National Network for Equitable Library Service

As the only Indian American kid in her small town, Lekha Divekar feels like she has two versions of herself: Home Lekha, who loves watching Bollywood movies and eating Indian food, and School Lekha, who pins her hair over her bindi birthmark and avoids confrontation at all costs, especially when someone teases her for being Indian.When a girl Lekha's age moves in across the street, Lekha is excited to hear that her name is Avantika and she's Desi, too! Finally, there will be someone else around who gets it. But as soon as Avantika speaks, Lekha realizes she has an accent.

Marcus is in trouble. He didn't think his friend Laurence would actually believe him when he said that his super brainy aunt built the very first time machine. He only made up the story in a spur-of-the-moment bid to win a silly argument! Now how on earth will he make the story come true? In a quirky new adventure starring the most unexpected of friends-a worm and a bird-Simone Lia pulls out all the theatrical stops to deliver a laugh-out-loud companion to They Didn't Teach THIS in Worm School!

Walter had spent all summer counting down the days until the first day of school. He couldn't wait to make new shark friends and finally swim into his classroom for the first time. But the first class picture of the year changes everything. Walter realizes there is one BIG difference between him and his shark classmates. After his discovery, Walter spends his day trying anything he can think of to blend in with the other sharks, only to learn that the things that make us feel like we don't fit in are the very things that make us stand out.

What's Mac B.'s newest top-secret mission? Travel to Iceland and retrieve the ravens that were stolen from the Tower of London...before Britain is ruined. In Iceland, he discovers secret submarines, hungry polar bears, mysterious blueprints... and his old archnemesis! Is the KGB man behind this birdnapping? Can Mac get the ravens to safety? It's time for an epic top-secret smackdown between these two secret agents! With fascinating historical facts masterfully sprinkled throughout, the third entry in the Mac B., Kid Spy series offers adventure, intrigue, absurdity, and humor.

Windy Bottom, Georgia, is usually a peaceful place. Coop helps his mom at her café and bookstore, hangs out with his grandpa, and bikes around with his friends Justice and Liberty. The town is full of all kinds of interesting people, but no one has ever caused a problem...until now. And somehow, Gramps is taking all the blame! It seems like there are a lot of secrets that were buried in their small town after all...Will Coop and his friends get to the bottom of the mystery and clear Gramps's name before it's too late?

Chopping blades, scorpion nests, giant spider webs - no one makes traps better than Wily Snare. He has never seen the sun or a blue sky or even his parents. Wily Snare lives underground, creating traps to keep treasure-seekers away from the gold in an ancient wizard's dungeon. He spends his days mopping up giant-slug slime, avoiding poison darts, and herding undead skeletons. It's all he knows. But then an unusual band of adventurers?an acrobatic elf, a warrior with a magic arm, and a giant made of moss - successfully defeat Wily's traps. And they want the ultimate treasure: Wily himself.

Safe and cozy where he is, a tiny seed wants to remain in the drawer where he lives happily with other seeds. But one day the gardener who lives in the mansion takes him from his drawer and plants him in the ground. Faced with his biggest fear, the seed undergoes a miraculous experience that changes his life forever. Beautifully written in simple but delightful verse, The Seed Who Was Afraid to Be Planted reminds us all that no matter how small or scared we may be, God has great plans for us-plans even more wonderful than we can imagine.

Mac must crack a secret code that has been recovered from a double agent. A series of clues leads Mac to France and then to Japan, where he comes face-to-face with his arch-nemesis, the KGB man...and the world headquarters of Nintendo! Is the KGB Man secretly behind all of this?

This beautiful tale follows a raindrop's journey on Earth, from the time of the dinosaurs to the creation of the earliest cities and beyond. It explains how Earth has depended on the same water supply throughout its existence by flowing and falling all around us, fueling and forming much of what we have seen and used for millions of years.

This collection of tales is for fans of ghost-story writer Mary Downing Hahn's scary but not too scary books. Even the stories without actual ghosts are spooky. Each tale turns something ordinary-a pigeon, a white dress, a stranger on the bus, a puppet-into a sinister link to the supernatural. For the human characters, secrets from the past or careless behavior in the present can lead to serious trouble. All the stories have a young person as their central character, so all will resonate easily with young listeners who enjoy the eerie, the creepy, and the otherworldly.