Primary For Children

The beloved American Girl History Mysteries features intrepid girls faced with intriguing situations. The author of this installment, Kathryn Reiss, has received the ALA Best Book for Young Adults Award. In Riddle of the Prairie Bride, it's 1878 and Ida Deming and her papa are looking forward to meeting his mail-order bride. But is this woman really who she claims to be?

Having fled the turmoil of Scotland, Elspeth Monro is learning to love her life in 1775 North Carolina. She likes her new friend and her weaving apprenticeship. But as Loyalists and Patriots strive to recruit her neighbors, a shadowy figure threatens her family.

Lily is having the most boring summer EVER. Her best friend has abandoned her for Young Executives Camp, and there is nothing to do but go on family outings with her parents. Then Lily meets the coolest girl, Karma, and her incredibly cool parents. And guess what? They're her relatives! This summer is looking up, and Lily thinks she just might be on the brink of cool.

When his mother decides on a whim to be a missionary in Africa and drags his unwilling father with her, Henry is left in the care of his Aunts Magnolia and Pigg. Henry's sure they dislike him and he's trying to keep his distance, but that becomes more difficult when Mag decides they should take a destination-less road trip.

I always thought that the biggest trial in my life was my name, Naomi Guadalupe Zamora Outlaw, but little did I know that it was the least of my problems, or that someday I would live up to it.

A boy searches for his archaeologist father, who has gone missing. With the help of some unusual family friends, Matt Stribling discovers that his father had been searching for an ancient code, one rumored to have brought down the Mayans, and maybe even the fabled civilization of Atlantis. Now in the hands of a madman using high-tech computers to decipher it, the code is being readied for new and sinister uses.

GRIMPOW HAD NO idea who the dead man was, but hidden in his leather bag was a treasure that would change his life forever. Ruby and emerald encrusted daggers, silver coins, jewels, and a letter with a golden seal depicting a snake swallowing its own tail. And clutched in the man's firm grip—a stone. A stone that will shape Grimpow's destiny. For when he holds it, strange things begin to happen. Visions of places he's never been fill his mind and he's able to read the strange language in the letter, a message meant for someone else entirely.

Merilee leads a Very Ordered Existence: V.O.E. for short. She does not have time for Biswick O'Connor. She does not have time for Miss Veraleen Holliday. He with his annoying factoids and runny nose; she with her shining white shoes as big as sailboats. Both of them strangers who, like the hot desert wind that brings only bad news, blow into town and change everything.

This is the story of Mary and her friends and a garden which had been locked away for 10 years.

One day the world around Owen shifts oddly: Time flows backwards, and the world and family he knew disappear. Time can only be set right when the Resisters vanquish their ancient enemies, the Harsh. Unless they are stopped, everything Owen knows will vanish as if it had never been.... And Owen discovers he has a terrifying role to play in this battle: He is the Navigator.

Ten-year-old Comfort Snowberger has attended 247 funerals. But that's not surprising, considering that her family runs the town funeral home. And even though Great-uncle Edisto keeled over with a heart attack and Great-great-aunt Florentine dropped dead, just like that, six months later, Comfort knows how to deal with loss, or so she thinks.

Twelve-year-old Joan is sure that she is going to hate her new home - but almost right away she finds a kindred spirit. “You’re lucky I didn’t just start throwing rocks at you. I can hide in the trees and nail a kid with a rock from 30 feet away”. That’s Sarah, who prefers to be called “Fox”, who lives with her writer father in a rundown house in the middle of the woods - near Joan’s suburb, but it feels like a totally different world. Joan and Sarah - Newt and Fox - spend all their spare time outside, and soon start writing stories together.

The days between Christmas and New Year's Eve are dead days, when spirits roam and magic shifts restlessly just beneath the surface of our lives. A magician called Valerian must save his own life within those few days or pay the price for the pact he made with evil so many years ago. But alchemy and sorcery are no match against the demonic power pursuing him.

Twelve-year-old cousins Phoebe, Hillary, Neeve, and Kate are spending the summer at their grandmother's beach house. They have heard stories about the Callahan-Bicket family rivalry. Now it's up to them to prove that the Callahans are the best family on the island! Fans of the American Girl books will love these spunky girls.

Twelve-year-old House Jackson, star pitcher and team captain of the Aurora County All-Stars, has been sidelined for a whole sorry year with a broken elbow. He's finally ready to play, but wouldn't you know that the team's only game of the year has been scheduled for the exact same time as the town's 200th-anniversary pageant. Now House must face the pageant's director, full-of-herself Frances Shotz (his nemesis and perpetrator of the elbow break), and get his team out of this mess.

There are two files on Sahara Jones. The one the school counselor keeps is evidence that she is a fifth grader who needs special education. The other is the book Sahara is secretly writing, her Heart-Wrenching Life Story and Amazing Adventures.

In An American Plague, Jim Murphy tells the story of the 1793 yellow fever epidemic. Bizarre medical practices of the time are discussed, as well as popular historical figures, such as George Washington and Benjamin Rush, who were involved in finding a cure for this horrific outbreak. Pat Bottino's captivating narration adds appeal to this interesting historical tale.

In this, the third and final Unlikely Exploit, the reader is taken on a journey through time in all directions, even revisiting some events from the previous Exploits and traveling back further still to a time before the McNally family's extraordinary adventures began. And as if that wasn't ridiculous enough, there's also a glimpse of the shape of things to come.

In this, the second Unlikely Exploit, Fergal McNally's brain, last seen in a pickling jar in the basement of the Sacred Heart Hospital, is stolen, and the remaining McNally children are mysteriously drawn to Fishbone Forest and the forgotten crumbling mansion which lies at its heart.

Specky comes face to face with a tough, talented player by the name of Derek "Screamer" Johnson. He was responsible for having Specky sent off during a game last season. The two boys become bitter rivals, and when a popular TV show runs a nationwide football contest, Specky is relieved when everyone except Screamer decides to enter.