New Picture Books

Tito Puente: Mambo King (A Bilingual Picture Book) - Monica Brown
A vibrant bilingual picture-book biography that portrays the musical and cultural phenomenon of Tito Puente, Mambo King. A Pura Belpre Illustrator Award Honor recipient for 2014.

Some Bugs - Angela DiTerlizzi
From butterflies and moths to crickets and cicadas, a rhyming exploration of backyard-bug behavior. This books would be a great introduction to a unit on insects for primary and lower elementary students...and the artwork is a delight!


How to Train a Train - Jason Carter Eaton
A whimsical guide to training a "pet train" instructs young enthusiasts about important issues including where trains live, what they like to eat, and how to get them to perform the best train tricks.

Jesus - Anselm Grün
This graceful retelling of the life of Jesus takes readers back over two thousand years ago to Nazareth, a young girl named Mary, and a miraculous virgin birth. The story continues through the years as Jesus grows up, learns among the great teachers of his day, calls his disciples, preaches, and performs miracles. The book concludes with Jesus last Passover meal, betrayal, crucifixion, and glorious resurrection.

The Tree Lady: The True Story of How One Tree-Loving Woman Changed a City Forever
- H. Joseph Hopkins
Learn about Katherine Olivia Sessions who brought trees to San Diego and created what eventually became Balboa Park.

Hi, Koo!: A Year of Seasons - Jon J. Muth
Jon J Muth--and his delightful little panda bear, Koo--challenge readers to stretch their minds and imaginations with twenty-six haikus about the four seasons.


Secret Pizza Party - Adam Rubin
While Raccoon is eating pizza at his secret pizza party, he sees a masquerade party going on in the house next door to him and joins the fun.

The Bad Birthday Idea - Madeline Valentine
Ben refuses to play with his sister, Alice, because he likes robots and she likes dolls but when her birthday wish is for a robot that Ben really wants, he opens it first, accidentally breaks it, then tries to cover up his deed.

Audiobooks

Doll Bones - Holly Black
Zach, Alice, and Poppy, friends from a Pennsylvania middle school who have long enjoyed acting out imaginary adventures with dolls and action figures, embark on a real-life quest to Ohio to bury a doll made from the ashes of a dead girl.

Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
Child hero Ender Wiggin must fight a desperate battle against a deadly alien race if mankind is to survive.

Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures - Kate DiCamillo
Rescuing a squirrel after an accident involving a vacuum cleaner, comic-reading cynic Flora Belle Buckman is astonished when the squirrel, Ulysses, demonstrates astonishing powers of strength and flight after being revived.


Gathering Blue - Lois Lowry
Lame and suddenly orphaned, Kira is mysteriously removed from her squalid village to live in the palatial Council Edifice, where she is expected to use her gifts as a weaver to do the bidding of the all-powerful Guardians.


Messenger - Lois Lowry
Knowing that the Village will soon be closed to all outsiders, Matty must make the trek through the dangerous Forest to find Seer's daughter and convince her to return with him before it is too late and he loses her forever.

Paperboy - Vince Vawter
An 11-year-old boy living in Memphis in 1959 throws the meanest fastball in town, but talking is a whole different ball game. He can barely say a word without stuttering, not even his own name. So when he takes over his best friend's paper route for the month of July, he knows he'll be forced to communicate with the different customers, including a housewife who drinks too much and a retired merchant marine who seems to know just about everything.

Audiobooks

The One and Only Ivan - Katherine Applegate
Ivan is an easygoing gorilla. Living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, he has grown accustomed to humans watching him through the glass walls of his domain. He rarely misses his life in the jungle. In fact, he hardly ever thinks about it at all. Then he meets Ruby, a baby elephant taken from her family, and she makes Ivan see their home-and his own art-through new eyes. When Ruby arrives, change comes with her, and it's up to Ivan to make it a change for the better.

Joshua Dread - Lee Bacon
Besides being bullied, Joshua faces one more obstacle in middle school, trying to hide his identity as the son of supervillains, the Dread Duo.


Allegiant - Veronica Roth
What if your whole world was a lie? What if a single revelation - like a single choice - changed everything? What if love and loyalty made you do things you never expected? The explosive conclusion to the Divergent trilogy reveals the secrets of the dystopian world that has captivated millions of readers in Divergent and Insurgent.

House of Hades - Rick Riordan
After Annabeth and Percy tumble into a pit leading straight to the Underworld, the other five demigods have to put aside their grief and follow Percy's instructions to find the mortal side of the Doors of Death. If they can fight their way through the Gaea's forces, and Percy and Annabeth can survive the House of Hades, then the Seven will be able to prevent the giants from raising Gaea. But how will Percy and Annabeth escape?

Bomb: The Race to Build and Steal the World's Most Dangerous Weapon - Steve Sheinkin
Recounts the scientific discoveries that enabled atom splitting, the military intelligence operations that occurred in rival countries, and the work of brilliant scientists hidden at Los Alamos.


The Raven Boys - Maggie Stiefvater
Though she is from a family of clairvoyants, Blue Sargent's only gift seems to be that she makes other people's talents stronger, and when she meets Gansey, one of the Raven Boys from the expensive Aglionby Academy, she discovers that he has talents of his own--and that together their talents are a dangerous mix.

Rose Under Fire - Elizabeth Wein
Rose Justice is a young pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary during the Second World War. On her way back from a semi-secret flight in the waning days of the war, Rose is captured by the Germans and ends up in Ravensbrück, the notorious Nazi women's concentration camp. There, she meets an unforgettable group of women, including a once glamorous and celebrated French detective novelist whose Jewish husband and three young sons have been killed; one resilient young girl who was a human guinea pig for Nazi doctors who were trying to learn how to treat German war wounds; and a Nachthexen, or Night Witch, a female fighter pilot and military ace for the Soviet air force. These damaged women must bond together to help each other survive.

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel -- a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.