Teen Classics

Lost in a new world, Lyra finds Will—a boy on the run, a murderer—a worthy and welcome ally. For this is a world where soul-eating Specters stalk the streets and witches share the skies with troops of angels. Each is searching—Lyra for the meaning of Dark Matter, Will for his missing father—but what they find instead is a deadly secret, a knife of untold power. And neither Lyra nor Will suspects how tightly their lives, their loves, their destinies are bound together...until they are split apart.

Johnny had been Mr. Lapham's star pupil, a clever, industrious apprentice silversmith. But when Johnny seriously burns his hand in a furnace, he finds himself crippled and with no means of taking care of himself. Soon, trouble reaches Johnny's life in a new way. Swept along in the tide of events leading to the Boston Tea Party and the first skirmishes of Lexington and Concord, Johnny finds a job as message-carrier for the Sons of Liberty. As young and old men alike make sacrifices for a new country, Johnny prepares to take his own stand in the cause for freedom.

Brenden Vetch has a gift. With an innate sense he cannot explain to himself or describe to others, he is able to connect to the agricultural world, nurturing gardens to flourish and instinctively knowing the healing properties each plant and herb has to offer. But Brenden's gift isolates him from people and from becoming part of a community - until the day he receives a personal invitation from the Wizard Od.

December is the time of the annual Ceremony at which each twelve-year-old receives a life assignment determined by the Elders. Jonas watches his friend Fiona named Caretaker of the Old and his cheerful pal Asher labeled the Assistant Director of Recreation. But Jonas has been chosen for something special. When his selection leads him to an unnamed man, the man called only the Giver, he begins to sense the dark secrets that underlie the fragile perfection of his world.

Meg Murry, her little brother Charles Wallace, and their mother are having a midnight snack on a dark and stormy night when an unearthly stranger appears at their door. He claims to have been blown off course and goes on to tell them that there is such a thing as a "tesseract", which, if you didn't know, is a wrinkle in time. Meg's father had been experimenting with time travel when he suddenly disappeared. Will Meg, Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin outwit the forces of evil as they search through space for their father?

Sam Gribley is terribly unhappy living in New York City with his family, so he runs away to the Catskill Mountains to live in the woods - all by himself. With only a penknife, a ball of cord, 40 dollars, and some flint and steel, he intends to survive on his own. Sam learns about courage, danger, and independence during his year in the wilderness, a year that changes his life forever.

A moving coming-of-age story set in the 1900s, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn follows the lives of 11-year-old Francie Nolan, her younger brother Neely, and their parents, Irish immigrants who have settled in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Johnny Nolan is as loving and fanciful as they come, but he is also often drunk and out of work, unable to find his place in the land of opportunity.

The distinguished American civil rights leader, W. E. B. DuBois first published these fiery essays, sketches, and poems individually in 1920 in the Atlantic, the Journal of Race Development, and other periodicals. Reflecting the author's ideas as a politician, historian, and artist, this volume has long moved and inspired readers with its militant cry for social, political, and economic reform. It is essential reading for all students of African American history.

This charming little tale, with a gigantic heart, was written by E.B. White, best-known for the perennial favorite Charlotte's Web.

In Edgar Allan Poe's eerie title story, an old man's diseased eye drives the narrator to murder. But while the murderer can rid himself of the eye, he can't silence the old man's heart.

Lyra and Will, the two ordinary children whose extraordinary adventures begin in The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife, are in unspeakable danger. With help from Iorek Byrnison the armored bear and two tiny Gallivespian spies, they must journey to a dank and gray-lit world where no living soul has ever gone.

Award-winning storyteller Barbara McBride-Smith breathes life (albeit a wizened Texan version) into the old Greek myths. With her incurable Texas drawl, she spins the Greek myths as you've never heard them before, rendering them 99% more fun while retaining 100% of their original insights into the crooked ways of the human heart and the no less crooked ways of the ancient Greek gods.

Tommy and his sister Annika have a new neighbor, and her name is Pippi Longstocking. She has crazy red pigtails, no parents to tell her what to do, a horse that lives on the porch and a pet monkey named Mr. Nilsson. Whether Pippi's scrubbing her floors, doing arithmetic or stirring things up at a fancy tea party, her flair for the outrageous always seems to lead to another adventure.

In the narrator’s dream, Christian follows the advice of Evangelist and leaves the City of Destruction for the Celestial City. His travels include visits to many fascinating places, including the Hill of Difficulty, the Palace Beautiful, the Valley of Humiliation, Vanity Fair, and Doubting Castle. Along the way, he meets Worldly Wiseman, Goodwill, Hypocrite, Apollyon, Faithful, Mr. Talksalot, Hopeful, Simpleton, and a host of other colorful characters.

Marooned on a tropical island, alone in a world of uncharted possibilities, and devoid of adult supervision or rules, a group of British boys begins to forge a society with its own unique rules and rituals.

Lester's demigod friends at Camp Jupiter just helped him survive attacks from bloodthirsty ghouls, an evil Roman king and his army of the undead, and the lethal emperors Caligula and Commodus. Now the former god and his demigod master Meg must follow a prophecy uncovered by Ella the harpy. Lester's final challenge will be at the Tower of Nero, back in New York.

The time of hiding has passed. The Mist Village will make itself known. Goblins have invaded Richter’s lands. Though the first incursion has been defeated, the anger of Chaos Seed remains. Those who challenge Richter’s power will learn there is a reason all creatures fear the mist.... It is the home of monsters. For the first time, Richter takes the battle to his enemies. He will live up to his name, and the very Land will shake with this power.

Three years after the close of Little Women, the March girls and their friend Laurie are young adults with only their futures to find. Along the way, they all face painful trials, from Meg's difficult lessons in housekeeping to Laurie's heartbreak in a love tragedy. Each of the girls finds happiness, but not always in the ways they expect.

Jess Aarons has been practicing all summer so he can be the fastest runner in the fifth grade. And he almost is, until the new girl in school, Leslie Burke, outpaces him. The two become fast friends and spend most days in the woods behind Leslie's house, where they invent an enchanted land called Terabithia. One morning, Leslie goes to Terabithia without Jess and a tragedy occurs.

At sixteen, Anne is grown up...almost. Her gray eyes shine like evening stars, but her red hair is still as peppery as her temper. In the years since she arrived at Green Gables as a freckle-faced orphan, she has earned the love of the people of Avonlea and a reputation for getting into scrapes. But when Anne begins her job as the new schoolteacher, the real test of her character begins.