National Network for Equitable Library Service

Chloe McBride has some reservations about accepting her elderly great-aunts' invitation to spend part of the summer with them in Little Venice, but her initial reluctance is outweighed by her curiosity about the mysterious key that came with her aunts' note. She's also anxious to put the humiliating memory of a disastrous piano recital as far behind her as possible. Chloe's great-aunts tell her the legend of her great-grandfather, Dante Magnus, an ambitious magician who vanished without a trace almost a century earlier, and Chloe begins to search for clues to his disappearance.

Set during the last year of the American Civil War, this grim portrayal of the brutality of war through the eyes of a young soldier, Jake Clay as he joins the Union Army in the spring of 1864, determined to make his parents proud. His dreams of glory vanish, however, when he is wounded and taken prisoner in his first battle at Cold Harbor, Virginia, and confined to the Confederate prison camp at Andersonville, where 30,000 soldiers face violence, disease and starvation.

Nick, Kia and their basketball-playing pals are back in this sequel to Eric Walters' very successful Three on Three. With the three-on-three tournament over, it's now time for tryouts for the school rep team. The question is will grade three students Nick and Kia have any chance to make the team? After all the rep team is normally made up only of grade five players. When Nick and Kia decide that they will try out for the team, they find they get a chilly and somewhat hostile reception from the older students. Even the coach seems to give them little hope of making the team.

When her mother died two years earlier, Izzy thought the world would change in some identifiable way, but it didn't. It didn't even slow down. Along with constantly watching her brother, Jason, to ensure he didn't repeat his involvement with drugs, Izzy has managed to get through school and the rest of her life using her mother's endless "rules" as guidance, even making up some of her own as she goes along. When her father starts dating again and then decides to get married, Izzy is unprepared.

Lucas has dinosaurs on the brain, but he's a little short on friends. When he gets a new book on how to make model dinosaurs, he's inspired to make one immediately. He's not so inspired by his new dinosaur-making kit: all the box contains is a test tube of clear liquid and a few instructions. But when he mixes the liquid into his papier-mâché goop, he gets much more than he bargained for, including the most unlikely friend.

Sixteen-year-old Spencer loves his job at the local racing stable, but when he becomes convinced that someone is drugging the racehorse Lord of the Flies, no one believes him. In an effort to find out who is behind a dangerous race-fixing scheme, he takes on some of the most unsavory members of the track community. By refusing to turn a blind eye, Spencer risks losing those he cares most about, including Em, the stableowner's niece.

Fiona's life changed forever when her mother died in a South Pacific sailing accident. One year later, everyone tells her it is time to move on. To Fiona, moving on means leaving her mother behind-something she has vowed never to do. But Fiona's father has started dating again. His new girlfriend, Kathy, is a professional psychic who claims she can predict the future and communicate with the dead. Fiona is sure she is a fraud, although she secretly longs for her abilities to be genuine.

Ethan lives in a foster home, struggling to put his life on the right track. Involved in a photography program for at-risk kids, he finds himself threatened again and again by someone who wants his camera. What does Ethan know? And what is on his camera that someone is willing to kill for? Struggling to stay out of trouble and solve the mystery, he discovers he has all the answers, he just has to figure out the questions.

Mother Anqelique runs a shelter for homeless mothers and their children in a run-down inner-city area, where drug addiction, prostitution and random acts of violence are facts of life. One day, newly orphaned Jamal and his sister Chantay arrive at the shelter, hungry and scared. As Angelique tries to find a new home for them, she develops a fascination with seven-year-old Jamal, who seems to inhabit a world of his own. Jamal tells her fantastic stories of a man named Jacky Wacky, who protects the poor children of the city and punishes the adults who harm them.

Lissa is the new kid in town. She is lonely and she blames her mother and her mother's new husband for her troubles. To make matters worse, she has to look after a boy who believes that his dead mother's spirit lives on in the red-tailed hawk that he secretly keeps captive. Ironically, the resulting adventure takes Lissa's mind off her own troubles and gets her a friend to boot!