National Network for Equitable Library Service

The Dragon Masters have defeated the evil wizard Maldred, but not before the Kingdom of Bracken was devastated by Naga, the earthquake dragon; now Drake and his dragon, Worm, must appeal to the spring dragon, Fallyn, who is their only hope of restoring Bracken before its people starve -- but Fallyn lives deep inside a secret fairy world, and Drake must pass a series of tricky tests before he can even make his appeal.

When a deranged loner kills twenty-six people in a Pennsylvania schoolyard, the country is stunned and devastated. Among those catatonic with grief is Jo Matheson, an organic farmer who has lost her goddaughter in the shooting. Sam Jackson, an egotistical right-wing TV talking head, has sliding ratings and faces imminent cancellation. He arrives in Pennsylvania and during a rant, he blames the parents of the dead children. He intends the tirade to be his last salvo but, incredibly, his ratings climb, while Jo watches from her farmhouse in upstate New York, incensed.

The dark wizard Maldred has trapped Dragon Master Eko as well as wizards who have opposed him, all of them frozen in time and space inside a wall in his hideout; so Drake and Worm set out to seek the help of the Time Dragon -- but when an imp named Beezel interferes Drake ends up back in his own past, and he must find a way to get back to the present.

"The sudden death of Margot Morris and her two young daughters in a house fire sends shock-waves through a small rural community. The Morrises are a close-knit family, long associated with the mysterious arts of taxidermy and bee-keeping. Margot's three surviving siblings, Teddy, Agatha and Sylvia are left to wonder if Margot's death was an accident or murder, while the town is enveloped by speculation about this eccentric family whose close bonds are now being tested by tragedy."--

"A year after the early death of his wife, John Davies comes hesitantly out of retirement to take a job at The Wheaton, a senior's residence. Having resisted 'getting involved' for his entire life, John is immediately out of his comfort zone. The Wheaton is a boundary-free environment, and he is immersed in the kinds of sticky matters he usually does his best to avoid. Surrounded by mortality and the ghosts of regret haunting many of the residents, John begins to do the unthinkable: relate to his fellow creatures and reconsider his past.

"When aspiring stage-manager Rebecca Weir falls for the married director of SenseInSound theatre company, she initiates a love triangle and working collaboration which go on for two decades. Set in Toronto at the start of the 1980s, You'll Know Even Then explores the genesis of what its disciples call 'The Work'. The director, Marlin, has the status of a Guru in SenseInSound, but is he pushing people's limits or abusing his power? Is the 'The Work' a cutting-edge artistic practice, a road to personal healing, or a cult?"--

"Before Elizabeth Gaskell's famous North and South and Cranford, there was Mary Barton. Set in Manchester England in the mid-nineteenth century, Mary Barton was revolutionary in the way it tackled the relationship between poor mill workers and the wealthier manufacturers. This first book by Elizabeth Gaskell delves into the desperate lives of the working poor in Northern England, much in the way Dickens shone light on London's lowest classes. In Gaskell's eyes, prostitutes are selfless, murderers are penitent, and the poor are heroes."--

"The Siberian Odyssey of Hans Schroeder is the ironic and tragic story of a young German mesmerized by the Hitler Youth aura who finds himself on the Russian front where he is taken prisoner. Years later, he is released from his Siberian prisoner-of-war camp and eventually emigrates to Massachusetts, USA, and leads what appears to be an exemplary family life. And, then, he commits the gruesome crime of a double murder.

"Broadly adapted from George Orwell's classic "Animal Farm", this book narrates the transformation of fairly happy, functional farm, taken over by a bunch of farm animals led by some pigs, who succeed in driving away the 'human' masters who once ran the place.

"A cliff-hanger murder mystery around archaeological digs in Quebec."--