Desert Angel by Charlie Price

"The fight started after midnight, Scotty drunk, Angel's mother shrill on crystal."

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Fourteen-year-old Angel wakes up one morning at her desert trailer home to discover her mother has been murdered by a lowlife named Scotty, who has vanished. Angel has no water, no weapon, but she knows that Scotty, an expert tracker and hunter, will surface soon in order to eliminate her as a witness. She has to run, to disappear, if she is to survive and tell the world what happened. Her flight takes her through a harsh landscape to places she never expected to be, forcing her to trust others for the first time and strengthening her in ways she doesn't even anticipate . . . until it's time to take a stand.

Farrar Straus Giroux; 236 pages

Spunky Tells All by Ann Cameron

"I could tell you everything about the Bates faimly--things you'll never hear from anybody else."

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Called a troublemaker by his human family, a reflective dog defends himself and then relates the family's adoption of an aristocratic but incompetent cat, who gives him a life purpose and and new way of looking at his world.

Farrar Straus Giroux; 105 pages

A Month of Sundays by Ruth White

"Before I was born fourteen years ago, my dad, August Rose, left my mom, Betty Rose, for a carnival singer."

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In the summer of 1956 while her mother is in Florida searching for a job, fourteen-year-old April Garnet Rose, who has never met her father, stays with her terminally ill aunt in Virginia and accompanies her as she visits different churches, looking for God.

Farrar Straus Giroux; 168 pages

With a Name Like Love by Tess Hilmo

"It was the eighth of July, 1957, when Ollie's daddy slowed their rusted-out Chevy pickup near the junction of Highway 29 and Carter Road."

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Thirteen-year-old Olivene Love gets tangled up in a murder mystery when her itinerant preaching family arrives in the small town of Binder, Arkansas in 1957.

Farrar Straus Giroux; 249 pages

Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos

"School was finally out and I was standing on a picnic table in our backyard getting ready for a great summer vacation when my mother walked up to me and ruined it."

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In the historic town of Norvelt, Pennsylvania, twelve-year-old Jack Gantos spends the summer of 1962 grounded for various offenses until he is assigned to help an elderly neighbor with a most unusual chore involving the newly dead, molten wax, twisted promises, Girl Scout cookies, underage driving, lessons from history, typewriting, and countless bloody noses.

Farrar Straus Giroux; 341 pages

If I Could Fly by Judith Ortiz Cofer

"When I come out of my room ready to go to church, I find Papi in the kitchen drinking yesterday's coffee."

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Summary:  When fifteen-year-old Doris's mother, a professional singer, returns to Puerto Rico and her father finds a girlfriend, Doris cares for a neighbor's pigeons and relies on friends as she begins to find her own voice and wings.

Farrar Straus Giroux; 195 pages

Hidden by Helen Frost

"I was a happy little girl wearing a pink dress,

     sitting in our gold minivan,

     dancing with my doll, Kamara."

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Summary: When Wren Abbott and Darra Monson are eight years old, Darra's father steals a minivan. He doesn't know that Wren is hiding in the back. The hours and days that follow change the lives of both girls. Darra is left with a question that only Wren can answer. Wren has questions, too. 

Years later, in a chance encounter at camp, the girls face each other for the first time. They can finally learn the truth—that is, if they’re willing to reveal to each other the stories that they’ve hidden for so long. Told from alternating viewpoints, this novel-in-poems reveals the complexities of memory and the strength of a friendship that can overcome pain.

Frances Foster Books/Farrar Straus Giroux; 142 pages

How OIiver Olson Changed the World by Claudia Mills

"Oliver Olson looked up at the moon."

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Abstract: Afraid he will always be an outsider like ex-planet Pluto, nine-year-old Oliver finally shows his extremely overprotective parents that he is capable of doing great things without their help while his class is studying the solar system.

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 104 pages

Congratulations, Helen Frost!

EXCITING NEWS about local author Helen Frost whose book, Diamond Willow, is on our final reading list!

Farrar, Straus and Giroux has just announced that author Helen Frost has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship for her work on The Braid. This literature fellowship recognizes writers of poetry, encouraging the production of new work by affording these writers the time and means to write.

You can see the entire list of 2009 Literary Fellowships (Poetry) here.

Congratulations, Helen! (Thanks to SLJ's Fuse #8 for the info!)

Jimmy's Stars by Mary Ann Rodman

"The two people Ellie McKelvey hated most were Adolf Hitler and Victoria Gandeck."

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Abstract: In 1943, eleven-year-old Ellie is her brother Jimmy's "best girl," and when he leaves Pittsburgh just before Thanksgiving to fight in World War II, he promises he will return, asks her to leave the Christmas tree up until he does, and reminds her to "let the joy out."

Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux; 257 pages

Little Audrey by Ruth White

"It is a golden day in May 1948."

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Abstract: In 1948, eleven-year-old Audrey lives with her father, mother, and three younger sisters in Jewell Valley, a coal mining camp in Southwest Virginia, where her mother still mourns the death of a baby, her father goes on drinking binges on paydays, and Audrey tries to recover from the scarlet fever that has left her skinny and needing to wear glasses.

Publisher: Farrar Strauss Giroux, 146 pages

Diamond Willow by Helen Frost

7
a.m.
Twenty
below zero,
ribbons of white
and green and purple
dancing in the blue-black sky.

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CIP Summary: In a remote area of Alaska, twelve-year-old Willow helps her father with their sled dogs when she is not at school, wishing whe were more popular, all the while unaware that the animals surrounding her carry the spirits of ancestors who care for her.

Publisher: Frances Foster Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 111 pages

The House of Djinn by Suzanne Fisher Staples

"A small, slender woman with dark eyes stood near the edge of the roof looking out over the walled city of Lahore and reimagined her life."

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LC CIP: An unexpected death brings Shabanu's daughter, Mumtaz, and nephew, Jameel, both aged fifteen, to the forefront of an attempt to modernize Pakistan, but the teens must both sacrifice their own dreams if they are to meet family and tribal expectations.

Publisher: Frances Foster Books/Farrar Straus Giroux; 207 pages