Becker

Esperanza Ortega possesses all the treasures a young girl in Aguascalientes, Mexico could want. But a sudden tragedy shatters that dream, forcing Esperanza and Mama to flee to California and settle in a Mexican farm labor camp. There they confront the challenges of hard work, acceptance by their own people, and economic difficulties brought on by the Great Depression. Pam Munoz Ryan eloquently portrays the Mexican workers' plight in this abundant and passionate novel.

In this next adventure, Hoole reclaims the throne of his father and goes on to wage a war against the forces of chaos, greed, and oppression led by the powerful warlord-tyrants. Grank, the first collier, uses his skills with fire and metals to forge weapons for battle. With great trepidation, Hoole uses the power of the ember in the final, decisive battle and wins. At the dawn of a new era of peace, Hoole searches for the ideal place to establish not a kingdom but an order of free owls - and finds the Great Tree.

Now that Annie has helped her sister Gwendolyn (a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty) wake up from the 100-year curse by finding her beloved prince, you would think that things would get back to normal. Think again! That beloved prince, Beldegard, is stuck in the body of a bear and the only way that Annie can be free of the two irritating lovebirds is to help - by finding the evil dwarf who cast the spell. Luckily, Annie has assistance from handsome prince Liam, and she has many tricks up her non-magical sleeve...

It's summertime for supervillains! Or maybe not, because for Penelope Akk, there is still one foe she has yet to defeat: her own reputation as Bad Penny. It's been a fun ride: fighting adult heroes, going to space, and inspiring the rest of her school to open up about their own powers. Sooner or later, that ride has to end, and with school out of the way Penny is hatching a mad scheme to end it on her own terms. Will that go smoothly? Of course not. Penny's left too many unsolved problems behind her already, like ghosts, crazy friends, and angry little girls from Jupiter.

Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with everyone out to make sure you don't live to see the morning? In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by 12 outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Teens and pre-teens flock to any new offering from New York Times best-selling author Gordon Korman. Told through multiple viewpoints, Ungifted follows Donovan Curtis through his year at a magnet school for gifted and talented kids. Thanks to an administrative foul-up, the decidedly mediocre student Donovan finds himself enrolled in the Academy of Scholastic Distinction. Out of place and out of luck, Donovan joins the robotics team. And while he learns a few lessons from his gifted classmates, he also teaches a few of his own.

Faolan's made it back to his clan as a gnaw wolf, the lowest ranking pack member. And the hardships are just beginning. Framed for murder of a wolf pup, he must find the culprit and prove his worthiness in the clan.

Knowledge is power. That would be the motto of Lander University, had it not been snatched up and used to death by others long before the school was founded. For while Lander offers a full range of courses to nearly all students, it also offers a small number of specialty classes to a very select few. Lander is home to the Hero Certification Program, a curriculum designed to develop students with superhuman capabilities, commonly known as Supers, into official Heroes.

My friend Robin and I were going to have the best sleepover ever. We'd stay up late, eat s'mores, share secrets - and not knock on my magic mirror. I was not getting pulled into another fairy tale. But the mirror still ends up pulling me and my brother, Jonah, into Sleeping Beauty's story - and this time, Robin comes with us, too! When Robin pricks her finger on the spindle, I know we're in trouble.

Soren is born in the forest of Tyto, a tranquil kingdom where the Barn Owls dwell. But evil lurks in the owl world, evil that threatens to change Soren's life forever.