Family Life Science

Twelve-year-old Mallie knows better than to dream. In Coal Top, you live the story you're given: Boys toil in the mines, and girls work as servants. But it wasn't always this way. Before the Dust came, the people of Coal Top could weave starlight into cloth. They'd wear these dreaming clothes to sleep and wake up with the courage to seek adventure. So when Mallie is chosen for a dangerous competition in which daring (and ideally, orphaned) children train flying horses, she jumps at the chance. Maybe she'll change her story. Maybe she'll even find the magic she needs to dream again.

Miriam was raised in a society without children. To offset the devastation of climate change, state-of-the-art birth control has made daycares and playgrounds things of the past. As tempting as the government inducements are to remain child-free, Miriam’s curiosity about the people who “drop out” of society to become parents grows. When she finds a like-minded partner, she must choose between the rewarding comforts she knows and the unknowable mysteries of being a mother.

By now you’ve heard the legend, all but forgotten, of Santa Claus’s twin sister. Many years ago, this shadowy figure followed in Santa’s footsteps, searching for him while leaving odd gifts of her own. One fateful night, they finally came face-to-face, and she hasn’t been heard from since. Until now . . . The Christmas Witch has returned.

An abandoned house at the end of the block. A mysterious girl in an upstairs window. A strange black SUV lurking around every corner. When Nick and Tesla Holt are sent to live with their eccentric Uncle Newt, they find their new neighborhood is full of secrets. What the heck is going on? To unravel the mysteries (and save their skins), Nick and Tesla must use everyday household objects to build electromagnets, rocket launchers, and other crazy contraptions.

In 1896, in a pilgrim church in the Alps, an abandoned baby girl is found by a cook and a housemaid. They take her home, and Annika grows up in the servants' quarters of a house belonging to three eccentric Viennese professors. She is happy there but dreams of the day when her real mother will come to find her. One day a glamorous stranger arrives at the door.

Twelve-year-old fairy Canary Mossheart knows this better than most. A few years ago, the mold took her papa, and even her famous, former-chosen-one Gran never found a cure. So when Ary's beloved mama falls ill, Ary decides it’s taken enough. Armed with only a bucket and a prayer, she sneaks out to find a magical, underground lake whose healing waters are straight out of Gran’s adventures.

The adventures of siblings Kate, Michael, and Emma come to a stunning conclusion when they must find the last Book of Beginning - the Book of Death - before the Dire Magnus does, for when all three books are united, their combined power will be unstoppable.

Eleven-year-old Shelley only leaves her bedroom for two minutes, but when she gets back, there's a real, true-life, lavender-eyed baby on her bed. It's far too noisy, smelly and heavy to be a ghost baby - so whose is it? It can't be her mum's - Shelley would have noticed - but it's not like she's around for Shelley to ask, anyway. She's too busy trying to get her horrible ex-boyfriend Scott ('the Toadstool') back, who Shelley definitely does NOT like as much as her mum does. But someone's got to look after the baby, and give her a name.

On a small Greek island, a woman comes ashore with no memory of who she is, where she's from, or how she came to be shipwrecked there. Worse, she has no way of leaving. As she's nursed back to health by the island's only inhabitants, four friends on an annual retreat, she detects tensions between the group that suggest not all is quite as it seems.

When Willa's upside-down magic rains, it pours. Clouds form under ceilings. Classrooms get flooded. Umbrellas must always be nearby, just in case Willa has an outburst. Willa hates being the source of such sogginess. Even worse, the more she rains, the worse she feels.... and the worse she feels, the more she rains. All the storminess is threatening to drown her good grades and flood all her friendships. Is there any way to use magic to make the clouds disappear? Or is the storm of the century on its way?

What is new about how teenagers communicate through services such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram? Do social media affect the quality of teens' lives? In this eye-opening book, youth culture and technology expert Danah Boyd uncovers some of the major myths regarding teens' use of social media. She explores tropes about identity, privacy, safety, danger, and bullying. Ultimately, Boyd argues that society fails young people when paternalism and protectionism hinder teenagers' ability to become informed, thoughtful, and engaged citizens through their online interactions.

When Nick and Tesla Holt are sent to live with their eccentric Uncle Newt, they find their new neighborhood is full of secrets. What the heck is going on? To unravel the mysteries (and save their skins), Nick and Tesla must use everyday household objects to build electromagnets, rocket launchers, and other crazy contraptions.

The traditional Emperor's Journey is meant to be uneventful. But as the princesses Seika and Ji-Lin - twin sisters - travel to pay respects to their kingdom's dragon guardian, unexpected monsters appear, and tremors shake the earth. The Hidden Islands face unprecedented threats, and the old rituals are failing. With only their strength, ingenuity, and a flying lion to rely on, can the sisters find a new way to keep their people safe?

A Ranger’s Guide to Glipwood Forest expands the legend and lore of this treacherous land of fatal flora and fanged beasts—and the history of the first adventurers daring enough to brave the forest depths. Through detailed line art, maps, and directions, travelers can safely marvel at the majestic glipwood trees, poke around the (possibly haunted) Anklejelly Cavern, dip their toes into the Mighty River Blapp (if they dare!), and avoid falling off a cliff edge into the Dark Sea of Darkness and being swallowed by a sea dragon.

When Chantella's mother died, she thought it couldn't get much worse. But now she is bullied by her stepfamily, and her dad has done nothing about it! Her one chance out is a singing competition. Chantella has a beautiful singing voice, but her stepsiblings are jealous.

Almost one year ago, Alice TodHunter Moon left her PathFinder village to become Apprentice to ExtraOrdinary Wizard Septimus Heap. Now, in faraway lands, the Castle is in peril. The brilliant blue stone is crumbling to dust, and both the witch Marisa and the wicked Red Queen have their eyes on the throne. But as Tod sets off on a hazardous journey to find a new Keystone, her life may be in the greatest danger of all. Can she save the Castle while evading the fate that befell her mother?

Things Finley Hart doesn't want to talk about: Her parents, who are having problems. (But they pretend like they're not.) Being sent to her grandparents' house for the summer. Never having met said grandparents. Her blue days—when life feels overwhelming, and it's hard to keep her head up. (This happens a lot.) Finley's only retreat is the Everwood, a forest kingdom that exists in the pages of her notebook. Until she discovers the endless woods behind her grandparents' house and realizes the Everwood is real—and holds more mysteries than she'd ever imagined

When Fionn Boyle sets foot on Arranmore Island, it begins to stir beneath his feet.... Once in a generation, Arranmore Island chooses a new Storm Keeper to wield its power and keep its magic safe from enemies. The time has come for Fionn’s grandfather, a secretive and eccentric old man, to step down. Soon, a new Keeper will rise. But deep underground, someone has been waiting for Fionn. As the battle to become the island’s next champion rages, a more sinister magic is waking up, intent on rekindling an ancient war.

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.

Pip is a girl who can talk to magical creatures. Her aunt is a vet for magical creatures. And her new friend, Tomas, is allergic to most magical creatures. When things go amok - and they often go amok - Pip consults Jeffrey Higgleston's Guide to Magical Creatures, a reference work that Pip finds herself constantly amending. Because dealing with magical creatures like unicorns, griffins, and fuzzles doesn't just require book knowledge - it requires hands-on experience and thinking on your feet.