathe operator, gorilla masseuse, an artist whose preferred medium is chocolate mousse, sumo wrestler, pickle inspector...and on and on. Mrs. Krupp's attempts to call "time up" are unsuccessful. He's just getting started. Billy is still pondering vocational choices at lunchtime when he comes up with one more possibility—a great teacher like Mrs. Krupp. The story has a nice premise, but it doesn't quite live up to its potential. In addition, the rhyming text can be distracting. Well-done, realistic and colorful watercolor and ink illustrations accompany the story, but overall this book is a supplemental purchase.

Dirty Joe, the Pirate: A True Story by Bill Harvey 
From School Library Journal

PreSchool-Grade 2—This book has everything to attract kids and tickle their funny bones—pirates, smelly socks, and, best of all, undies! In rollicking rhyme, Harley tells of a "cruel and evil man" who sails the seven seas with his crew, stealing dirty socks to hang proudly on the ship's rigging. But Dirty Joe meets his match when he comes upon Stinky Annie and her all-female crew, buccaneers who specialize in pilfering and displaying undergarments: "Boxers big and boxers small, with stripes and polka dots,/And tighty-whities hung there too, like the ones your grandpa's got." After a battle fought with swords, toasters, tennis rackets, and whatever else comes to hand, the barefoot women prevail and, in a heartfelt and humorous moment, Joe and Annie discover that they are siblings. That doesn't stop Annie from taking Joe's drawers, leading to a last-page bemoaning of the fact that older sisters hold a lifelong upper hand. Davis's balloon-headed, goofy characters are just right for the tale. The chaotic full-color pictures are jam-packed with pirates and dirty laundry. The crews, dressed in a hilarious mishmash of styles, will have readers poring over the pages to spot amusing details. Even kids who aren't pirate fans will be wooed and wowed by this rib-tickling tale.


On the Go With Pirate Pete and Pirate Joe  by Ann Edwards Cannon 
From School Library Journal

Grade 2-3-Three lightly amusing, easy-to-read short stories introduce two pirates with "stinky feet." In the first selection, readers are told where the buccaneers live; that they are not very ferocious, even when hungry; and that they have a cat, Studley, and a dog, Dudley. In the second tale, they realize that they don't have a ship. Unfortunately, after they find one for sale, they discover that they are afraid of the water and buy the captain's van instead, with "PIRATES 'R' US" on the front. In the last story, they convince themselves that they need a parrot. At the pet shop, one bird sings opera, another speaks three languages, but it is Bucko that wins their heart because he only says, "Yo ho!" Smith's cartoonlike color illustrations complement the zany adventures, and the compact text has just enough repetition for beginning readers, who will enjoy these charming protagonists.