But the nurse tears down the city and traps Lucy. Peter, The Deliverer, must perform seven valorous deeds, opposed by the Pretenderette, a mysterious veiled woman who wants to be Queen. Noah builds an ark and adventures abound.

    None of them guesses it at first, but that strange blue card will be their ticket to the past--and to a future that they never imagined. In stories that range from humorous to heartbreaking, Newbery-award-winner Jerry Spinelli reveals the amazing possibilities lurking behind library doors.

    But because they have supernatural powers, they are sure that they come from another world--and that their people still exist somewhere.Then Tony and Tia find that they must escape from men who want to use their special powers for evil. They begin a desperate search to find their true home--which leads them to the strange and mysterious Witch Mountain.

    Every day on her spy route she "observes" and notes down anything of interest to her:I BET THAT LADY WITH THE CROSS-EYE LOOKS IN THE MIRROR AND JUST FEELS TERRIBLE.PINKY WHITEHEAD WILL NEVER CHANGE. DOES HIS MOTHER HATE HIM? IF I HAD HIM I'D HATE HIM.IF MARION HAWTHORNE DOESN'T WATCH OUT SHE'S GOING TO GROW UP INTO A LADY HITLER.But when Harriet's notebook is found by her schoolmates, their anger and retaliation and Harriet's unexpected responses explode in a hilarious way.

    Even though her house is crammed full of books (her dad's a bibliophile), she's having trouble figuring out some very big questions, like why her dad seems to care about books more than her, why her best friend's divorced mom is obsessed with making cascarones (hollowed eggshells filled with colorful confetti), and, most of all, why her mom died last year. Like colors in cascarones, Lina's life is a rainbow of people, interests, and unexpected changes.In her first novel for young readers, Diana López creates a clever and honest story about a young Latina girl navigating growing pains in her South Texan city.

    The attempt succeeds until Mr. Cooper asks Katie too many questions.

    In this classic Curious George story, the curious little monkey starts his day off on the wrong paw and spends the rest of it trying to fix his mistakes! After a hilarious chain of events, all is forgiven after George helps out on a space mission. This picture book was written and illustrated by the original creators of Curious George, Margret and H.A. Rey.

    "That horse is fast as the wind. She's escaped from every roundup on the island!"But Paul and Maureen want the beautiful wild mare for their very own."I'm going to capture her myself," says Paul.When Paul finally overtakes the Phantom, he makes a surprising discovery. Running at her side is a brand-new, silvery-gray colt - Misty!

    No one bats an eyelid at her ankle-length black dress (decorated with a pattern of white skulls) or her long silk gloves (black, naturally)or her hair (very long, very straight and very black). And as for her shoes (the clumpiest, highest and--you've guessed it!--blackest platforms you've ever seen) ... well, amongst the rubble and weeds of Vinegar Street, Poppy fits in just fine.Vinegar Street is no ordinary street and Poppy Picklesticks is certainly no ordinary girl, but the two complement each other perfectly. So when Mandy Nylon--all blonde hair, perfect make-up, neon-white teeth, look-at-my-curves dresses and a backside that wiggles so hard you could attach cocktail shakers to it--moves into the street, Poppy's world is rocked. Everyone is charmed by the newcomer but Poppy and the tingling voice inside her head are pretty sure that there is more to this woman than meets the eye and a battle of wills that leaves the reader pretty breathless ensues.Philip Ridley certainly has a way with words and in Vinegar Street he lets rip with a barrage of snappy dialogue and crafty prose that runs like a river of poetry across the pages and into the imagination. Older readers will simply love the sharp and snappy humour, and the tight characterization that drives the unusual and intrepid plot as it races towards its conclusion.A dream of a book for readers like their fiction with a twist, Vinegar Street is a confident and unforgettable story that lets the imagination fly. Age 11 and over. --Susan Harrison

    But is her new friend a ghost?

    "And I'll find it right here. Like I do all my fossils." Wandering through the Natural History Museum with her grandchildren, Julia Creath feels the presence of her dead brother, Daniel, she remembers a time when fossil fever hit everyone, old and young -- a time when people would kill for those old bones under the ground. Julia becomes the Nebraska farm girl she once was, as she weaves together the story of the great dinosaur rush -- an adventurous tale of love and treachery, but most of all the story of her own childhood, and of the older brother she loved more than anything. Daniel had a dream that julia shared -- and the she alone would see come true.

    When they start bumping into strangers in the hills and the friendly Mrs Thurston begins acting oddly, they realize something mysterious is going on.

    When a new family--with three daughters--moves into the neighborhood, the Hatford brothers decide to make Caroline and her sisters so miserable that they'll want to go back to Ohio.

    But after he awakens one day to find a werefox sitting on his chest, Ethan learns he's ripe for a "fantastic destiny" in the Summerlands -- part of a connected, hidden world, where small American Indian-like ferishers play ball, and evil Coyote is thirsty to destroy the universe. Ethan agrees to the job, but when his father is kidnapped, his mission becomes more personal than he bargained for. With a team of ragtag players called Big Chief Cinquefoil's Traveling Shadowtails All-Star Baseball Club -- including the feisty pitcher Jennifer T., Thor Wignutt (a boy who's not quite a boy), a she-Sasquatch named Taffy, and the Anaheim Angels' Rodrigo Buendía -- Ethan treks through the Summerlands playing against incredible creatures and an impending time limit, hoping to reach his dad. Little does he know, however, that his abilities will be tested in the biggest baseball showdown of all time.Chabon successfully weaves an American-made fantasy, incorporating Native American lore, tall tales, and our nation's greatest pastime to make a modern-day tale of good versus evil.

    As the daughter of a newspaper reporter, fourteen-year-old Libby keeps a diary account of the exciting events surrounding her during the building of the Transcontinental Railroad in the West in 1868.