Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (Hitchhiker's Trilogy, Book 1.) Arthur Dent sets off on a trip through outer space after his house is slated for destruction by aliens who want to construct an interplanetary highway. (Juv Fic SF [also Fic SF])
Bauer, Joan. Rules of the Road. Sixteen-year-old Jenna gets a job driving the crabby elderly owner of a chain of successful shoe stores from Chicago to Texas to confront the son who is trying take over the company and turn a quality business into a cheesy rip-off franchise.
Cabot, Meg. The Princess Diaries. (First in the Princess Diaries series.) One day, Mia Thermopolis is just a high-schooler dealing with a snotty cheerleader, a mom who's dating her algebra teacher, and being too tall and flat-chested. The next day she finds out she's the last thing she's cut out for: a princess.
Clark, Catherine. Truth or Dairy. Meet Courtney Von Dragen Smith: middle child, product of divorce, would-be vegetarian, server at the hip café Truth or Dairy. In her journal, she relates how a stint in student government, an epileptic dog, and a guy named Grant Superior ("like the lake") turn her world upside down.
Colfer, Eoin. Artemis Fowl. (First in a series.) When a twelve-year-old evil genius tries to restore his family fortune by capturing a fairy and demanding a ransom in gold, the fairies fight back with magic, technology, and a particularly nasty troll. (Juv Fic SF)
Creech, Sharon. Absolutely Normal Chaos. Mary Lou Finney is less than excited about her assignment to keep a journal over the summer. Boring! Then cousin Carl Ray comes to stay with her family, and what starts out as the dull dog days of summer quickly turns into the wildest roller coaster ride of all time. (Juv Fic)
Danziger, Paula. This Place Has No Atmosphere. It's the year 2057, and people take classes in ESP, live in malls, and inhabit a colony on the moon. Aurora is devastated when her parents get jobs on the moon and the family has to move. Life there is bound to be miserable--how many guys could there be in a colony of only 750 people?
Ferris, Jean. Love Among the Walnuts. Born and raised in isolation in a wealthy, eccentric family, Sandy is shocked when he, his parents, and their servants become victims of a vicious plot by his greedy uncles to incapacitate them and take their money.
Fleischman, Paul. A Fate Totally Worse Than Death. In this horror novel parody, three self-centered members of Cliffside High School's ruling clique, who are beginning to age rapidly, become convinced that the beautiful new exchange student is the ghost of the girl whose death they caused the year before. (YA Fic M)
Frank, Lucy. Oy, Joy! Although her ailing uncle creates problems for her whole family when he moves in with them, Joy survives his bungling attempts at matchmaking even as she plays the game herself.
Gliori, Deb. Pure Dead Magic. (First in a series.) Titus Strega-Borgia saves his father from certain death after he is kidnapped by the evil Don Lucifer. He has a little help from his magical nanny, three dungeon beasts, the family's pet crocodile, and Tarantella, "a spider with attitude." (Juv Fic SF)
Goldman, William. The Princess Bride. A story that has everything: Fencing. Fighting. Poison. True Love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave Men. Cowardly men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles. (Juv Fic SF [also Fic SF])
Haddix, Margaret Peterson. Just Ella. In this continuation of the Cinderella story, fifteen-year-old Ella finds that accepting Prince Charming's proposal ensnares her in a suffocating tangle of palace rules and royal etiquette, so she plots to escape.
Howe, Norma. The Adventures of Blue Avenger. (First in the Blue Avenger series.) On his sixteenth birthday, David Schumacher changes his name to Blue Avenger. . .and things start to happen. Within 24 hours, David becomes a national hero, starts dating an extraordinary girl named Omaha Nebraska Brown, and bakes an imperfect pie. And that's not all. A tiny sow bug is injured by a lawn mower, some killer bees make their home at San Pablo High School, and there is some activity in the earth's crust. The connection? No one knows for certain.
Kindl, Patrice. Goose Chase. Rather than marry a cruel king or a seemingly dim-witted prince, an enchanted goose girl endures imprisonment, capture by several ogresses, and other dangers, before learning exactly who she is. (Juv Fic SF)
Koertge, Ronald. The Harmony Arms. Mortified by his movie-studio father's inclination to speak through a hand puppet rather than directly, Gabriel is further surprised when the neighbors at their new Los Angeles apartment are even more eccentric.
Korman, Gordon. A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag. Luckless Raymond Jardine becomes Sean Delancey's eleventh-grade-English project partner. He talks Sean into a wacky scheme (involving a long-deceased, obscure Canadian poet) that will help them pass the course and win a vacation to a luxurious Greek island.
Levine, Gail Carson. Ella Enchanted. In this novel based on the story of Cinderella, Ella struggles against the childhood curse that forces her to obey any order given to her. (Juv Fic SF)
Limb, Sue. Girl, 15, Charming But Insane. Fifteen-year-old Jess, living with her mum, separated from her father in Cornwall, and with a best friend who seems to do everything perfectly, finds her own assets through humor. (YA Fic)
Lipsyte, Robert. One Fat Summer. Bobby Marks hates the summertime because he can't hide under heavy clothing. Then he gets a job grooming the grounds of Dr. Kahn's estate, and it isn't long before he finds out how terrifying and exhilarating, how dangerous and how wonderful, one fat summer can be.
Lynch, Chris. Slot Machine. (Followed by Extreme Elvin.) When Elvin Bishop is sent to camp for overweight kids at St. Paul's Seminary Retreat Center, he and his two best friends are forced to try out various sports in order to find out where they belong.
McCants, William D. Much Ado about Prom Night. Advising her classmates on their daily problems, peer counselor Becca Singleton struggles with her own difficulties: Jeff Gardiner, the gorgeous editor of the school paper, attacks the peer counseling program as a waste of time.
Paulsen, Gary. Harris and Me. Sent to live with relatives on their farm because of his unhappy home life, an eleven-year-old city boy meets his distant cousin Harris and is given an introduction to a whole new world. Harris leads his city cousin into everything from wrestling slippery pigs to catching mice to a daredevil jump out of a barn loft. (Juv Fic)
Paulsen, Gary. The Schernoff Discoveries. Harold and his best friend, both hopeless geeks and societal misfits, try to survive unusual science experiments, the attacks of the football team and other dangers of junior high school. Juv Fic
Peck, Richard. A Long Way From Chicago. (Followed by A Year Down Yonder.) A boy tells of his annual summer trips to rural Illinois with his sister during the Great Depression to visit their larger-than-life grandmother.
Pinkwater, Daniel Manus. Young Adult Novel. The Wild Dada Ducks members cause all sorts of mischief around their junior high school, but although the boys are not bad, they like to pretend that they are true dadaists with unintentional and irrational behavior.
Pinkwater, Jill. Buffalo Brenda. Determined to make their mark on their high school, ninth graders India Ink and her zany best friend Brenda Tuna organize an underground newspaper and then provide a live buffalo as a mascot for the football team.
Plummer, Louise. The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman. Kate is disgusted by melodramatic romance novels, but she is inspired to write her own--with the assistance of The Romance Writer's Phrase Book--after her older brother's friend Richard comes to stay at their house during Christmas vacation.
Powell, Randy. Is Kissing a Girl Who Smokes Like Licking an Ashtray? Two quirky, imperfect people--shy, pinball-addict Biff and beautiful and wild Heidi--can't possibly fit into each other's lives...or can they?
Powell, Randy. Three Clams and an Oyster. A four-man flag football team that calls itself Three Clams and an Oyster is short one shellfish. The guys know they have to get serious if they really want to go to Nationals, and they scramble to find a replacement before the September deadline.
Pratchett, Terry. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. A talking cat, intelligent rats, and a strange boy cooperate in a Pied Piper scam until they try to con the wrong town and are confronted by a deadly evil rat king. (Juv Fic SF)
Rennison, Louise. Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson. (First in Georgia Nicolson Diaries series.) Georgia has an insane cat who is prone to leg-shredding "Call of the Wild" episodes and embarrassing parents who make her want to escape to Stonehenge and dance with the Druids. No wonder she laments, "Honestly, what is the point?" She records the momentous events of her life--and they are all momentous--in her diary.
Sachar, Louis. Holes. Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. It began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnats. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the warden makes the boys "build character" by spending all day, every day, digging holes: five feet wide and five feet deep.
Spinelli, Jerry. Who Put That Hair in My Toothbrush? The sibling rivalry between twelve-year-old Megin and her older brother Greg intensifies after she ruins his science project and he retaliates by throwing her favorite hockey stick into the pond.
Stine, R.L. Phone Calls. After being humiliated by her best friend Diane in front of a cute boy, Julie decides to get even and plays a telephone prank, launching an all-out telephone war that results in mismatched romances and worse. (YA M)
Vande Velde, Vivian. Never Trust a Dead Man. In this medieval whodunit, Selwyn is wrongly convicted of murder and punished by being sealed in the tomb with the dead man. He enlists the help of a witch and the resurrected victim to find the true killer. (YA M)
Van Draanen, Wendelin. Flipped. The first time she saw him, she flipped. The first time he saw her, he ran. That was the second grade, but not much has changed by the seventh. But in the eighth grade everything gets turned upside down.
Wilson, Jacqueline. Girls in Love. (First in the GIRLS series.) Ellie is starting ninth grade and she's dead set on finding herself a boyfriend. Her two best friends seem to have all the luck in the love department, but our heroine will stop at nothing to join the ranks.
Wrede, Patricia C. Dealing with Dragons. (First in The Enchanted Forest Chronicles.) Cimorene is everything a princess is not supposed to be: headstrong, tomboyish, smart. . . .and bored. So bored that she runs away to live with a dragon, and there she finds the family and adventure she's been looking for. (Juv Fic SF)
Young, Karen Romano. The
Beetle and Me: A Love Story. Daisy decides she wants to single-handedly
restore the car of her dreams, the old purple Volkswagen Beetle
from her childhood.
10/26/05
Duluth Public Library, 520 W. Superior St., Duluth MN 55802