Rules
I click the seat belt across me and open my
sketchbook to the back pages. That's where I keep all the
RULES I'm teaching David so if my
someday-he'll-wake-up-a-regular-brother wish doesn't ever come true, at
least he'll know how the world works, and I won't have to keep explaining
things.
Twelve-year-old Catherine just wants a
normal life. Which is near impossible when you have a brother with
autism and a family that revolves around his disability. She's spent
years trying to teach David the rules from "a peach is not a funny-looking
apple" to "keep your pants on in public"--in order to head off David's
embarrassing behaviors.
But the summer Catherine meets Jason, a surprising, new sort-of friend, and
Kristi, the potential next-door friend she's always wished for, it's her own
shocking behavior that turns everything upside down and forces her to ask:
What is normal?
Black Duck
When Ruben and Jeddy find a dead body in an evening suit washed up on the
shore, they are certain it has to do with smuggling liquor. It is
spring 1929. Prohibition is in full swing, and many in their community
are involved. Soon the boys, along with Jeddy's strong willed sister,
Marina, are drawn in, suspected by rival boot-legging gangs of taking
something crucial off the dead man. Then Ruben meets the daring
captain of the Black Duck, the most elusive smuggling craft of them all, and
it isn't long before he's keeping dangerous company.
Ages 10+ Pages 252
Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters
Eleven-year-old Cornelia S. Englehart lives in New York City and is the
daughter of world-famous pianists. Her legacy should feel fabulous but
instead it feels just plain lonely. In a world where privacy is as
rare as diamonds, Cornelia isolates herself inside a fortress of books full
of long and complicated words. But when a glamorous writer named
Virginia Somerset moves next door with her servant Patel and her mischievous
French bulldog, Cornelia discovers that the world is a much more exciting
place than she had originally thought. With a cast of unforgettable
character--from the ghost of King Arthur to Pablo Picasso to Virginia's
three winsome and irrepressible sisters--and deliciously imaginative
storytelling that takes the reader around the world and back again.
Ages 9-12
RL 4.5 Pages 264
Shug
Annemarie Wilcox, or Shug as her family calls her, is beginning to think
there's nothing worse than being twelve. She's too tall, too freckled,
and way too flat-chested. Shug is sure that there's not one good or
amazing thing about her. And now she has to start junior high, where
the friends she holds most dear aren't acting so dear anymore--especially
Mark. . .
Ages 9-13 Pages 248
Life As We Knew It
When Miranda first hears the warnings that a meteor is headed on a collision
path with the moon, they just sound like an excuse for extra homework
assignments. But her disbelief turn to fear in a split second as the
entire world witnesses a lunar impact that knocks the moon closer in orbit,
catastrophically altering the earth's climate. Everything else in
Miranda's life fades away as supermarkets run out of food, gas goes up to
more than ten dollars a gallon, and school is closed indefinitely. But
what Miranda and her family don't realize is that the worst is yet to come.
Ages 11+
Pages 347
Rebecca Caudill Titles 2009
Coraline
When Coraline explores her new home, she steps through a door and into
another house just like her own... escept that it's different. It's a
marvelous adventure i ntil Coraline discovers that there's also another
mother and another father in the house. They want Coraline to stay with them
and be there little girl. They want to keep he forever! Coraline must use
all of her wits and every ounce of courage in order to save herself and
return home.
Ages 8 -13 Pages 162
The Green Glass Sea
It is 1943, and while war consumes the United States and the world,
eleven-year-old Dewey Kerrigan lives with her father in a town that
"officially" doesn't exist: Los Alamos, New Mexico. Famous scientists and
mathematicians, including Dewey's father, work around the clock on a secret
project everyone there only calls "the gadget." Meanwhile, Dewey works on
her own mechanical projects, and locks horns with Suze Gordon, a budding
artist who is as much a misfit as she is. None of them knows how much "the
gadget" is about to change their lives...
Ages 9-12 Pages 321
