National Network for Equitable Library Service

Fourteen-year-old Preston Craft is organizing a film festival for his school's film club. When one of the films goes missing two days before the festival begins, Preston is convinced it was stolen and is determined to get it back. The only indication of the theft is a suspicious shadow that Preston noticed right before he discovered the film was gone—but Preston is legally blind and no one quite believes him. However, not unlike the gritty private eyes in the classic black-and-white films he adores, Preston refuses to give up. Can he solve the mystery based on such a shady clue?

Beauty is afraid to sleep, her dreams are haunted by the Shadow Lady who stalks and threatens her. During her waking hours, Beauty's life is safe, safer than she wants it to be. Since her mother's death, her father has become so over-protective that he has locked away all the knives in the house. Her mother's death, the accident, is never discussed. Beauty has lost her desire to be an artist. At school Beauty tries to be invisible to avoid the questions and innuendo that have arisen since her mother's death. But when a new student arrives, things begin to change.

Jessica loves her yearly backpacking trip with her father, but this year everything has changed. This year Jessica has to share her vacation with her new stepmother and her spoiled new stepsister, Amy. Jessica tries to salvage her holiday by sneaking off for a day hike alone, but Amy follows. Jessica is certain that Amy will ruin the day. Amy rises to the challenge of the rigourous hike and Jessica learns that Amy is not as spoiled as she thought. When Amy is injured and night falls, Jessica must face the challenge of hiking through bear country in the dark.

As the new girl in a strange town, Casey is trying desperately to fit in and make friends. When her parents leave town for the weekend, her friend suggests she have a house party. Casey is reluctant to go along, until she realizes maybe this is the answer to fitting in and making friends -- and getting back at her parents. They invite a few people and then a few more, using msn and text messaging. Hundreds of people show up and things get out of hand. Casey is in more trouble than she thought possible and now she must decide whether -- and how -- to do the right thing.

George stood up in the saddle and waved his hand in the air. He went up and down, up and down. The lights of the night sky glittered in his eyes. He would get himself a hat. He would get himself a pair of silver spurs to match his silver saddle. He would blaze a new trail clear across the country! George is back, more popular than ever. And Katie and Mackenzie are just one step behind him. But George will have an adventure or two of his own before the three will come together again.

Alex wants to enter the Silver Stage magic competition, but he needs a sponsor. Jack, a veteran card wizard, is willing to take on the role, but only if Alex agrees to team up with Zoe, another young magician and Alex’s rival. Working with Jack and sharing the spotlight with Zoe, Alex comes to see that there are other ways to be a magician besides competing, and that magic is about entertaining people, not fooling them.

Emery’s neighbor, Richard, is the kind of kid who gets under your skin. When Richard suggests a game of Nicky Nicky Nine Doors, Emery can’t come up with a good excuse not to play. Using chocolate bars as “stunt poo,” the boys play the classic prank of the burning bag on the doorstep, but this game has a modern twist. They videotape their neighbor’s reactions. At first the stunts are pure comedy, but the game gets serious and their harmless stunts are causing major harm, to Emery and his friends most of all.

At age twenty, Leena O'Neil walked away from her old life. Anything to avoid becoming a lawyer like her mother and older sister, Georgia. Three years later, Georgia contacts her, convinced that her husband is trying to kill her rather than divorce her. Reluctantly, Leena agrees to help. But the stakes go up when Georgia's husband, Mark, is murdered. Now she wonders if the person who killed Mark is out to get Georgia as well.

Several years earlier Nellie and her mother fled the Interior and its hated security police for the Outbacks, a loose-knit resistance of small cities, towns and rural areas. Since then her mother has disappeared and twelve-year-old Nellie is on her own, scrounging a living where she can find it. When loneliness opens her mind to flux, the ability to alter her vibratory state in the molecular field, she learns to travel to other levels of reality.

Dex Pratt’s life has been turned upside down. His parents have divorced and his mother has remarried. When his father attempts suicide and fails, Dex returns to their small town to care for him. But he’s not prepared for how much everything has changed. Gone are the nice house, new cars, fancy bikes and other toys. Now he and his wheelchair-bound dad live in a rotting rented house at the back of a cornfield. And, worse, his father has given up defending marijuana growers in his law practice and has become one himself. Unable to cope, Dex begins smoking himself into a state of surrealism.