Waiting for the Queen 

by Joanna Higgins

call number: JF HIGGINS J.

A surprising friendship develops between Eugenie, an escapee from the French Revolution, and Hannah, a Quaker girl, when they unite in the cause against slavery in this adventuresome tale of true nobility set amidst the rugged, eighteenth-century, Pennsylvania wilderness.  Fifteen-year-old Eugenie de La Roque and her family barely escape the French Revolution with their lives. Along with several other noble families, they sail to America, where French Azilium, as the area came to be known, is being carved out of the rugged wilderness of Pennsylvania. Hannah Kimbrell is a young Quaker who has been chosen to help prepare French Azilum for the arrival of the aristocrats. In this wild place away from home and the memories they hold dear, Eugenie and Hannah find more in common than they first realize. With much to learn from each other, the girls unite to help free several slaves from their tyrannical French owner, a dangerous scheme that requires personal sacrifice in exchange for the slaves' freedom.A story of friendship against all odds, 'Waiting for the Queen' is a loving portrait of the values of a young America, and a reminder that true nobility is more than a royal title.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Series)
by Jeff Kinney

call number:  JF KINNEY J.

Boys don't keep diaries-or do they? It's a new school year, and Greg Heffley finds himself thrust into middle school, where undersized weaklings share the hallways with kids who are taller, meaner, and already shaving. The hazards of growing up before you're ready are uniquely revealed through words and drawings as Greg records them in his diary. In book one of this debut series, Greg is happy to have Rowley, his sidekick, along for the ride. But when Rowley's star starts to rise, Greg tries to use his best friend's new found popularity to his own advantage, kicking off a chain of events that will test their friendship in hilarious fashion. Author/illustrator Jeff Kinney recalls the growing pains of school life and introduces a new kind of hero who epitomizes the challenges of being a kid. As Greg says in his diary, "Just don't expect me to be all 'Dear Diary' this and 'Dear Diary' that." Luckily for us, what Greg Heffley says he won't do and what he actually does are two very different things. 

Books in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series:

1.  Diary of a Wimpy Kid
2.  Rodrick Rules
3.  The Last Straw
4.  Dog Days
5.  The Ugly Truth
6.  Cabin Fever
7.  The Third Wheel
8.  Hard Luck

-  The Wimpy Kid Do-It Yourself Book
-  The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary

Words in the Dust 
by Trent Reedy
 call number JF Reedy T.

 Zulaikha, a thirteen-year-old girl in Afghanistan, faces a series of frightening but exhilirating changes in her life as she defies her father and secretly meets with an old woman who teaches her to read, her older sister gets married, and American troops offer her surgery to fix her disfiguring cleft lip.

The Vampire's Curse (Secrets of Dripping Fang)
by Dan Greenburg

call number:  JF GREENBURG D.

The Shluffmuffin twins' long-lost father has reappeared! But, he looks an awful lot like . . . Well, a zombie. Profesor Spydelle has developed a special life-restoring elixir, which turns him into - a vampire! Things couldn't get much worse, until the Onts show up in the twins' bedroom window!

Other books in the Secrets of Dripping Fang Series

•  The Onts (#1)
• Treachery and Betrayal at Jolly Days (#2)
• The Vampire's Curse (#3)
• Fall of the House of Mandible (#4)
• The Shluffmuffin Boy is History (#5)
• Attack of the Giant Octopus (#6)
• Please Don't Eat the Children (#7)
• When Bad Snakes Attack Good Children (#8)

King of Shadows
by Susan Cooper

call number: JF COOPER S.

 Nat Field's short life has been shadowed by loss and horror. His one escape is his talent for acting, and he has been picked by a dazzling international director to perform at Shakespeare's Globe, London's amazing new copy of the theater for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays four hundred years ago. Brought from all over the U.S., the members of the American Company of Boys begin to rehearse at the Globe. But strange, eerie echoes of the past begin creeping in. Nat goes to bed mysteriously sick -- is it the dreadful bubonic plague of the sixteenth century? He wakes up healthy, but he's no longer in the present, he's in 1599, acting at the original Globe. And his costar is Shakespeare: no longer a vague historical figure, but a quirky, warm-hearted writer/actor whose friendship changes Nat forever. Nat has a new life, blazing with excitement, edged with danger, butwhy is he here?Is he trapped in Elizabethan London? Will he ever go home? Playing deftly with Time and Destiny as she did in her classic fantasy sequence The Dark Is Rising, Susan Cooper tells a vivid, fascinating and ultimately very moving story of the painful business of growing up, against a background of the timeless, glowing magic of the theater.

American Born Chinese

by Gene Luen Yang

call number: JF YANG G.

American Born Chinese tells the story of three apparently unrelated characters: Jin Wang, who moves to a new neighborhood with his family only to discover that he's the only Chinese-American student at his new school; the powerful Monkey King, subject of one of the oldest and greatest Chinese fables; and Chin-Kee, a personification of the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype, who is ruining his cousin Danny's life with his yearly visits. Their lives and stories come together with an unexpected twist in this action-packed modern fable. American Born Chinese is an amazing ride, all the way up to the astonishing climax.

Matilda

by Roald Dahl

call number:  JF DAHL R.

 Matilda is a super-smart little girl who's woefully misunderstood by her parents, her brother, and an evil school principal. But with the help of a brave best friend and a wonderful teacher, Matilda discovers she doesn't have to get mad to get even.