September 2013

Picture Perfect

Posted on September 15, 2013 by webmaster

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Picture Perfect
by Elaine Marie Alphin

Ian Slater’s best friend has vanished. Ian and Teddy were supposed to spend the afternoon photographing the redwoods, but Teddy never showed up. People might go missing in a big city like San Francisco, but not a little town like Sawville. Has Teddy gone in search of the father he’s never met? Or has something terrible happened to him? What is the truth behind the picture perfect image?

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Ian doesn’t know. But he’s suddenly hearing strange voices, and he keeps seeing Teddy in his dreams. Even more disturbing – he can’t quite remember everything he did on the day Teddy vanished. Now people are telling him he’s acting strangely, and the sheriff is questioning him. Ian is determined to prove – to the sheriff and to his teachers and classmates, as well as to himself -that he has nothing to hide. But the more he searches for clues to Teddy’s disappearance, the more he wonders: How well did he ever know Teddy? How well does he even know himself?

Growing up in California, I always admired the majestic redwoods. When I had the opportunity to return there for a speaking engagement, I explored them again with a friend, and thought how deceptive, and threatening, the shadowy, towering redwoods could become – and how difficult it was to capture the truth about them in a photograph. I thought how easy it would be to disappear into the mist, and how easy it was for truth to disappear into an image, and Ian and Teddy were born.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
800	Middle School	244	Drama	2003	0822505355

Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment

Posted on September 15, 2013 by webmaster

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Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment
by James Patterson

Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman, Angel, and Maximum: Six kids who are pretty normal in most ways-except that they’re 98% human, 2% bird. They grew up in cages, living like rats, but now they’re free. Riding the wind, their wings are an amazing gift….and yet, their world can morph into a nightmare in a single instant.

For when the bloodthirsty Erasers-half men, half wolves genetically engineered by sick and sinister scientists-kidnap little Angel, the Flock embarks on a rescue mission that will change them forever

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
700L	Middle School	422	Science Fiction	2003	031615556X

We Beat the Street: How a Friendship Led to Success

Posted on September 15, 2013 by webmaster

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We Beat the Street: How a Friendship Led to Success
by Sampson Davis

Sampson, George, and Rameck could easily have followed their childhood friends into drug dealing, gangs, and prison. Like their peers, they came from poor, single-parent homes in urban neighborhoods where survival, not scholastic success, was the priority. When the three boys met in a magnet high school in Newark, they recognized each other as kindred spirits who wanted to overcome the incredible odds against them and reach for opportunity.

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They made a friendship pact, deciding together to take on the biggest challenge of their lives: attending college and then medical school. Along the way they made mistakes and faced disappointments, but by working hard, finding the right mentors, separating themselves from negative influences, and supporting each other, they achieved their goals-and more.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
860L	High School	183	Drama	2003	0399239901

Fat Kid Rules the World

Posted on September 15, 2013 by webmaster

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Fat Kids Rules the World
by K.L. Going

Troy Billings is seventeen, 296 pounds, friendless, utterly miserable, and about to step off a New York subway platform in front of an oncoming train. Until he meets Curt MacCrae, an emaciated, semi-homeless, high school dropout guitar genius, the stuff of which Lower East Side punk rock legends are made. Never mind that Troy’s dad thinks Curt’s a drug addict and Troy’s brother thinks Troy’s the biggest (literally) loser in Manhattan.

Soon, Curt’s recruited Troy as his new drummer-even though Troy can’t play the drums. Together, Curt and Troy will change the world of punk, and Troy’s own life, forever.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
700L	Middle School	183	Realistic Fiction	2003	0399239901

House of the Scorpion

Posted on September 15, 2013 by webmaster

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The House of the Scorpion
by Nancy Farmer

Fields of white opium poppies stretch away over the hills, and uniformed workers bend over the rows, harvesting the juice. This is the empire of Matteo Alacran, a feudal drug lord in the country of Opium, which lies between the United States and Aztlan, formerly Mexico. Field work, or any menial tasks, are done by “eejits,” humans in whose brains computer chips have been installed to insure docility. Alacran, or El Patron, has lived 140 years with the help of transplants from a series of clones, a common practice among rich men in this world.

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The intelligence of clones is usually destroyed at birth, but Matt, the latest of Alacran’s doubles, has been spared because he belongs to El Patron. He grows up in the family’s mansion, alternately caged and despised as an animal and pampered and educated as El Patron’s favorite. Gradually he realizes the fate that is in store for him, and with the help of Tam Lin, his bluff and kind Scottish bodyguard, he escapes to Aztlan. There he and other “lost children” are trapped in a more subtle kind of slavery before Matt can return to Opium to take his rightful place and transform his country.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
660L	Middle School	380	Adventure	2002	0689852223

City of Beasts

Posted on September 15, 2013 by webmaster

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City of Beasts
by Isabel Allende

Fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold is about to join his fearless grandmother on the trip of a lifetime. An International Geographic expedition is headed to the dangerous, remote wilds of South America, on a mission to document the legendary Yeti of the Amazon known as the Beast.

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But there are many secrets hidden in the unexplored wilderness, as Alex and his new friend Nadia soon discover. Drawing on the strength of their spirit guides, both young people are led on a thrilling and unforgettable journey to the ultimate discovery.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
1030L	High School	406	Fantasy	202	006050918X

Night

Posted on September 15, 2013 by webmaster

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Night
by Ellie Wiesel

Born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald. Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel’s memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man.e, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
590L	High School	109	Historical Fiction	1960	0553272535

My Sister’s Keeper

Posted on September 15, 2013 by webmaster

My Sister’s Keeper
by Jodi Picoult

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate — a life and a role that she has never challenged…until now.

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Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister — and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
840L	High School	423	Realistic Fiction	2004	0743454529

Chasing the Falconers

Posted on September 15, 2013 by webmaster

Chasing the Falconers
by Gordon Korman

After their parents’ conviction for treason in a high-profile case, Aiden and Meg Falconer were given a different last name and placed at Sunnydale Farm, a juvenile corrections facility in Nebraska. Still, they remain convinced of their parents’ innocence. At the first opportunity, they escape and make their way across the country toward the family’s summer cottage in Vermont.

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With little chance of evading detection, the children do whatever it takes (lying, breaking and entering, hopping a freight train) to remain free and gather evidence that might overturn their parents’ conviction.

The children finally arrive at their family’s cottage. There, the young fugitives learn that they now have two pursuers: the police and a mysterious man who wants to kill them.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
680L	Middle School	154	Adventure	2005	0439651360

Dracula

Posted on September 15, 2013 by webmaster

Dracula
by Bram Stoker

This novel tells the story of Dracula’s attempt to move from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing.
It takes place largely in England and Transylvania during 1893. Jonathan Harker, a newly qualified English solicitor, visits Count Dracula in the Carpathian Mountains on the border of Transylvania, Bukovina, and Moldavia, to provide legal support for a real estate transaction overseen by Harker’s employer.

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Harker is at first enticed by Dracula’s gracious manners but soon realizes that he is Dracula’s prisoner. Wandering the Count’s castle against Dracula’s admonition, Harker encounters three female vampires, called “the sisters”, from whom he is rescued by Dracula. Harker barely escapes from the castle with his life. Not long afterward, a Russian ship, the Demeter, having weighed anchor at Varna, runs aground on the shores of Whitby.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
990L	High School	666	Fantasy	2014	1500371432

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