READERS CIRCLE BOOKS
COUNTING STARS
David Almond
0-440-41826-7
With stories that shimmer and vibrate in the bright heat of memory, David Almond creates a glowing mosaic of his life growing up in a large, loving Catholic family in northeastern England.
HEAVEN EYES
David Almond
0-440-22910-3
Erin Law and her friends in the orphanage are labeled Damaged Children. They run away one night, traveling downriver on a raft. What they find on their journey is stranger than you can imagine.
KIT’S WILDERNESS
David Almond
0-440-41605-1
Kit Watson and John Askew look for the childhood ghosts of their long-gone ancestors in the mines of Stoneygate.
SKELLIG
David Almond
0-440-22908-1
Michael feels helpless because of his baby sister’s illness, until he meets a creature called Skellig.
BEFORE WE WERE
FREE
Julia Alvarez
0-440-23784-X
Under a dictatorship in the Dominican Republic in 1960, young Anita lives through a fight for freedom that changes her world forever.
BECOMING MARY MEHAN: TWO
NOVELS
Jennifer Armstrong
0-440-22961-8
Set against the events of the American Civil War, The Dreams of Mairhe Mehan depicts an Irish immigrant girl and her family, struggling to find their place in the war-torn country.
Mary Mehan Awake takes up Mary’s story after the war, when she must begin a journey of renewal.
FORGOTTEN FIRE
Adam Bagdasarian
0-440-22917-0
In 1915, Vahan Kenderian is living a life of privilege when his world is shattered by the Turkish-Armenian war.
THE RAG AND BONE
SHOP
Robert Cormier
0-440-22971-5
A seven-year-old girl is brutally murdered. A twelve-year-old boy named Jason was the last person to see her alive—except, of course, for the killer. Unless Jason is the killer.
DR. FRANKLIN’S
ISLAND
Ann Halam
0-440-23781-5
A plane crash leaves Semi, Miranda, and Arnie stranded on a tropical island, totally alone. Or so they think. Dr. Franklin is a mad scientist who has set up his laboratory on the island, and the three teens are perfect subjects for his frightening experiments in genetic engineering.
WHEN ZACHARY BEAVER CAME TO
TOWN
Kimberly Willis Holt
0-440-23841-2
Toby’s small, sleepy Texas town is about to get a jolt with the arrival of Zachary Beaver, billed as the fattest boy in the world. Toby is in for a summer unlike any other—a summer sure to change his life.
THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE OF
LIARS
Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson
0-440-23852-8
Surrounded by superficiality, infidelity, and lies, Robin, a self-described chunk, isn’t sure what to make of her hunky neighbor’s sexual advances, or of the attention paid her by a new boy in town who seems to notice more than her body.
GHOST BOY
Iain Lawrence
0-440-41668-X
Fourteen-year-old Harold Kline is an albino—an outcast. When the circus comes to town, Harold runs off to join it in hopes of discovering who he is and what he wants in life. Is he a circus freak or just a normal guy?
LORD OF THE NUTCRACKER
MEN
Iain Lawrence
0-440-41812-7
In 1914, Johnny’s father leaves England to fight the Germans in France. With each carved wooden soldier he sends home, the brutality of war becomes more apparent. Soon Johnny fears that his war games foretell real battles and that he controls his father’s fate.
GATHERING BLUE
Lois Lowry
0-440-22949-9
Lamed and suddenly orphaned, Kira is mysteriously taken to live in the palatial Council Edifice, where she is expected to use her gifts as a weaver to do the bidding of the all-powerful Guardians.
THE GIVER
Lois Lowry
0-440-23768-8
Jonas’s world is perfect. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear or pain. There are no choices, until Jonas is given an opportunity that will change his world forever.
SHADES OF SIMON
GRAY
Joyce McDonald
0-440-22804-2
Simon is the ideal teenager—smart, reliable, hardworking, trustworthy. Or is he? After Simon’s car crashes into a tree and he slips into a coma, another portrait of him begins to emerge.
HARMONY
Rita Murphy
0-440-22923-5
Power is coursing through Harmony—the power to affect the universe with her energy. This is a frightening gift for a girl who has always hated being different, and Harmony must decide whether to hide her abilities or embrace the consequences—good and bad—of her full strength.
BOTH SIDES NOW
Ruth Pennebaker
0-440-22933-2
A compelling look at breast cancer through the eyes of a mother and daughter. Liza must learn a few life lessons from her mother, Rebecca, about the power of family.
HER FATHER’S
DAUGHTER
Mollie Poupeney
0-440-22879-4
As she matures from a feisty tomboy of seven to a spirited young woman of fourteen, Maggie discovers that the only constant in her life of endless new homes and new faces is her ever-emerging sense of herself.
THE BABOON KING
Anton Quintana
0-440-22907-3
Neither Morengáru’s father’s Masai tribe nor his mother’s Kikuyu tribe accepts him. Banished from both tribes, Morengáru encounters a baboon troop and faces a fight with the simian king.
HOLES
Louis Sachar
0-440-22859-X
Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys’ detention center, Camp Green Lake. But there’s more than character improvement going on at the camp—the warden is looking for something.
SHABANU: DAUGHTER OF THE
WIND
Suzanne Fisher Staples
0-440-23856-0
Life is both sweet and cruel to strong-willed young Shabanu, whose home is the windswept Cholistan Desert of Pakistan. She must reconcile her duty to her family and the stirrings of her own heart in this Newbery Honor–winning modern-day classic.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO
LARRY
Janet Tashjian
0-440-23792-0
Josh Swensen’s virtual alter ego, Larry, becomes a huge media sensation. While it seems as if the whole world is trying to figure out Larry’s true identity, Josh feels trapped inside his own creation.
MEMORIES OF
SUMMER
Ruth White
0-440-22921-9
In 1955, thirteen-year-old Lyric describes her older sister Summer’s descent into mental illness, telling Summer’s story with humor, courage, and love.