Growing Library

Who could resist living for a year with a raccoon who is just about your best friend?

In this delightful memoir, Sterling North recalls his year with Rascal - a very mischievous and resourceful raccoon. Virtually everywhere Sterling goes, Rascal is there, and life is filled with one adventure after another.

Grace and Ellie have been best friends since second grade. Ellie's always right in the center of everything - and Grace is usually happy to be Ellie's sidekick. But this time, it's Grace who suddenly has everyone's attention when she accidentally starts a new fad at school. It's a fad that has first her class, then her grade, and then the entire school collecting and trading and even fighting over...buttons? A fad that might also get her in major trouble and could even be the end of Grace and Ellie's friendship. Because Ellie's not used to being one-upped by anybody.

The Story of Ferdinand has enchanted readers since it was first published in 1936. All the other bulls would run and jump and butt their heads together. But Ferdinand would rather sit and smell the flowers. And he does just that until the day a bumblebee and some men from the Madrid bullfights give gentle Ferdinand a chance to be the most ferocious star of the corrida - and the most unexpected comic hero.

The Princess in Black: Princess Magnolia is having hot chocolate and scones with Duchess Wigtower when...Brring! Brring! The monster alarm! Stopping monsters is no job for prim and perfect Princess Magnolia. But luckily Princess Magnolia has a secret: She’s also the Princess in Black! Can Princess Magnolia sneak away, transform into her alter ego, and defeat the monster before the nosy duchess discovers her secret?

When Natalie’s science teacher suggests that she enter an egg drop competition, she thinks it could be the perfect solution to all of her problems. With the prize money, she can fly her botanist mother to see the miraculous Cobalt Blue Orchids—flowers with the resilience to survive against impossible odds. Her mother has been suffering from depression, and Natalie is positive that the flowers’ magic will inspire her mom to fall in love with life again.

Hal and his brotherband crew are hot on the trail of the pirate Zavac and they have one thing only on their minds: Stopping the bloodthirsty thief before he can do more damage. Of course, they also know Zavac has the Andomal, the priceless Skandian artifact stolen when the brotherband let down their guard. The chase leads down mighty rivers, terrifying rapids, to the lawless fortress of Ragusa. If Hal is to succeed, he will need to go beyond his brotherband training. He will need to challenge the pirate one-on-one, knowing only one of them will survive.

Hal and his fellow Herons have returned home to Skandia after defeating the pirate Captain Zavac and reclaiming Skandia's most prized artifact, the Andomal. With their honor restored, the Herons turn to a new mission: tracking down an old rival turned bitter enemy. Tursgud - leader of the Shark Brotherband and Hal's constant opponent - has turned from a bullying youth into a pirate and slave trader. After Tursgud captures 12 Araluen villagers to sell as slaves, the Heron crew sails into action...with the help of one of Araluen's finest Rangers!

This collection includes K is for Kidnapped, L Is for Lucky, M Is for Mummy, and N Is for Nugget. Someone has kidnapped the king and queen of Socotra. For safety's sake, their son is staying with Dink until they are safe. But then the prince is kidnapped, too! Can Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose unmask the royals' enemies before it's too late? Or is the royal family of Socotra gone forever?

Curses aren't real. At least, that's what twelve-year-old, half-Hawaiian Anna Leilani Kama'ehu thinks when she listens to her grandmother's folktales about sacred flowers and hexes. Anna's friends back home in Colorado don't believe in legends either; they're more interested in science and sports—real, tangible things that stand in total contrast to Anna's family's loopy cultural traditions.

In R. J. Palacio's best-selling collection of stories, Auggie & Me, which expands on characters in Wonder, audiences were introduced to Julian's grandmother, Grandmère. Here, Palacio presents Grandmère's heartrending story: how she, a young Jewish girl, was hidden by a family in a Nazi-occupied French village during World War II; how the boy she and her classmates once shunned became her savior and best friend.

There's a murderer on the loose - but that doesn't stop the girls of St. Etheldreda's from attempting to hide the death of their headmistress in this rollicking farce. The students of St. Etheldreda's School for Girls face a bothersome dilemma. Their irascible headmistress, Mrs. Plackett, and her surly brother, Mr. Godding, have been most inconveniently poisoned at Sunday dinner.

When Louisiana Elefante's granny wakes her up in the middle of the night to tell her that the day of reckoning has arrived and they have to leave home immediately, Louisiana isn't overly worried. But this time, things are different. This time, Granny intends for them never to return. Separated from her best friends, Raymie and Beverly, Louisiana struggles to oppose the winds of fate (and Granny) and find a way home. But as Louisiana's life becomes entwined with the lives of the people of a small Georgia town she starts to worry that she is destined only for good-byes.

It's 1935. Moose Flanagan lives on Alcatraz with his family, the other families of the guards, and a few hundred no-name hit men, con men, mad dog murderers and a handful of bank robbers too. And one of those cons has just done him a big favor. You see, Moose has never met Al Capone, but a few weeks ago Moose wrote a letter to him asking him to use his influence to get his sister, Natalie, into a school she desperately needs in San Francisco.

Best-selling author Rick Riordan presents Kwame Mbalia's epic fantasy, a middle grade American Gods set in a richly-imagined world populated with African American folk heroes and West African gods. Tristan is dreading the month he's going to spend on his grandparents' farm in Alabama, where he's being sent to heal from a tragedy. But on his first night there, he accidentally ripps open a chasm into the MidPass, a volatile place with a burning sea, haunted bone ships, and iron monsters that are hunting the inhabitants of this world.

Jessica and Elizabeth have always been inseparable twins, but starting middle school means a chance for new beginnings! Elizabeth is excited to organize a school newspaper, but Jessica is more interested in joining the exclusive Unicorn Club. What will happen when the twins realize they might not be as alike as they thought? Middle school is hard enough, but with these twins each dealing with becoming their own person—will they be able to stay friends at the same time?

Not only is Turner Buckminster the son of the new minister in a small Maine town, he is shunned for playing baseball differently than the local boys. Then he befriends smart and lively Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from Malaga Island, a poor community founded by former slaves. Lizzie shows Turner a new world along the Maine coast from digging clams to rowing a boat next to a whale. When the powerful town elders, including Turner’s father, decide to drive the people off the island to set up a tourist business, Turner stands alone against them.

Twelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Even when the other kids tease her, she always has had her flowers and family to go home to. That all changes after the horrific events of Pearl Harbor.

Since her mother's disappearance, 11-year-old Tilly Pages has found comfort in the stories at Pages & Co., her grandparents' bookshop. But when her favorite characters, Anne of Green Gables and Alice from Wonderland, start showing up at the shop, Tilly's adventures become very real. Not only can she follow Anne and Alice into their books, she discovers she can bookwander into any story she chooses. Tilly's new ability leads her to fun and exciting adventures, but danger may be lurking on the very next page....

When 16-year-old Helmuth Hubner listens to the BBC news on an illegal short-wave radio, he quickly discovers Germany is lying to the people. But when he tries to expose the truth with leaflets, he's tried for treason. Sentenced to death and waiting in a jail cell, Helmuth's story emerges in a series of flashbacks that show his growth from a naive child caught up in the patriotism of the times, to a sensitive and mature young man who thinks for himself.

He knows a lot of big words, but he doesn't know where babies come from. He's never heard of a stork, but he plans to be a bird when he grows up. He's Superfudge, otherwise known as Farley Drexel Hatcher. And, according to his older brother, Peter, the biggest pain invented. Among other things.