Young Readers Fiction

No Better Friend tells the incredible true story of Frank Williams, a radarman in Britain's Royal Air Force, and Judy, a purebred pointer, who met as prisoners of war during World War II. Judy, who became the war's only official canine POW, was a fiercely loyal dog who sensed danger - warning her fellow prisoners of imminent attacks and protecting them from brutal beatings. Frank and Judy's friendship, an unbreakable bond forged in the worst circumstances, is one of the great recently unearthed stories of World War II.

Books seven, eight and nine in the Skulduggery Pleasant series - known collectively as the Darquesse Trilogy, Derek Landy's fantastically imaginative series about our favourite dead detective.

In the small 14th-century English village where he has lived his entire life, the boy has grown up with no name of his own, known only as "Asta's son". But when his mother dies, the boy receives both his rightful name, Crispin, and a lead cross, inscribed with a secret that soon has him fleeing for his life.

Thirteen-year-old Shai is an expert problem-solver. There’s never been something they couldn’t research and figure out on their own. But there’s one thing Shai hasn’t been able to logic their way through: picking at the hair on their arms. Ever since their mom lost her job, the two had to move in with family friends, and the world went into pandemic lockdown, Shai’s been unable to control their picking. Now, as the difficult times recede and everyone begins to discover their “new normal,” Shai’s hoping the stress that caused their picking will end, too.

In the post-apocalyptic, neo-medieval city of Ark, speech is constrained to 500 sanctioned words. If somewhere were to speak outside that approved lexicon, they'd face banishment. The only exceptions to this rule are the Wordsmith and his apprentice, Letta. Together, they are the keepers and archivists of all language. But when Letta's master dies, she is suddenly promoted to Wordsmith and finds the situation more complicated than she knew.

Brooke is the perfect older sister. For that reason, Kari and Ashley work hard to make their parents just as proud of them as they are of Brooke. Each girl has her own talents. Brooke is an excellent student. Kari is a great soccer player. Ashley, a talented artist. And they are always there for each other. But when the news comes that Dr. Baxter is moving the family from Ann Arbor to Bloomington, Indiana, and the Baxters need to leave the only home and friends they’ve ever known, no one is happy.

Summer is over, and Dad begins his important position at an Indiana hospital. Like it or not, Bloomington is the Baxter Family’s new home. As school starts, everyone finds reasons to be excited about the move. Everyone, that is, except Ashley. Ashley desperately misses the home and friends she left behind. As she realizes her siblings have their struggles, too, she can’t help but wonder if unlikely friends can be the best friends of all? And could time and love from her family be enough to make a house feel like home?

Seven-year-old Chellamuthu’s life—and his destiny—is forever changed when he is kidnapped from his village in Southern India and sold to the Lincoln Home for Homeless Children. His family is desperate to find him, and Chellamuthu anxiously tells the Indian orphanage that he is not an orphan, he has a mother who loves him. But he is told not to worry, he will soon be adopted by a loving family in America.

For Jason, entering the seventh grade is like walking into a dangerous new world. Now that he’s in junior high school, he’s a small fish in a big pond stocked full of ninth-graders. It’s so scary that he won’t even go to the bathroom if there’s a ninth-grader in there - no matter how badly he has to go! But it isn’t all bad. He’s working on a model space station in shop class, and he’s beginning to notice things he never paid attention to before, like body hair - and girls. Especially one girl: The beautiful, hair-flicking cheerleader Debbie Breen.

When the world was crumbling, seventeen-year-old Clara fought back. She escaped her abusive home and joined Team Seven, a monster fighting squad of runaways and misfits formed to combat the scrabs terrorizing the planet. And after nearly dying in Paris, Clara and Team Seven discovered the sinister truth behind the scrab invasion. Scrabs aren't just mindless monsters set on destruction. They're being trained and weaponized by MDG, a private security firm hired by the government.

Nick Abbott and Trent Dawson have nothing in common but basketball. Or so it seems. But as the basketball season progresses, their lives become unexpectedly intertwined. In this story of an unlikely bond, award-winning author Carl Deuker explores that dark and confusing place between loneliness and friendship, between faithfulness and betrayal.

Chase Cooper here, and I'm back with my 11th diary as a sixth-grade ninja! Craziest. Week. Ever. It's the week of the supermoon, and the Astronomy Club is hosting an overnight on Thursday. Sounds like an awesome time, except for the fact that the red and green ninjas, a.k.a. the holiday ninjas, have secretly planned a finishing move for Wyatt that would destroy him forever. As if that weren't enough, some kid name Chris Moss, a.k.a. Christmas, makes me an offer that's hard to refuse.

Virginia, 1943: World War II is raging in Europe and on the Pacific front when Kit Sutherland is recruited to help the war effort as a codebreaker at Arlington Hall, a former girls’ college now serving as the site of a secret US Signal Intelligence facility. But Kit is soon involved in another kind of fight: government girls are being brutally murdered in Washington DC, and when Kit stumbles onto a bloody homicide scene, she is drawn into the hunt for the killer.

In 1835, a publishing firm asked McGuffey to create a series of graded Readers for primary level students. The series consisted of stories, poems, essays and speeches and it is estimated that at least 120 million copies of McGuffey's Readers were sold between 1836 and 1960.

"When our pets aren't with us anymore, an Invisible Leash connects our hearts to each other. Forever." That's what Zack's friend Emily tells him after his dog dies. Zack doesn't believe it. He only believes in what he can see. But on an enlightening journey through their neighborhood—and through his grief—he comes to feel the comforting tug of the Invisible Leash. And it feels like love. Bestselling author Patrice Karst's gentle story uses the same bonding technique from her classic book The Invisible String to help listeners through the experience of the loss of a beloved animal

Even and Odd are sisters who share magic. Lately, though, it seems like that’s the only thing they have in common. Odd doesn’t like magic, and Even practices it every chance she gets, dreaming of the day she’ll be ready to be a hero. When the hidden border between the mundane world the sisters live in and the magical land they were born in shuts abruptly, the girls are trapped, unable to return home. With the help of a unicorn named Jeremy, they discover a wizard is diverting magic from the border to bolster her own power.

Stacy Friedman is getting ready for one of the most important events of her young life—her bat mitzvah. All she wants is the perfect dress to wear, her friends by her side, and her biggest crush ever, Andy Goldfarb, to dance with her (and maybe even make out with her on the dance floor). But Stacy's well-laid plans quickly start to fall apart... Her stressed-out mother forces her to buy a hideous sequined dress that makes her look like the bride of Frankenstein. Her mitzvahs are not going well at all. And then the worst thing in the entire world happens.

All Ekata wants is to stay alive - and the chance to prove herself as a scholar. Once Ekata's brother is finally named heir to the dukedom of Kylma Above, there will be nothing to keep her at home with her murderous family. Not her books or her experiments, not her family's icy castle atop a frozen lake, not even the tantalizingly close Kylma Below, a mesmerizing underwater kingdom that provides her family with magic. But just as escape is within reach, her parents and 12 siblings fall under a strange sleeping sickness, and no one can find a cure.

Khadija Shami is a Syrian American high school senior raised on boxing and football. Saddled with a monstrous ego and a fierce mother to test it, she dreams of escaping her sheltered life to travel the world with her best friend. Leene Tahir is a Syrian refugee, doing her best to adjust to the wildly unfamiliar society of a suburban Detroit high school while battling panic attacks and family pressures. When their worlds collide the result is catastrophic. But as Khadija digs up Leene’s past, a startling and life-changing discovery forces the two of them closer together.

Resuming normal life isn't exactly an option for Myreen after finding out she's a freak chimera and the daughter of a villainous vampire leader. But she can't forget about that kiss she shared with dragon shifter Kol, even if he's still acting hot one minute and cold the next. Juliet's love life isn't looking so great, either, while Kenzie's may be too hot to handle. And Leif's feeling the heat of his subterfuge with the vampires, while Oberon is struggling to keep the school together.