Lupita, a budding actor and poet in a close-knit Mexican American immigrant family, comes of age as she struggles with adult responsibilities during her mother’s battle with cancer in this young adult novel in verse.
When Lupita learns Mami has cancer, she is terrified by the possibility of losing her mother, the anchor of her close-knit family. Suddenly, being a high school student, starring in a play, and dealing with friends who don’t always understand, become less important than doing whatever she can to save Mami’s life.
While her father cares for Mami at an out-of-town clinic, Lupita takes charge of her seven younger siblings. As Lupita struggles to keep the family afloat, she takes refuge in the shade of a mesquite tree, where she escapes the chaos at home to write. Forced to face her limitations in the midst of overwhelming changes and losses, Lupita rediscovers her voice and finds healing in the power of words.
Told with honest emotion in evocative free verse, Lupita’s journey toward hope is captured in moments that are alternately warm and poignant. Under the Mesquite is an empowering story about testing family bonds and the strength of a young woman navigating pain and hardship with surprising resilience.
Meet Jay Baker…or, so he is not-so-affectionately called by his opponent in the- He is stupidly in love with his best friend, cheerleading dynamo cameo “appearance” Parnell.
- He is also trying to score (points) with earthbound tennis-playing goddess Caroline Richardson.
- He is fighting a losing battle with Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
- He rocks a touche array of pop-culture references, jokes, and puns.
- His family life cookie is about to crumble.
Root for jay as he exchanges ego-blows with his mortal enemy, gets awkward around his dream girl(s), loses his marbles in a Bermudian love triangle, watches his parents’ relationship implode, and, finally, learns to keep it real and be himself(ish).
Riddle Border doesn’t talk much. Instead, he draws pictures of the insides of things and waits for the day when the outsides of things will make sense. He worships his older brother. But how can they leave when there’s nowhere to go? Then everything changes. Because Sam meets Emily.
Emily Bell believes in destiny. She sings for her church choir, though she doesn’t have a particularly good voice. Nothing, she feels, is mere coincidence. And she’s singing at the moment she first sees Sam.
Everyone whose path you cross in life has the power to change you–sometimes in small ways, and sometimes in ways greater than you could have ever known. Beautifully written and emotionally profound, Holly Goldberg Sloan’s debut novel deftly explores the idea of human connection.
On an o
therwise glossy day, a blast goes off and a body thuds to the ground at Nora’s feet. There are terrorist attacks in the city all the time, but Nora can’t forget.
In Nora’s world you don’t have to put up with nightmares. Nora goes with her mother to TFC – a Therapeutic Forgetting Clinic. There, she can describe her horrible memory and take a pill to erase it so she can go on like nothing ever happened. But at TFC a chance encounter with a mysterious guy changes Nora’s life. She doesn’t take the pill. And when Nora learns the memory her mother has chosen to forget, she realizes that someone needs to remember.
With newfound friends Micah and Winter, Nora makes a comic book of their memeories called Memento. Memento is an instant hit, but it sets off a dangerous chain of events. Will Nora, Micah, and Winter be forced to take the Big Pill that will erase their memories forever?
NEW BOOK: THE GEEK GIRL’S GUIDE TO CHEERLEADING By Charity Tahmaseb
When Bethany- self proclaimed geek girl- makes the varsity cheerleading squad. She realizes that there’s one thing worse than blending in with the lockers: getting noticed. She always felt comfortable as part of the nerd herd, but being a member of the most scrutinized group in her school is weighing her down like a ton of textbooks. Even her varsity cheerleading guide can’t answer the really tough questions, like: how do you maintain some semblance of dignity while wearing an insanely short skirt? What do you do when the head cheerleader spills her beer on you at your first in-crown party? And how do you know if your crush likes you for your mind… or your pom-poms?
One thing’s f0r sure: It’s going to take more than brains for this girl genius to cheer her way to the top of the pyramid.
NEW BOOK: RULES OF ATTRACTION By Simone Elkeles
Carlos fuentes felt betrayed when the big brother he idolized, Alex chose to get jumped out of the Latino Blood for a chance at a future with his gringa girlfriend, Brittany. Even worse, Alex has forced Carlos to come back from mexico to join him on the straight and anrrow path. Trouble is, Carlos just wants to keep living on the edge. And ties to his Mexican gang aren’t easy to break, even when carlos is living with one of Alex’s college professors in Colorado. Carlos feels completely out of place in the suburbs. He’s even more thrown by his feelings for the professor’s daughter, Kiara, who is nothing like the wild girls he’s usually drawn to. But Carlos and Kiara soon Discover that in matters of the heart, the rules of attraction overpower the social differences and dangers that conspire to keep them apart.
NEW BOOK: MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN By Ransom Riggs
As out story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remore island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of miss Peregrine’s home for Peculiar children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that Miss Peregrine’s children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow-impossible though it seems-they may still be alive.
NEW BOOK: LORD LOSS By Darren Shan
Grubbs Grady hates history and ballet, and loves bacon, rats, and playing tricks on his squeamish older sister. When he opts out of a weekend family trip, he never quesses that he is about to take a terrifying journey to the heart of darkness. Hungry demons and howling werewolves haunt his waking nightmares…and threaten his life.
NEW BOOK: BEAUTIFUL CHAOS By Kami Garcia
Ethan Wate thought he was getting used to the strange, impossible events happening in Gatlin, his smalll Southern town. But now that Ethan and Lena have returned home, strange and impossible have taken on new meanings. Swarms of locusts, record-breaking heat, and devastating storms ravage Gatlin as Ethan and Lena struggle to understand the impact of lena’s claiming. Even Lena’s family of powerful supernaturals is affected-and their abilities begin to dangerously misfire. AS time passes, one question becomes clear: what-or-who will need to be sacrificed to save Gatlin?
NEW BOOK: IBOY By Kevin Brooks
Before the attack, Tom Harvey was just an average teenager. But a head-on collision with high technology had turned him into an actualized app. Fragments of a shattered iPhone are embedded in his brain. And they’re having an extraordinary effect on his every thought.
Becasue now Tom knows, sees, and can do more than any normal boy ever could.
But with his new powers comes a choice: To avenge Lucy, the girl he loves, will he hunt down the vicious gangsters who hurt her? Will he take the law into his own electric hands and exterminate them from the south London housing projects where, by fear and violence, they rule?
Not even his mental search engine can predict the shocking outsome of iBoy’s actions.
NEW BOOK: SUPERMAN By Grant Morrison
Superman saves Quintum’s mission to the sun from Lex’s plot to destroy it. In his trip Superman flies straight through the sun super charging his cells giving him new super powers, but also starting his road towards death.
This issue establishes all of the threads that will run through the series. It shows, through a speech by Quintum, that Superman’s legacy isn’t just saving people’s lives but the hope he inspires.
NEW BOOK: EXCALIBUR THE LEGEND OF KING ARTHUR By Tony Lee
ALBION IS AT WAR.
Ruled by murderous King Ulric for too long, its people are desperate for justice. Artur, son of Uther Penfragon, is their last hope. Now of age, Artur can fulfill a long-standing prophecy by freeing the enchanted Caliburn from its sheath on Stone Hill. Finally the land will have its true king. But Arthur’s future is uncertain. Not only does his half-sister, Morgana, have a vengeful score to settle; those whom he trusts most are also destined to betray him.
NEW BOOK: WATCHMEN By Alan Moore
WHO WATCHES THE 
WATCHMEN?
Following two generations of masked super-heroes from the close of World War 2 to the icy shadow of the cold war. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s monumental WATCHMEN is one of the most influential comics series of all time, and is now a national bestseller.
NEW BOOK: BEOWULF By Gareth Hinds
” I am Beowulf. Many deeds of note have i done in my life.”
First recorded in 1000A.D., the epic tale of the warrior-prince Beowulf is here reinvented though Gareth Hinds’s masterful and darkly beautiful illustrations. Grendel’s black blood runs thick as Beowulf defeats the monster and his hideous mother, and red fires rage in the hero’s final battle against a ferocious dragon. From lightning-paced contests of muscle and will to the funeral boats burning on the fjords, all are rendered in glorious and gruesome detail. Told for more than a thousand years, Beowulf’s heroic saga finds a true home in this graphic novel edition.
NEW BOOK: FABLES LEGENDS IN EXILE By Bill Willingham
WHO KILLED ROSE RED?
In Fabletown, where fairy tale legends live alongside regular New Yorkers, the question is all anyone can talk about. But only the Big Bad Wolf can actually solve the case – and, along with Rose’s sister Snow White, keep the Fabletown community from coming apart at the seams.
NEW BOOK: V FOR VENDETTA By Alan Moore
A frightening and powerful tale of the loss of freedom and identity in a chillingly believable totalitarian world.
Set in an imagined future England that has given itself over to fascism, this groundbreaking story captures both the suffocating nature of life in an authoritarian police state and redemptive power of the human spirit whice rebels against it. Crafted with sterling clarity and intelligence, V FOR VENDETTA brings an unequaled depth of characterization and verisimilitude to its unflinching account of oppression and resistance.
NEW BOOK: ROSE DAUGHTER By Robin McKinly
The beast’s hand closed around the rose’s stem; when he opened it, the palm was pierced, and drops of blood fell solfly, making a dark stain like the first infurling of a rosebud…
Twenty years ago, Robin McKinly dazzled readers with the power of her novel beauty. Now this extraordinarily gifted novelist returns to the story of Beauty and the Beast, with a fresh perspective, ingenuity, and mature insight. With Rose Daughter, she presents her finest and most deeply felt work, a compelling, richly imagined, and haunting exploration of the transformative power of love.
NEW BOOK: OUTLAW THE LEGEND OF ROBIN HOOD By Tony Lee
THE YEAR IS 1192. Prince John is getting fat and wealthy on blood money while the king fights in Jerusalem. When Robin of Loxley returns home from the Crusades, he soon discovers that things are not as they should be. The sheriff now governs Nottinham with an iron fist.
In the haunted heart of Sherwood Forest, Robin devises a heroic plan. He will disguise himself and become an outlaw. With the help of his men and the beautiful Maid Marian, he will see that justice is done for the people.
But there are traitors in his camp, and it is not long before a hefty price is levied on Robin Hood’s head…
NEW AUDIOBOOK: A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT by Laura Whitcomb
Someone was looking at me, a disturbing sensation if you’re dead.
Though i could not feel paper between my fingers, smell ink, or taste th etip of a pencil, i could see and hear the world with all the clarity of the living. They, on the other hand, did not see me as a showdow or a floating vapor. To the quick, i was empty air. Or so i thought.
In the class of the high school English teacher she has been haunting, Helen feels them: For the first time in 130 years, human eyes are looking at her. They belong to a boy, a boy who has not seemed remarkable until now. And Helen-terrified, but intrigued-is drawn to him. the fact that he is in a body and she is not presents this unlikely couple with their fisrt challenge. But as the lovers struggle to find a way to be together, they begin to discover the secrets of their former lives and of the young people they come to possess.
NEW AUDIOBOOK: THE GARDEN OF EVE by K. L. Going
Without mom, there are no more bedtime stories, no more answers carried on the wind, and no more magic gardens. Evie doesn’t believe in magic now. after all, if magic were real, her mom would still be alove.
But when Evie moves to Beaumont, new york, where her father has bought a withered apple orchard that the townspeople whisper is cursed, she learns about a lost girl, receives a mysterious seed, and meets a boy who claims to be dead.
Before long, Evie finds herself in the middle of a fairy tale. And this one is real.
NEW BOOK:GHOST SOLDIER by Elaine Marie Alphin
Alexander has the ability to see ghosts. Or he used to. These days the only disappearing act he’s interested in is his mom’s. So when his dad insists that Alexander join him on a road trip though the south, ghosts and adventure are the last things on his mind.
Far from home, in the heart of an old Civil War battlefield, Alexander comes face-to-face with the ghost of a young soldier who refuses to be ignored. As an uneasy friendship develops between the two, Alexander is drawn into a reality where he must confront the haunting past his soldier friend has already lived. But can Alexander halp this troubled ghost? And can he, finally, accept the truth about his own painful past?
NEW BOOK: GLOW by Amy Kathleen Ryan
If a sudden attack destroyed the only world you’d ever known; would you be brave enough to save who was left? would love be strong enough to survive the right? either way, there’s no turning back.
The empyrean is the only home fifteen-year-old waverly has ever known. Part of the first generation to be successfully conceived in deep space, she and her boyfriend Kieran, will be pioneers of New Earth. Waverly knows she must marry young in order to have children who can carry on the mission, and Kieran, the handson captian-to-be, has everything Waverly could want in a husband. Everyone is sure he’s the best choice. still, there’s a part of Waverly that wants more from life than marriage, and she is secretly intigued by the shy, darkly brilliant seth.
Suddenly, Waverly’s dreams are interrupted by the inconceivale-a violent betrayal by the Empyrean’s sister ship, the New Horizon. The New Horizon’s leaders are desperate to populae the new planet first, and will do anything to get what they need: young girls. In one pivotal moment, Waverly and Kieran are separated, and they find themselves at the helms of angerous missions, where ever move has potentially devastating consequences, and decisions of the heart may lead to disaster.
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