New Children's Books

Kindred Souls - Patricia MacLachlan
Ten year-old Jake shares a special bond with his grandfather, Billy, but when Billy asks Jake to build him a sod house, Jake is not sure he wants to do it.

Another Brother - Matthew Cordell
Davy the sheep wishes he had time alone with his parents, as he did before his twelve brothers came along and started imitating his every move, but when his wish comes true Davy misses playing with the youngsters.

Fortune Cookies - Albert Bitterman
Illustrations feature tabs that can be pulled to reveal fortunes inside fortune cookies. Seven fortune cookies foretell a child's fortunes for each day of the week.

New Activity and Idea Book

Teaching Physics with Toys: Hands-On Investigations for Grades 3-9
Bonus CD-ROM includes: student pages (rtf and PDF format), templates, K'NEX parts inventories, K'NEX assembly diagrams, experiment planning guide handout, scientific inquiry process handout, well-designed graph handout, applicable National Science Education Standards, and cross-curricula writing masters.

New DVDs

A Time for Justice: America's Civil Rights Movement
This kit gathers teaching materials depicting the battle for civil rights, recalling the crises in Montgomery, Little Rock, Birmingham, and Selma, and revealing the heroism of the individuals involved.

Mighty Times: The Children's March
In May of 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. asked black people of Birmingham, Alabama to go to jail in the cause of racial equality. The adults were afraid to go to jail and so the school children marched and over 5000 of them were arrested. This led President Kennedy to sponsor the 1964 Civil Rights Act which eventually led to the march on Washington. Contains vintage film footage, re-stagings of some activities and interviews with some of the protesters.

Starting Small
Designed for in-service programs, this training tool for early grades educators profiles classrooms in which peace, equity and justice are guiding themes. The kit includes a 58-minute film in DVD format with closed-captioning; and 250-page text with classroom profiles, commentary, activities and a resource guide.

Viva la Causa

Using historical footage and dramatic reenactments, this film focuses on one of the seminal events in the march for human rights -- the grape strike and boycott led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta in the 1960s. Thousands of people from across the nation joined in a struggle for justice for the some of the most exploited people in the United States.

New Children's Books

Garmann's Secret - Stian Hole
Garmann makes friends with Johanna, the twin sister of the girl who torments him at school, when they discover that they both love adventures and talking about outer space.

Peter Is Just a Baby - Marisabina Russo
A big sister relates some of her accomplishments, which her baby brother is far from able to do.

Jonah's Whale - Eileen Spinelli
A contented whale one day sees a ship tossed on the waves by a storm and obeys God's command to save a drowning man by swallowing him.

I Lay My Stitches Down - Cynthia Grady
A volume of evocative and moving poems considers the experiences of slaves in a variety of circumstances including a house slave, a mother who loses her daughter on the auction block, and a slave fleeing through the Underground Railroad.

John Jensen Feels Different - Henrik Hovland
John Jensen, a crocodile, cannot quite understand why he feels so different from everyone else, but a kindly doctor reassures him that no one is exactly the same as anyone else.

New YA Book

The Disenchantments - Nina LaCour
Colby's post-high school plans have long been that he and his best friend Beth would tour with her band, then spend a year in Europe, but when she announces that she will start college just after the tour, Colby struggles to understand why she changed her mind and what losing her means for his future.

New Children's and Young Adult Books

The Boy on Cinnamon Street - Phoebe Stone
Since a tragedy she cannot remember, thirteen-year-old Louise has changed her name, given up gymnastics, moved in with her grandparents, and locked her feelings inside but through her friends Reni and Hen and notes from a secret admirer she begins to find herself again.

Bad Kitty for President - Nick Bruel
Kitty decides to run for President of the Neighborhood Cat Association.


Charles Dickens and the Street Children of London - Andrea Warren
A biography of Charles Dickens, discussing how his father's debts forced him to go to work in a shoe polish factory, and looking at how his observations of the poor led him to write novels with an eye toward bringing attention to the plight of London's destitute children.

New Professional Book

STEM Student Research Handbook - Darci J. Harland
Provides a comprehensive resource for high school teachers and students for the design and implementation of a research project or experiment, and includes generating research ideas, safety and ethical issues, background research, writing hypotheses, proposal writing, descriptive statistics, and more.

New Children's Books

The Day Tiger Rose Said Goodbye - Jane Yolen
A cat whose kitten days are far behind her says goodbye to her human family, and the animals and places that have made her life special, before leaving this life behind.

Question Boy Meets Little Miss Know-It-All - Peter Catalanotto
A curious boy with non-stop questions meets a girl who seems to know all the answers.



Words Set Me Free - Lesa Cline-Ransome
A biography of the early life of Frederick Douglass, one of the first leaders of the antislavery movement, discussing his childhood on as a slave child on a plantation, then at eight he was sold to Hugh and Sophia Auld in Baltimore, and explains that learning to read was the key to his freedom.

Looking at Lincoln - Maira Kalman
Wanting to know about the real man behind the sixteenth president's legendary character, a little girl learns about Lincoln's beliefs regarding universal freedom as well as lesser-known aspects of his life, from his love of Mozart and his wife's vanilla cake to his pet dog and the way he kept notes in his stovepipe hat.

Freedom's a-Callin Me - Ntozake Shange
A collection of poems brings to life the treacherous journey of the travelers on the Underground Railroad, in a universal story about the human need to be free.

Jazz Age Josephine - Jonah Winter
This tribute to the life of iconic jazz entertainer Josephine Baker depicts her disadvantaged youth in a segregated America, her unique performance talents, and the irrepressible sense of style that helped her overcome racial barriers.

North: The Amazing Story of Arctic Migration - Nick Dowson
Presents a tribute to the migrations of millions of creatures to the Arctic, including depictions of the cyclical journeys of gray whales, caribou and more.

The Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers - Lisa Campbell Ernst
The Gingerbread Girl, who once escaped the fox that devoured her brother, must now try to save from a similar fate the animal crackers she received as a birthday gift.

We March - Shane W. Evans
Illustrations and brief text portray the events of the 1963 march in Washington, D.C., where the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a historic speech.

Hans My Hedgehog: A Tale from the Brothers Grimm - Kate Coombs
Riding a rooster and playing magical music on his fiddle, a young man, who is half hedgehog, half human, wins the hand of a beautiful princess.


A Boy Called Dickens - Deborah Hopkinson
Narrates the tale of twelve-year-old Charles Dickens who, despite poverty and long hours of factory work, still has time to discover and share the stories of other residents of 1824 London. Includes author's note about Dickens' life and some of the books he wrote.

Otis and the Tornado - Loren Long
When a tornado threatens his farm, Otis the tractor must try to save the animals, including the unfriendly bull.

New Children's Bibles

The Story for Children
Presents forty-eight brief Bible stories from the Old and New Testaments, from the Creation to the second coming of Jesus, along with an explanation of each one's meaning.

The Story for Kids
Retells important Bible stories from the creation of the world through Revelation.

New Young Adult Books

Ashfall - Mike Mullin
After the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano destroys his city and its surroundings, fifteen-year-old Alex must journey from Cedar Falls, Iowa, to Illinois to find his parents and sister, trying to survive in a transformed landscape and a new society in which all the old rules of living have vanished.

Crow - Barbara Wright
In 1898, Moses Thomas's summer vacation does not go exactly as planned as he contends with family problems and the ever-changing alliances among his friends at the same time as he is exposed to the escalating tension between the African-American and white communities of Wilmington, North Carolina.

In Darkness - Nick Lake
In the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, fifteen-year-old Shorty, a poor gang member from the slums of Site Soleil, is trapped in the rubble of a ruined hospital, and as he grows weaker he has visions and memories of his life of violence, his lost twin sister, and of Toussaint L'Ouverture, who liberated Haiti from French rule in the 1804.

Hades: Lord of the Dead - George O'Connor
A fictionalized account, in graphic novel format, of the Greek myth of Hades, God of the Underworld, and his abduction of the goddess Demeter's daughter, Persephone, to make her his wife, and the chaos that ensued.

Miles to Go For Freedom - Linda Barrett Osborne
Describes the lives of African Americans during the Jim Crow years, a period of legal segregation and discrimination from the 1890s through the 1950s, including photographs and interviews with African Americans who were young during this time and other primary resources.

New Young Adult Books

The Mighty Miss Malone - Christopher Paul Curtis
With love and determination befitting the "world's greatest family," twelve-year-old Deza Malone, her older brother Jimmie, and their parents endure tough times in Gary, Indiana, and later Flint, Michigan during the Great Depression.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight - Jennifer E. Smith
Hadley and Oliver fall in love on the flight from New York to London, but after a cinematic kiss they lose track of each other at the airport until fate brings them back together on a very momentous day.

Beneath a Meth Moon - Jacqueline Woodson
A young girl uses crystal meth to escape the pain of losing her mother and grandmother in Hurricane Katrina, and then struggles to get over her addiction.

The One and Only Ivan - Katherine Applegate
When Ivan, a gorilla who has lived for years in a down-and-out circus-themed mall, meets Ruby, a baby elephant that has been added to the mall, he decides that he must find her a better life.

Pink Smog: Becoming Weetzie Bat - Francesca Lia Block
When Weetzie Bat is a thirteen-year-old junior high school outcast mourning the life her family lost when their cottage in the Los Angeles hills burned down, her father leaves her alcoholic mother without telling either of them where he is going and Weetzie learns how to stand up for herself and to find beauty in even the most difficult situations.

Sita's Ramayana - Samhita Arni
This version of the The Ramayana is told from the perspective of Sita, the queen. It is an allegorical story that contains important Hindu teachings, and it has had great influence on Indian life and culture over the centuries.

New Children's and YA Books

Moon Pie - Simon Mason
Eleven-year-old Martha tries to keep her family together after her mother's death as her father struggles with alcoholism.

His Name Was Raoul Wallenberg - Louise Borden
An amazing and inspirational World War II story about how one man saved the lives of many.



Taste of Salt - Frances Temple
Three fictional characters, one a former member of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's election team, tell their own stories of violence, poverty, oppression, and hope for change in contemporary Haiti. Phoenix Award Honor

Letters from Rivka - Karen Hesse
In letters to her cousin, a young Jewish girl chronicles her family's flight from Russia in 1919 and her own experiences when she must be left in Belgium for a while when the others emigrate to America. Phoenix Award

The Fault in Our Stars - John Green
Sixteen-year-old Hazel, a stage IV thyroid cancer patient, has accepted her terminal diagnosis until a chance meeting with a boy at cancer support group forces her to reexamine her perspective on love, loss, and life.

Try Not to Breathe - Jennifer R. Hubbard
The summer Ryan is released from a mental hospital following his suicide attempt, he meets Nicki, who gets him to share his darkest secrets while hiding secrets of her own.

Cinder - Marissa Meyer
As plague ravages the overcrowded Earth, observed by a ruthless lunar people, Cinder, a gifted mechanic and cyborg, becomes involved with handsome Prince Kai and must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect the world in this futuristic take on the Cinderella story.

Mr. and Mrs. Bunny - Detectives Extraordinaire! - Polly Horvath
Middle-schooler Madeline's hippy parents have been kidnapped from Hornby Island, Canada, by foxes and Madeline, upon discovering that she can understand animal languages, hires two rabbit detectives to find them.