National Network for Equitable Library Service

In The White Horse Talisman, Chantel, Adam, Holly and Owen must help Equus, the great white horse, find his mate and foal and regain his magical talisman. But as the horse rises, so does the dragon. The age-old battle between good and evil threatens the bond between Chantel and Adam and endangers the quest. This is fantasy as its best, a story that raises hairs on the back of the neck and sends satisfying chills up and down the spine, a story that, while clearly drawn from the rich world of make believe, feels truer than true.

When softhearted handyman Cedric O'Toole agrees to help Barry Mitchell renovate his farmhouse, he finds himself facing old fears. Not only did Mitchell bully Cedric all through school, but his life has been troubled ever since. Now, just out of prison, he's broke and his parents have gone missing, leaving a cloud of suspicion hanging over his head. But when Barry warns him not to touch the boarded-up door in the cellar, the ever-curious Cedric can't resist. The small storage room, obviously unused in years, contains jars of preserves, barrels of dried apples and a pile of small bones.

When an osprey nest atop an electrical pole catches fire, the whole town of Waterton loses power. Being a park warden's daughter, Jenna (whom everyone calls Cricket) is there at the scene, where she finds three abandoned baby ospreys. Caring for the chicks proves to be challenging for Cricket. The birds are noisy, hungry and very picky eaters. But when she discovers that the power company is building a new anti-nesting device on the electrical pole, Cricket has an even bigger problem. How will she reunite the baby birds with their parents without a place for them to build a nest?

Gerri waits outside all night to audition for Big Time, her favorite TV singing competition. She believes she has a shot at success, but when she's insulted by one of the judges and kicked out of the competition, she thinks she'll probably never sing again. After a teacher at her school asks her to join a choral club, Gerri reluctantly gets involved. Even though she can't read music and she doesn't know the other kids, she finds herself enjoying the group and learning a lot about music.

Gulliver Dowd is finally on the verge of unraveling the mystery behind his sister’s murder when the man who is supposed to give him the scoop, NYPD Detective Sam Patrick, is gunned down on the Coney Island Boardwalk. As Dowd delves into Patrick’s accidental shooting, he uncovers a pattern of corruption and deceit involving organized crime and the police. But there are tough choices to be made. Just how much is Gulliver willing to sacrifice in order to find out why his sister was murdered and to unmask the killer? The answers aren’t found in the moon or the stars, but on the boardwalk.

When eleven-year-old Darren Dirkowitz’s evil stepbrother (code name: Waldo) gets hold of Darren’s tippity-top-secret spy journal, he threatens to expose it to the entire Preston Middle School student body. Unless, that is, Darren starts doing his dirty work for him. Now Darren’s got to use the oh-so-cloak-and-daggery skills he’s honed in his secret alternate life as Dirk Daring, Secret Agent to spy on kids at school. Naturally, he also sets up a separate, sneaky surveillance program to unearth Waldo’s own secrets.

TJ Barnes is back, playing with his crazy cats, T-Rex and Alaska, helping out in his parents' hardware store and goofing around with his best friend, Seymour. When Seymour announces that he has signed them both up for a football team, TJ fears the worst. Neither of them is huge or mean or able to tackle, catch, throw, run or kick a ball down a field, but Seymour is determined to be a star. With the help of a stack of library books, TJ starts to understand the game but it takes more than a few books to figure out what’s wrong with his best friend.

Will and Big O are brothers and best friends--and small-time crooks. Ever since their dad went to prison, they've been stealing to survive. On a ferry ride from the big city, they hatch a plan for one more score: they'll break into the cars on the ferry during the trip and scrape together enough to get out of town. And maybe out of the criminal life forever. But everything goes south when they discover one car that contains more than they bargained for: a young kidnap victim.

When Kevin disappears, leaving only a cryptic note, his best friends Luca and Esme have no choice but to try and find him. Their journey takes them to the coast of Panama, where they confront monster waves, unfriendly locals and a surfer who seems bent on destroying them. As their hope dwindles and time runs out, Luca and Esme realize they may be in over their heads.

TJ overcame his fear of cats in TJ and the Cats and his fear of ghosts in TJ and the Haunted House. Now, he's not so keen on facing his fear of failure. His best friend Seymour is determined to come up with the latest greatest invention and TJ's gran expects TJ to build a rocket. The kittens, T-Rex and Alaska, are eager to get involved. When the first rocket that TJ builds plummets out of the sky, no parachute in sight, TJ is sure that his efforts are doomed. But are they?