Kids Library

Lottie lives in Vivelle, a vibrant city where life exists in brilliant technicolor and nearly everyone is born with magic, including Lottie. But when tragedy strikes, color is stripped from Lottie’s heart and from the world around her. Taken in by her reclusive uncle, Lottie moves into Forsaken, a vast manor located in the gray wasteland between the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead. There, Lottie discovers more secrets and mysteries than she ever dreamed possible. Even so, she is filled with nothing but despair.

Pablo is homesick. He's only 12 years old, but he's lived in more countries than he can count. After his parents divorced, he and his mother have moved from place to place for years, never settling anywhere long enough to call it home. And along the way, Pablo has collected more and more fears: of dirt, of germs, and most of all, of the ocean. Now they're living in the Philippines, and his mother, a zoologist who works at a local wildlife refuge, is too busy saving animals to notice that Pablo might need saving, too.

Most 12-year-olds would be excited to fly to Austria to see their dad for the summer, but Becca is not most 12-year-olds. Suffering from severe anxiety, she fears that the metal detectors at the airport will give her cancer and the long international flight will leave her with blood clots. Luckily, she's packed her Doomsday Journal, the one thing that always seems to help. By writing down her fears and what to do if the worst happens, Becca can get by without (many) panic attacks.

When Odilia and her four sisters find a dead body in the swimming hole, they embark on a hero's journey to return the dead man to his family in Mexico. But returning home to Texas turns into an odyssey that would rival Homer's original tale. With the supernatural aid of ghostly La Llorona via a magical earring, Odilia and her little sisters travel a road of tribulation to their long-lost grandmother's house.

The girls go on an overnight and share horror stories around the campfire. But it’s the one about Cropsy, the creepy old man who lives just outside the campgrounds and is known for torturing Lakeview campers, that hits closest to home. Especially when Chelsea leaves the group for a bathroom break in the woods and doesn’t return after 45 minutes. No sooner do her bunkmates go after her then do they realize they’ve completely lost their way and are now at the mercy of the evil Cropsy’s whims!

Ten-year-old Babo has grown up on an abandoned circus camp in a war-torn country. She sleeps in the old lion cage and takes care of the other parentless "leftover kids" telling them fantastical stories about the old circus days and finding ways to make them laugh. They need her. So Babo is not one single bit happy when an American couple wants to adopt her and change her name to Betti. How will her real parents ever find her all the way in America?

A lonely 12-year-old boy spends his days “stuck” at the deserted Hollow Pines Plantation in Georgetown, South Carolina, with no recollection of his name, how long he’s been there, and no idea how to leave. Things never change much for the lost souls at Hollow Pines and time is strange when you’re dead.

Lily Horne is a drama queen. It's helped her rise to stardom in the school play, but it's also landed her in trouble. Her parents warn her that Florida has to be different. It's a fresh start. No theatrics. But this time, the drama is coming for her. The Hornes' new house is awful. The pool is full of slime; the dock is rotten; and the swamp creeps closer every day. But worst of all, the house isn't empty...it's packed full of trash, memories, and, Lily begins to fear, the ghost of the girl who lived there before her. And whatever is waiting in the shadows wants to come out to play.

Tess has always understood her role in her family. She is supposed to be the "okay" one. The one no one has to worry about. But all Tess does is worry, constantly picking at her fingers every time a new worry arises. Still grieving her best friend's death, she is consumed by the fear that everything was her fault and her sadness that Colette is never coming back. When her mom decides a change of location might do her good, Tess finds herself on an airplane bound for her aunt's house in a small town in Wyoming and a summer vacation attending art camp.

Trouble knows two things: They are a shapeshifter, and they are running from something - but they don't know what. So when the StarLeague shows up, Trouble figures it's time to flee. Changing from blob of goo form, to adorable puppy form, to human boy form, Trouble stows away on the Hindsight, a ship crewed by the best navigators and engineers in the galaxy, led by the fearsome Captain Astra. When a young StarLeague cadet shows up to capture Trouble, things get complicated, especially when Trouble reveals a shape-shifter form that none of them could have expected.

It's the eve of the first full moon of summer and twelve-year-old Riley Callahan is ready to turn into a wolf. Nothing can ruin her mood: not her little brother Milo’s teasing, not Mama N’s smoth-ering, and not even Mama C’s absence from their pack’s ceremony. But then the unthink-able happens—something that violates every rule of wolf magic—Riley and four other kids don’t shift.

Eight hundred seventy-eight dollars. That’s how much Ronny needs to make by January 4 to keep his family’s only car from getting repossessed. Since a workplace injury disabled his dad and forced the family to move from their home into the apartment complex across the street, Ronny’s been learning all sorts of things—like what letters marked with "Final Notice" means and that banks can take cars away for being behind on payments.

Discover the extraordinary stories behind everyday things! Did you know that the ice cream sundae was invented because of a law forbidding the sale of ice cream on Sundays? Or that the first motorcycle was really just a tricycle with a motor? Would you believe that Mickey Mouse started out as a rabbit? Arranged in alphabetical order, this fascinating book is packed with the stories behind these and over 100 more inventions.

Growing up in a Blue Ridge mountain town, little Roberta didn't have fancy clothes or expensive toys...but she did have music. And she dreamed of having her own piano. When her daddy spies a beat-up old upright piano in a junkyard, he knows he can make his daughter's dream come true. He brings it home, cleans and tunes it, and paints it a grassy green. And soon the little girl has an instrument to practice on, and a new dream to reach for—one that will make her become a legend in the music industry.

Keena Ford doesn't mean to be a troublemaker, but sometimes things get out of hand. Lucky for her, it's the beginning of the second grade and Keena's got a clean slate. So when her new second-grade teacher, Ms. Campbell, mistakenly thinks it's her birthday and brings in a huge chocolate cake, Keena realizes that she's gotten herself into a sticky situation. She knows she has to tell the truth, but it's not easy to turn down her very own birthday cake and a chance to wear a sparkly crown. How will Keena get out of this mess?

In a series of fun stories, innovator, inventor, social entrepreneur, and upstanding digital citizen Trisha Prabhu goes through the hows, the whats, and the whys of digital citizenship, showing readers how to lead with kindness and stop internet hate. For people who are just getting their first phone to others who have been scrolling, swiping, clicking and posting for years, this book makes us all consider what our role is in the digital world and how, together, we can make it a force for good.

Lamar can’t wait to start his filmmaking career like his idol Spike Lee. And leave behind his small town of Morton, Louisiana. But for now, Lamar has to learn how to be a filmmaker while getting to know his grandfather. When Gramps talks about his activism and Black history, Lamar doesn’t think much about it. Times have changed since the old Civil Rights days! Right? He has a white friend named Jeff who wants to be a filmmaker, too, even though Jeff’s parents never let him go to Lamar’s Black neighborhood. But there’s been progress in town. Right?

Moving to a new town isn't easy, but it's harder now that Mo's family is dealing with some tougher stuff, like her stepdad leaving, and her mom trying to find a new job while struggling with depression. But Mo can't dwell on those things, because there's a ghost dog haunting her backyard—which is also rumored to be the burial site of an elephant who died in a circus fire.

Sky Patel-Baum, Area 51’s latest arrival, thought she had finally figured out her strange new home. Sure, there are aliens everywhere, and her new BFF Elvis is from the planet Galzoria. But it turns out things can still get weirder. Because some special visitors just arrived with a warning: Area 51 is in danger! A hunk of space junk is headed right for the base! And it’s not just any hunk of junk! It’s a giant toilet! Even worse? A traitor on base is working with angry aliens to coordinate the attack.

Hope Jahren is an award-winning scientist, a brilliant writer, a passionate teacher, and one of the seven billion people with whom we share this earth. In The Story of More, she illuminates the link between human habits and our imperiled planet. In concise, easy-to-understand chapters, she takes us through the science behind the key inventions—from electric power to large-scale farming to automobiles—that, even as they help us, release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere like never before.