Material appropriate for young adults
It looks like a bear, but isn’t one. It climbs trees as easily as a monkey—but isn’t a monkey, either. It has a belly pocket like a kangaroo,but what’s a kangaroo doing up a tree? Meet the amazing Matschie’s tree kangaroo, who makes its home in the ancient trees of Papua New Guinea’s cloud forest. Scientists in the Field.
Charlie’s father is dead, and although his mother insists he stay in school, Charlie has no patience for the classroom. All he wants is to make money, to give his mother and baby brother a better life. So when he catches the eye of Squizzy Taylor, a notorious mobster, and is offered a job as Squizzy’s courier, it doesn’t take Charlie long to accept—even if he has to go against his own mother’s wishes. At first, the job’s a thrill—running with messages, illegal liquor, whatever Squizzy orders. It fills Charlie with power. But then come the not-so-savory parts of the job. Collecting Squizzy’s debts. Dodging Squizzy’s enemies. The very real dangers of the streets. And at some point Charlie has to ask himself—how long before running for a better life means cutting his life short?
Persephone Hadley is six months pregnant with a mixed-race baby.In their society this fact alone will threaten the child’s life every day. To make matters worse, the baby’s father, Callum, is dead. He was hanged for terrorism months ago, but his presence still torments Sephy. And she’s not alone. Callum’s brother, Jude, blames Sephy for the death, and thirsts for revenge in the form of her life. Obviously, Sephy is not fond of Jude, but when his actions take him to the brink of disaster, his life poised on a knife edge.
Cadel Piggott has a genius IQ and a fascination with systems of all kinds. At seven, he was illegally hacking into computers. Now he’s fourteen and studying for his World Domination degree, taking classes like embezzlement, misinformation, forgery, and infiltration at the institute founded by criminal mastermind Dr. Phineas Darkkon. Although Cadel may be advanced beyond his years, at heart he’s a lonely kid. When he falls for the mysterious and brilliant Kay-Lee, he begins to question the moral implications of his studies for the first time.
Satchel O’Rye, devoted son of an impoverished couple in a dying rural town, must weigh in balance the life of his most cherished dog and the freedom of a mysterious rare animal.
The setting is Sri Lanka, 1980, and it is the season of monsoons. Fourteen-year-old Amrith is caught up in the life of the cheerful, well-to-do household in which he is being raised by his vibrant Auntie Bundle and kindly Uncle Lucky. He tries not to think of his life “before,” when his doting mother was still alive. Amrith’s holiday plans seem unpromising: he wants to appear in his school’s production of Othello and he is learning to type at Uncle Lucky’s tropical fish business. Then, like an unexpected monsoon, his cousin arrives from Canada and Amrith’s ordered life is storm-tossed. He finds himself falling in love with the Canadian boy. Othello, with its powerful theme of disastrous jealousy, is the backdrop to the drama in which Amrith finds himself immersed.
Ben Arnold had hoped that exposing Mr. Dodds’s vile Pet Emporium — abusiness that stole magical creatures from Eidolon to sell to England’s rich and curious — would prevent the Secret Country from fading away into ruin. However, it soon becomes clear that the evil, dog-headed Dodman’s reign of terror has only just begun. Ben’s mother, Queen Isadora, returns to her homeland to lead its creatures against the Dodman. Unwilling to be left behind, Ben’s sister, Ellie, crosses into the Secret Country and walks straight into a trap. Ben and his father follow close behind, and soon the entire Arnold family is scattered across Eidolon’s magical and dangerous terrain. The Arnold children are destined to save the Secret Country, but first they must save each other.
Ireland, 1984. After Shell’s mother dies, her obsessively religious father descends into alcoholic mourning, and Shell is left to care for her younger brother and sister. Her only release from the harshness of everyday life comes from her budding spiritual friendship with a naive young priest, and most importantly, her developing relationship with childhood friend, Declan, who is charming, eloquent and persuasive. But when Declan suddenly leaves Ireland to seek his fortune in America, Shell finds herself pregnant and the center of a scandal that rocks the small community in which she lives, with repercussions across the whole country. The lives of those immediately around her will never be the same again.
When Giuliano’s father loans him the family garage, he and three of his friends form a band. Playing their battered secondhand instruments, the four teenagers find something they love to do, and they find in their friendship and music a refuge from difficult and turbulent home lives. But when their only amp blows a fuse, a desperate search for some new equipment lands them in more trouble than they ever saw coming. Graphic novels with stunning watercolors by the renowned Italian artist Gipi.
Seventeen-year-old Gem loves movies, her feminist mom, and Dodgy, her coworker in a video store (at least she thinks she loves Dodgy). When a school trip inspires Gem to make an underground film, her best friends Lo and Mira are quick to join the project, taking on the roles of producer and star. The film is intended to cement the girls’ friendship as well as their superiority over their sucker high school peers. But when the fragile balance of their friendship begins to falter, and intentions lead to betrayals big and small, it will take great movies, bad haiku, and a pantheon of great voices—from Dostoyevsky to Emerson to The Beatles—to help Gem find the meaning of love, friendship, and being true to herself.