New Books for the New Year

Looking for a good book to read? Here are some children's fiction titles on the Library's new book shelf that I recommend. Some are reviewed on our book review page and all of them are on my LibraryThing catalog.

Greetings from Nowhere by Barbara O'Connor

In North Carolina's Great Smoky Mountains, a troubled boy and his mother, a happy family seeking adventure, a man and his lonely daughter, and the widow who must sell the run-down motel that has been her home for decades, meet and are transformed by their shared experiences.

The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry

In this tongue-in-cheek take on classic themes in children's literature, the four Willoughby children set about to become "deserving orphans" after their neglectful parents embark on a treacherous around-the-world adventure, leaving them in the care of an odious nanny.

The Penderwicks on Gardham Street by Jeanne Birdsall

The four Penderwick sisters are faced with the unimaginable prospect of their widowed father dating, and they hatch a plot to stop him. This is a sequel - and the first one is fantastic, too!

Steel Trapp by Ridley Pearson

On a two-day train trip to enter his invention in the National Science Competition in Washington, D.C., fourteen-year-old Steven "Steel" Trapp, possessor of a remarkable photographic memory, becomes embroiled in an international plot of kidnapping and bribery that may have links to terrorists.

Swindle by Gordon Korman

After unscrupulous collector S. Wendell Palamino cons him out of a valuable baseball card, sixth-grader Griffin Bing puts together a band of misfits to break into Palomino's heavily guarded store and steal the card back, planning to use the money to finance his father's failing invention, the SmartPick fruit picker

Fearless by Elvira Woodruff

In late seventeenth-century England, eleven-year-old Digory, forced to leave his hometown after his father is lost at sea, becomes an apprentice to the architect Henry Winstanley, who built a lighthouse on the treacherous Eddystone Reef -- the very rocks that sank Digory's grandfather's ship years before




The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J. K. Rowling

Of course- how could we not include this one?!

The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a Wizarding classic, first came to Muggle readers' attention in the book known as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Now, thanks to Hermione Granger's new translation from the ancient runes, we present this stunning edition with an introduction, notes, and illustrations by J. K. Rowling, and extensive commentary by Albus Dumbledore. Never before have Muggles been privy to these richly imaginative tales.