New YA Books

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules - Jeff Kinney
Greg Heffley tells about his summer vacation and his attempts to steer clear of trouble when he returns to middle school and tries to keep his older brother Rodrick from telling everyone about Greg's most humiliating experience of the summer.

Bone - Rock Jaw: Master of the Eastern Border - Jeff Smith
Fone and Smiley Bone encounter complications in the form of Rock Jaw, an enormous mountain lion, and baby animals orphaned by rat creature attacks as they journey through the wilderness with a lost rat creature cub they are returning to the mountains. (Graphic format)

The Castle Corona - Sharon Creech
Two orphaned peasant children discover a mysterious pouch, the contents of which lead them to the majestic Castle Corona, where their lives may be transformed forever.

Interworld - Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves
At nearly fifteen years of age, Joey Harker learns that he is a Walker, able to travel between dimensions, and soon joins a team of different versions of himself, each from another dimension, to fight the evil forces striving to conquer all the worlds.

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood - Ibtisam Barakat
A memoir in which the author describes her childhood as a Palestinian refugee, discussing her family's experiences during and after the Six-Day War, and the freedom she felt at learning to read and write.

Grimpow: The Invisible Road - Rafael Abalos
Grimpow finds a stone on a dead knight and begins a quest that will change his life forever.

Undercover - Beth Kephart
High school sophomore Elisa is used to observing while going unnoticed except when classmates ask her to write love notes for them, but a teacher's recognition of her talent, a "client's" desire for her friendship, a love of ice skating, and her parent's marital problems draw her out of herself.

Runaround - Helen Hemphill
In Kentucky in the 1960s, partly as revenge against her older sister for publicly embarrassing her, eleven-year-old Sassy decides to make the handsomest boy in the neighborhood her boyfriend, but first she has to find out what makes a boy like a girl, and how to know when he does.

The Rogues - Jane Yolen
After his family is evicted from their Scottish farm, fifteen-year-old Roddy forms an unlikely friendship with a notorious rogue who helps him outwit a tyrant landlord in order to find a family treasure and make his way to America.

Whale Port - Mark Foster
Detailed illustrations and narratives describe the history of the fictional town of Tuckanucket and the importance that whales played in the development of towns along the eastern seaboard.