Book list Lola, 17, is committed to her older musician boyfriend, Max, who is 22. And Max seems committed to Lola, so much so that he even joins her for family brunch on Sundays with her gay dads. Then the boy next door, who had moved away, comes back, and Lola has to figure out who she really wants in her life. The first half of this novel moves along with brio, introducing a slew of interesting characters, including the druggy mother who gave Lola to her brothe...More

Publishers Weekly In this nearly wordless picture book, Wiesner ( Hurricane ; Free Fall ) again takes readers on an imaginative voyage, using everyday reality merely as a touchstone. Here, a squadron of frogs soars through the night air one Tuesday, squatting upon lilypads that they use as flying carpets. Apparently intending no harm, these mysterious visitors to a suburban development leave a minimum of disruption as evidence of their eerie flight: a few startled ...More

Book list Svelte and fit, Brzezinski is the envy of millions of women who watch her on ­MSNBC's Morning Joe, a bully pulpit she uses to forcefully admonish viewers about the importance of proper diet and exercise. Few would suspect that her vehemence stems from a personal addiction to junk food and binge eating that has plagued her all her life and that her ironclad willpower actually borders on an unhealthy obsession to stay thin at any cost. Only when she candi...More

School Library Journal Gr 3 Up-In this delightful novel, a tiny mouse risks all to save the princess he loves from the clutches of a devious rat and a slow-witted serving girl. With memorable characters, brief chapters, and inventive plot twists, this fast-paced romp is perfect for reading alone or sharing aloud. Winner of the 2004 Newbery Medal. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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Book list *Starred Review* Egan is a writer of cunning subtlety, embedding within the risky endeavors of seductively complicated characters a curious bending of time and escalation of technology's covert impact. Following her diabolically clever The Keep (2006), Egan tracks the members of a San Francisco punk band and their hangers-on over the decades as they wander out into the wider, bewildering world. Kleptomaniac Sasha survives the underworld of N...More

Book list This picture book celebrates the diversity of birds by presenting their varied physical features and behaviors. Appearing on each page or double-page spread is a word or phrase and an illustration featuring a single species, usually engaged in some activity. Over several page turns, the phrases combine to form rhythmic, rhyming verses, such as Skimming birds, / swimming birds, / birds with tails held high. / Racing birds, / riding birds, / bird...More

Publishers Weekly Tess Monaghan, newspaperwoman turned sleuth, makes it official with a new business as a PI in a run-down section of Baltimore, Butchers Hill. Her first clientsÄan elderly man known as the Butcher of Butchers Hill and a highly successful female professional fund-raiserÄpresent the first dilemma. Tess needs a cover, reluctantly supplied by Client 2, in order to get access to information on the ghetto for Client 1. The process of finding di...More

Library Journal Forty years after a horrific event experienced by a group of high school seniors, the now middle-aged participants individually review what happened. In 1960, under the spell of a charismatic, slightly older man who claimed special powers, the teens had been led to share what may have been a delusion or an actual, spectacular murder. The author's well-recognized skill in building suspense and subtly revealing aspects of character...More

Book list In this slick comedy-cum-thriller, film-school grad Bruce Delamitri has hit the big time with his latest superviolent crime movie--he's won the Oscar for Best Director. The sick maniacs he features in his movies wear ultrastylish clothing and perform their mayhem set against witty soundtracks. But whenever pressed on the question of whether he's feeding the violent impulses of modern society, Delamitri refuses to take any responsibility,...More

Publishers Weekly As in We Are the Ship, Nelson knits together the nation's proudest moments with its most shameful, taking on the whole of African-American history, from Revolutionary-era slavery up to the election of President Obama. He handles this vast subject with easy grace, aided by the voice of a grandmotherly figure who's an amalgam of voices from Nelson's own family. She does not gloss over the sadness and outrage of her family...More

School Library Journal K-Gr 2-When Kate and her parents visit an animal shelter, they first bring home a precious puppy, then return to adopt an older dog that had also captured their hearts. Graham's cartoon-style, plump figures include a Mom with a tattoo and nose ring, and a disheveled Dad. The cozy domestic scenes include typical particulars like a forgotten piece of toast, toys on the floor, and cleaning gear in the bathroom. With the comprehensive ch...More

Publishers Weekly This Edgar Award-winning mystery turns on the relationship between a troubled journalist and a woman convicted of a gruesome murder. (Oct.)

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Publishers Weekly Caro's Pulitzer-winning multivolume biography reaches a magisterial climax (though not its Vietnam era denouement) in this riveting account of Johnson's vice-presidency in the Kennedy administration and early presidency through 1964. It's a roller-coaster narrative as Johnson plummets from the powerful Senate majority leader post to vice-presidential irrelevance, hated and humiliated by the Kennedy brothers, then surges...More

Publishers Weekly SF novelist Bacigalupi (The Windup Girl) makes a stellar YA debut with this futuristic tale of class imbalance on the Gulf Coast. Teenage Nailer scavenges ships with his crewmates, eking out a poverty-filled existence while avoiding dangers that range from giant "city killer" hurricanes to his vicious, drug-addicted father. When a storm strands a beautiful shipping heiress on the beach (earning her the nickname "Luck...More

Publishers Weekly Red Mars, the kickoff to Robinson's epic Mars trilogy, won the Nebula for best SF novel of 1992; its follow-up, Green Mars, won the parallel Hugo for 1994. The conclusion to the saga is not unlike the terrain of Robinson's Red Planet: fertile and fully developed in some spots, vast and arid in othersÂ?but, ultimately, it's an impressive achievement. Using the last 200 years of American history as his template for Martian hist...More

Book list What do you see? In a guessing game that pairs close-up details with large images on the following page, this title in the Looking Closely series spotlights life in the tropical rain forest, including a squirrel monkey, a banana plant, a moth orchid, and a scarlet macaw. The crisp, beautiful photos and the interactive text will draw kids into both the interactive fun and scientific facts, and a final, stirring, double-page spread of the rain f...More

Publishers Weekly A finely tuned collection by writer's writer Pearlman combines the best of previous collections (How to Fall; etc.) with austere, polished new work. Pearlman's characters for the most part are stiff-upper-lipped Northeasterners who take what comes and don't grumble: in "The Noncombatant," Richard, a 49-year-old doctor suffering gravely from cancer during the tail end of WWII, rages quietly in his small Cape Co...More

Publishers Weekly A horrific crime-the torture murders of Patrick Brooks, his wife, son, daughter, and three dogs at their palatial lakeside home in Wayzata, Minn.-propels bestseller Sandford's solid 22nd novel featuring Lucas Davenport of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (after 2011's Buried Prey). That DEA officials believe the killings to be the work of Los Criminales del Norte brings Mexican detective David Rivera and assistant Ana Martine...More

School Library Journal Gr 4-6?Nicholas Allen, a sharp, creative, independent thinker starts fifth grade looking for a way to sabotage his Language Arts class. The teacher, Mrs. Granger, is a legend, and he believes her when she states that it is the people who decide what words go into the dictionary. Picking up a dropped pen triggers a brilliant idea. He coins a new word for pen-frindle. It's all for fun, but frindle catches on and Nick finds himself...More

Publishers Weekly In the 20th fine volume of Roberts's futuristic mystery franchise, police lieutenant Eve Dallas is called in when lawyer Grant Swisher and his family are massacred with eerie skillfulness on the Upper West Side. The only survivor is 10-year-old Nixie, who evades-and witnesses-the killers as she creeps down to the kitchen for a midnight snack. Despite the painful memories of her own childhood that Nixie's presence calls up,...More

Book list Gr. 7-10. On a wagon train headed to California, Colton is left to care for his family after his father accidentally shoots him and then runs off in horror. His mixed race family (Pa was white; Ma is black) is harassed, ignored, and finally abandoned by their fellow travelers, but Colton still manages to lead his mother and siblings to the eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas before Ma's illness stops them. Ma entrusts Colton with her sister&...More

Book list Stories spin within stories in this spellbinding novel of avarice, love, and revenge. It begins in Toronto in 1945 when Laura Chase, 25 years old, drives a car off a bridge. Iris Chase Griffen, her older sister and wife of a wealthy and conniving businessman, seems more concerned with the proper attire for her trip to the reporter-ringed morgue than with her sister's fate, but readers should never underestimate an Atwood heroine's capaci...More

Book list Gr. 5^-8. What causes earthquakes and volcanoes? How dangerous can they be? The authors answer these and other questions in a book for eager, science-minded children. Readers will gain a better understanding of the peculiarities of the earth's surface through explanations and enjoyable, well-designed games and experiments that range from reproducing a tsunami in the bathtub to constructing a seismograph to building a cardboard volcano. Altho...More

Book list The sorcerer Alder makes his way to Ged's remote home on Gont. Alder seeks relief from nightly consuming dreams about being called to "the wall of stones," where hordes of souls cry out for help in ending their suffering. These dreams are but one harbinger of coming change. Another is the reappearance of dragons, once compatible with humans, to reclaim their former lands. Ged sends Alder to Havnor, where Tenar and Tehanu have...More