Blog

Just in time for the start of the school year, this week’s new releases offer compelling tales of ambition, consequences, and ultimate redemption as everyone is heading back to their desks. Secrets are uncovered as we follow the Faust teenagers to the elite Marlowe School, where they soar to suspicious heights with the help of their benefactor’s extraordinary "gifts" in ANOTHER FAUST. Boarding school girls are clawing their way to the top in ALPHAS, more adventures ensue in the fourth VAMPIRE ACADEMY book, Will and Ernie are struggling with high school jocks in DIARY OF A WITNESS, and David Levithan revisits the tragic September 11th events through the lives of three teens in LOVE IS A HIGHER LAW. What kind of back-to-school trouble will you get yourself into? (We mean with all these detention-worthy reads, of course!)

New Releases for August 25th

Hardcover

ALPHAS by Lisi Harrison (Poppy/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
At OCD the losers are tormented.

At Alpha Academy, they're sent home.

Skye Hamilton has scored an invitation to the ultra-exclusive Alphas --- only boarding school where beta is spelled LBR. What happens when the country's best, brightest, and hawtest begin clawing and scratching their way to the top?
- Click here to read our review of ALPHAS.

ANDROMEDA KLEIN by Frank Portman (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)
Andromeda Klein has a few problems.

Her hair is kind of horrible.

Her partner-in-occultism, Daisy, is dead.

Her secret, estranged, much older and forbidden boyfriend-in-theory, has gone AWOL.

And her mother has learned how to text.

In short, things couldn't get much worse. Until they do. Daisy seems to be attempting to make contact from beyond, books are starting to disappear from the library, and then, strangely and suddenly, Andromeda's tarot readings are beginning to predict events with bizarrely literal accuracy.

Omens are everywhere. Dreams; swords; fires; hidden cards; lost, broken, and dead cell phones . . . and what is Daisy trying to tell her?

In the ensuing struggle of neutral versus evil, it's Andromeda Klein against the world, modern society, demonic forces, and the "friends" of the library.
- Click here to read our review of ANDROMEDA KLEIN, and Frank Portman's guest blog.

ANOTHER FAUST by Daniel and Dina Nayeri (Candlewick)
One night, in cities all across Europe, five children vanish --- only to appear, years later, at an exclusive New York party with a strange and elegant governess. Rumor and mystery follow the Faust teenagers to the city’s most prestigious high school, where they soar to suspicious heights with the help of their benefactor’s extraordinary "gifts." But as the students claw their way up --- reading minds, erasing scenes, stopping time, stealing power, seducing with artificial beauty --- they start to suffer the side effects of their own addictions. And as they make further deals with the devil, they uncover secrets more shocking than their most unforgivable sins. At once chilling and wickedly satirical, this contemporary reimagining of the Faustian bargain is a compelling tale of ambition, consequences, and ultimate redemption.

AS YOU WISH by Jackson Pearce (HarperTeen)
Ever since Viola's boyfriend broke up with her, she has spent her days silently wishing --- to have someone love her again and, more importantly, to belong again --- until one day she inadvertently summons a young genie out of his world and into her own. He will remain until she makes three wishes.

Jinn is anxious to return home, but Viola is terrified of wishing, afraid she will not wish for the right thing, the thing that will make her truly happy. As the two spend time together, the lines between master and servant begin to blur, and soon Jinn can't deny that he's falling for Viola. But it's only after Viola makes her first wish that she realizes she's in love with Jinn as well . . . and that if she wishes twice more, he will disappear from her life --- and her world --- forever.

BLOOD PROMISE: Vampire Academy, Book 4 by Richelle Mead (Razorbill / Penguin)
How far will Rose go to keep her promise?

The recent Strigoi attack at St. Vladimir’s Academy was the deadliest ever in the school’s history, claiming the lives of Moroi students, teachers, and guardians alike. Even worse, the Strigoi took some of their victims with them. . . including Dimitri.

He’d rather die than be one of them, and now Rose must abandon her best friend, Lissa --- the one she has sworn to protect no matter what—and keep the promise Dimitri begged her to make long ago. But with everything at stake, how can she possibly destroy the person she loves most?

DIARY OF A WITNESS by Catherine Ryan Hyde (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
One day, something’s going to snap. . . .

Ernie doesn't have a lot of friends at school. Just Will. They have stuff in common --- like fishing. But more important, they have common enemies: the school jocks, who seem to find bullying just another sport.

For the most part, Ernie and Will take life at high school in stride. Until Will has one very bad day. Now nothing is remotely funny. Ernie finds himself a witness --- to loss, to humiliation, and to Will’s anger --- an anger that’s building each and every moment.

Ernie doesn’t want to believe his best friend is changing, but he can’t deny the truth. Soon he has a choice: join or die. Or can he find another way?

THE LAST APPRENTICE: CLASH OF THE DEMONS by Joseph Delaney (Greenwillow Books)
As the Spook's apprentice, Thomas Ward's first duty is to protect the County from ghosts, boggarts, and other dangerous creatures. But now his mother has come back from her homeland to seek his help. One of the most dangerous of the old witches, Ordeen, is about to return to earth, bringing with her suffering and devastation. Tom's mother has mustered a powerful army --- including Tom's friend Alice, the Pendle witches, and the assassin Grimalkin --- to confront Ordeen. If Tom joins them, the Spook will refuse to take Tom back as his apprentice. What sacrifices will be made in the battle against the dark?

LOVE IS THE HIGHER LAW by David Levithan (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
First there is a Before, and then there is an After....

The lives of three teens --- Claire, Jasper, and Peter --- are altered forever on September 11, 2001. Claire, a high school junior, has to get to her younger brother in his classroom. Jasper, a college sophomore from Brooklyn, wakes to his parents' frantic calls from Korea, wondering if he's okay. Peter, a classmate of Claire's, has to make his way back to school as everything happens around him.

Here are three teens whose intertwining lives are reshaped by this catastrophic event. As each gets to know the other, their moments become wound around each other's in a way that leads to new understandings, new friendships, and new levels of awareness for the world around them and the people close by.

David Levithan has written a novel of loss and grief, but also one of hope and redemption as his characters slowly learn to move forward in their lives, despite being changed forever.

POP by Gordon Korman (HarperTeen)
When Marcus moves to a new town in the dead of summer, he doesn't know a soul. While practicing football for impending tryouts, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with an older man. Charlie is a charismatic prankster—and the best football player Marcus has ever seen. He can't believe his good luck when he finds out that Charlie is actually Charlie Popovich, or "the King of Pop," as he had been nicknamed during his career as an NFL linebacker. But that's not all. There is a secret about Charlie that his family is desperate to hide.

When Marcus begins school, he meets the starting quarterback on the team: Troy Popovich. Right from the beginning, Marcus and Troy disagree—about football, about Troy's ex-girlfriend, Alyssa, but most of all about what's good for Charlie. Marcus is betting that he knows what's best for the King of Pop. And he is willing to risk everything to help his friend.

SENT by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Simon & Schuster)
"I think it's probably safe to say, given when you should have landed, that you're...um..."

"Tell me!"

"I think, right now, you're the king of England."

Thirteen-year-olds Jonah and Chip are reeling from the news that they're both missing children from history, kidnapped from their proper time period. Before they can fully absorb this revelation, a time purist named JB zaps Chip and another boy, Alex, back to the fifteenth century, where they supposedly belong. Determined not to lose their friends, Jonah and his sister, Katherine, grab Chip's arms just as he's being sent away. The result? Jonah and Katherine also end up in the fifteenth century, where they decidedly do not belong.

Chip's true identity is Edward V, king of England, and Alex is his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York. But Chip is convinced that his uncle, Richard of Gloucester, plans to kill them and seize the throne for himself.

JB promises that if the kids can "fix time," he will allow them to return to the present day. But how can they possibly return home safely when history claims that Chip and Alex were murdered?

In a riveting tale that climaxes on the battlefield at Bosworth, master storyteller Margaret Peterson Haddix brings readers back in time to an unforgettable moment in history and plunges them into the adventure of a lifetime.

SHOOTING STAR by Fredrick McKissack Jr. (Atheneum/Simon & Schuster)
Jomo Rodgers finished his first year on varsity hearing "if onlys," as in, if only he were bigger.

His talent on the field is easy to spot, and local papers and college recruiters are taking notice. But with his best friend on speed dial for recruiters at big-time college programs, and treated like a king at football-crazy Cranmer Academy, Jomo decides he wants to be more than merely good, he wants to be the real deal...now.

Taking his coach's lecture about commitment to heart, Jomo plunges into a new workout regimen that will make him stronger and faster. But is that enough? A little juice --- as in steroids --- might be the difference between being good and being great. It's an easy choice...that is about to make his life a whole lot harder.

TOMBSTONE TEA by Joanne Dahme (Running Press Kids)
In order to be accepted by the “in crowd” at her new high school, Jamie accepts a dare to spend one night in a local cemetery collecting rubbings from ten gravestones. Once inside the gate of the dark and frightening burial ground, Jamie meets Paul, a handsome boy who works as a caretaker at the cemetery. Paul explains to Jamie about Tombstone Tea: a fund-raising performance in which actors impersonate the people buried in the cemetery. The actors are supposedly rehearsing on this particular evening, but Jamie quickly discovers that they aren’t actors at all but the ghosts of men and women buried in the cemetery. When one woman decides to adopt Jamie to replace her lost daughter, our heroine fears she may never escape the cemetery.
- Click here to read our review of TOMBSTONE TEA.

TRICKS by Ellen Hopkins (Margaret K. McElderry/Simon & Schuster)
Five teenagers from different parts of the country. Three girls. Two guys. Four straight. One gay. Some rich. Some poor. Some from great families. Some with no one at all. All living their lives as best they can, but all searching...for freedom, safety, community, family, love. What they don't expect, though, is all that can happen when those powerful little words "I love you" are said for all the wrong reasons.

Five moving stories remain separate at first, then interweave to tell a larger, powerful story --- a story about making choices, taking leaps of faith, falling down, and growing up. A story about kids figuring out what sex and love are all about, at all costs, while asking themselves, "Can I ever feel okay about myself?"


Paperback

THE DISREPUTABLE HISTORY OF FRANKIE LANDAU-BANKS by E. Lockhart (Hyperion Books for Children)
Frankie Landau-Banks at age 14:
Debate Club.
Her father's "bunny rabbit."
A mildly geeky girl attending a highly competitive boarding school.

Frankie Landau-Banks at age 15:
A knockout figure.
A sharp tongue.
A chip on her shoulder.
And a gorgeous new senior boyfriend: the supremely goofy, word-obsessed Matthew Livingston.

Frankie Landau-Banks.
No longer the kind of girl to take "no" for an answer.
Especially when "no" means she's excluded from her boyfriend's all-male secret society.
Not when her ex-boyfriend shows up in the strangest of places.
Not when she knows she's smarter than any of them.
When she knows Matthew's lying to her.
And when there are so many, many pranks to be done.

Frankie Landau-Banks, at age 16:
Possibly a criminal mastermind.
This is the story of how she got that way.
- Click here to read our review and an excerpt of THE DISREPUTABLE HISTORY OF FRANKIE LANDAU BANKS.

JET SET by Carrie Karasyov and Jill Kargman (HarperTeen)
I'm Lucy Peterson, and let me tell you --- I don't fit in at my new boarding school in Switzerland at all. Caviar at every meal, white-tie affairs (because black-tie is so last season), trips to Geneva to pick up the latest couture, and real live royals lurking around every corner? None of that is really my speed. I'm just your average American teen, here on scholarship, ready to kick some academic and tennis butt so I can have my pick of Ivy League colleges.

Only now I'm falling all over myself to impress my crush, who just happens to be a prince, I've gotten myself tangled up in a tabloid disaster --- literally --- and the "It" clique on campus has decided that I am worthy of their evil scorn. What have I gotten myself into?

KINGDOM KEEPERS II: DISNEY AT DAWN by Ridley Pearson (Disney – Hyperion)
It's supposed to be a happy day at the Magic Kingdom --- the return of the teenaged holographic hosts. But things go very wrong when a sudden lightning storm disrupts the celebration, and Amanda's mysterious sister, Jez, disappears. The only clue is the sighting of a wild monkey in the Magic Kingdom during the storm.
- Click here to read our review and an excerpt of DISNEY AT DAWN.

THE LAND OF THE SILVER APPLES by Nancy Farmer (Atheneum)
THE LAND OF THE SILVER APPLES, Nancy Farmer's sequel to THE SEA OF TROLLS, continues the adventures of Jack, an apprentice bard and his companions as they travel underground to the Hollow Road in search of the faerie realm.
- Click here to read our review of THE LAND OF SILVER APPLES.

SPIRIT by J. P Hightman (HarperTeen)
Seventeen-year-old ghost hunters Tess and Tobias spend their days and nights searching for the paranormal in the cold, dark heart of the Victorian era --- an age of black clothes and black moods. Their latest investigation has them seeking the truth about a couple that was murdered two centuries earlier during the Salem witch trials. But in all their adventures, Tess and Tobias have never before encountered a force as evil as the one that awaits them in Salem. . . .

UP ALL NIGHT by Peter Abrahams, Libby Bray, David Levithan,
Patricia McCormick, Sarah Weeks, Gene Luen Yang, and Ariel Pollak (HarperTeen)
Six great writers equal six fantastic short stories in this flawless collection of tales dealing with encounters of the world of sleepless nights. Each story has a different twist for situations that people experience as they skip sleep and struggle through the night.
- Click here to read our review of UP ALL NIGHT.

New Releases for August 26th

Paperback

THE DEBS by Susan McBride (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)
LAURA DELACROIX BELL --- this dazzling trust fund girl’s size 14 figure doesn’t stop her from attracting the sexiest scoundrel in town, or the admiring eye of the Glass Slipper Club. However, a salacious secret could take her out of the running.

Michelle “Mac” Mackenzie --- brainy, cynical, and maybe a tad judgmental, Mac would rather bury her nose in a good book than embrace her deb destiny. But being a debutante was her late mother’s dream.

Ginger Fore --- this adorable tree-hugger wants to wear her grandmother’s vintage ball gown instead of splurging on an expensive dress. Yet when she gets tangled up with an older guy, Ginger will have plenty more to think about.

Jo-Lynn Bidwill --- a former child beauty queen, Jo-Lynn is a bitchy vamp who makes it her mission in life to take out the debu-trash. And Jo-Lynn’s sights are set on Laura Bell.