Teen Nature Fiction

Peter lives in a silent world. Thirteen, deaf, and tormented by neighborhood bullies, Peter seeks solace in summertime snorkeling outings with his eccentric Viking-horn-helmeted Uncle Sverrir. But after a dangerous encounter with a giant hammerhead predator, Peter discovers he has a unique gift: He can talk to sharks.

Buck, the dog hero of this novel, is sold into service in the Klondike. Abused by men and dogs alike, he becomes a ruthless fighter. A master that he deeply loves and respects saves him. But the actions of both humans and canines eventually force him to follow an instinct that he cannot resist.

Sheils is very pleased with her perfectly controlled life (controlling others while she's at it). She's smart, powerful, the student body chair, and she even has a loving boyfriend. What more could a girl ask for? But everything changes when the first-ever interspecies transfer student, a pterodactyl named Pyke, enrolls at her school. There's something about him - something primal - that causes the students to lose control whenever he's around.

Against the backdrop of the high-stakes and intensely competitive equestrian sport of show jumping, Finny, a fifteen-year-old girl in California, adopts an emaciated, untrained horse without her parents' knowledge. Soon after adopting Sky, Finny meets Joe, a sixteen-year-old, who has run away from his cruel uncle in Montana.

In one vast and sparkling city, everyone can fly. Almost everyone. A few, nicknamed leadfeet, are sentenced by a trick of nature or fate to forever spend their lives closer to the ground. But one night, a girl named Gurl - a leadfoot, an orphan, a nobody - discovers that she can do something much better than fly. She can become invisible. This amazing power will help her uncover the secret mysteries of the city. But even with her newfound talent, Gurl can't seem to hide from a giant rat man with a taste for cats.

Arnora, whose love and understanding of horses is known throughout the land, is saved from death by her great horse, Skyfaxi, and the witch Thorbjorg, feared by everyone. The witch gives Arnora a tiny bronze horse, a talisman to carry when she voyages to Vinland with Ragnar, the Viking youth who loves her. A thousand years later, in a forest in Maine, Kate, a lonely girl, finds a tiny bronze horse, hidden in a cairn of stones, and then...the magic happens.

Jack London's classic The Call of the Wild follows the adventures of the loyal dog Buck, who is stolen from his comfortable family home and forced into the harsh life of an Alaskan sled dog. Passed from master to master, Buck embarks on an extraordinary journey that ends with his becoming the legendary leader of a wolf pack.

To 10-year-old Keeper, this moon is her chance to fix all that has gone wrong...and so much has gone wrong. But she knows who can make things right again: Meggie Marie, her mermaid mother who swam away when Keeper was just three. A blue moon calls the mermaids to gather at the sandbar, and that's exactly where she is headed - in a small boat, in the middle of the night, with only her dog, BD (Best Dog), and a seagull named Captain.

Award-winning author Helen Frost takes us into the breathtaking Alaskan winter landscape in this thrilling adventure with a touch of fantasy. Twelve-year-old Willow - whose heritage is both Athabascan Indian and European - wants nothing more than to mush the sled dogs to her grandparents’ home. After pressing her parents for some time, she is finally allowed to go alone. But when she commits a critical mistake, Willow wonders how she’ll ever make things right again.

Author Kathleen Van Cleve delivers a promising debut with this magical novel. Eleven-year-old Polly Peabody lives on a farm like no other. It rains every Monday at 1:00 p.m., the crops taste like chocolate, the bugs can communicate, and Polly’s best friend is a rhubarb plant named Harry. But when the weekly downpours stop, and Polly’s brother grows ill, she must figure out how to make it rain again—or her family’s future could be destroyed.

Buck is living the good life in the soft South, when he is snatched and transported to the savagery of the Northland, where the Klondike gold rush has brought out rough basic instincts of survival in men - and dogs. He adjusts to the gruelling regime of a sled dog, which almost kills him, but he survives to find a new and fulfilling way of life. The Call of the Wild is not only a classic 'ripping yarn', but also an enduring masterpiece of the inescapable laws of nature.

What would you do if your best friend was:

Imaginary?

An oversize blue chimp in surfer shorts? (Potentially embarrassing, but hey, no one else can see him...right?)

Proposing a plan to help you improve your life?

Did we say imaginary?

Driving you crazy?!?!

Now you have an idea of what Willie Ryan's life is like when he meets Dodger. It's the beginning of a lot of trouble - and a friendship you'll never forget!

Cosmo has always wanted to be a witch-cat so he's delighted when he passes the test. Now he'll be able to help Sybil with her spells. But Cosmo is suspicious when he discovers that Sybil has a magic recipe for making statues in the shape of kittens.

Fourteen-year-old Finn is a loner, living with his dad and his amazing dog, Dylan. This summer Finn is hoping for a job where he doesn’t have to talk to anyone except his buddy, Matthew. Then he meets Johanna, who’s living next door. She’s a graduate student in her 20s, cool and funny, and she treats Finn as an equal. Dylan thinks she’s great too. Johanna’s dealing with breast cancer, and Matthew and Finn help take care of her - and come to care for her.

When the neighbors are forced to sell the farm, Chris is desperate to own the cows he has been milking. But Chris' Dad cannot cope with the idea! Then, one moonlit night, Chris sneaks out and follows the cow Petal on a wild rampage to...a mob of motherless cabbage patch babies. Will Chris get to keep his cows? Will he be able to look after this new crop of cabbage patch babies? Will their mothers ever come back?

Gently nudging his way into Kate's room, Cocoa declares that he no longer wants to live in the barn. The house is much nicer for a horse. So it's up to Kate to convince him that the barn isn't as bad as it may seem.

The stories Hannah Gale’s father told her of breaking wild horses in Nevada one glorious summer when he was her age have captured her imagination. After her dad is called to fight in Iraq, she regularly stops to watch the horses at the nearby stable to feel closer to him, and finally gathers the nerve to ask the owner for a job. There she helps bring a rescued mare back from the brink, takes her first riding lesson, and witnesses the birth of the filly who steals her heart.

It begins in the summer before Gracie will be starting high school, and she is very nervous about it. To make matters worse, her best friend Michie is off spending the summer with her father and Gracie is left all alone. However, her loneliness is short-lived when she meets Henry and they set out on an adventure that Gracie will never forget.

Grace Delaney and her fellow dance students are en route to perform on a South Pacific cruise ship when a freak storm hits and they find themselves stranded on a seemingly deserted island. With the tropical heat rising, passions and tensions swell to breaking point. And the island itself is quietly steaming with a terrible secret....

Suddenly, something big and white bumps up against the car, and I jump. I think I must be dreamin’, ’cause I just saw a horse run by. When Cole’s mom dumps him in the mean streets of Philly to live with the dad he’s never met, the last thing he expects to see is a horse - let alone a stable full of them. He may not know much about cowboys, but what he knows for sure is that cowboys ain’t black, and they don’t live in the ’hood. But here, horses are a way of life, and soon Cole’s days of skipping school and getting in trouble in Detroit have been replaced by shoveling muck and trying not to get stomped on.