Adventurous Readers Club

June 2013 Selection: Two tantalizing tales, magically intertwined, cross cultures and span centuries as three kids set out to save the lives of three others--who just happen to live in the Middle Ages!

A stone lion roars....

A sleek black cat speaks....

A faun leaps from the canvas of a painting....

When Jared, Shireen, and Miranda are each given one glittering gift from an old Venetian shopkeeper, they never fathom the powers they are now able to unleash; they never expect that their very reality is about to be utterly upended. And the adventure has hardly begun.

For in another time, centuries earlier, another trio--Rashid, Maria, and Francesca--have been thrown together under terrible circumstances: They have been kidnapped and, along with hundreds of other children, will be sold into child slavery. Unless, that is, they can find some way to save them all.

But all their fates lie in the hands of Jared, Shireen, and Miranda. The future--and the lives--of these three very modern children become entirely intertwined with those of the children from the past. Danger, it seems, has a way of spanning centuries.

April 2013 Selection:

In the Urwald, you don't step off the path. Trolls, werewolves, and butter churn-riding witches lurk amid the clawing branches, eager to swoop up the unwary. Jinx has always feared leaving the path--then he meets the wizard Simon Magus.

Jinx knows that wizards are evil. But Simon's kitchen is cozy, and he seems cranky rather than wicked. Staying with him appears to be Jinx's safest, and perhaps only, option. As Jinx's curiosity about magic grows, he learns to listen to the trees as closely as he does to Simon's unusual visitors. The more Jinx discovers, the more determined he becomes to explore beyond the security of well-trodden paths.

But in the Urwald, a little healthy fear is never out of place, for magic--and magicians--can be as dangerous as the forest. And soon Jinx must decide which is the greater threat.

Sage Blackwood introduces a daring new hero for an innovative new world as Jinx is joined by friends, battles enemies, and discovers that life beyond--and even within--the forest is more complex than he can imagine, and that the Urwald itself needs him more than he could ever guess.

January 2013 Selection:

One night when Liza went to bed, Patrick was her chubby, stubby, candy-grubbing and pancake-loving younger brother, who irritated and amused her both, and the next morning, when she woke up, he was not. In fact, he was quite, quite different.

When Liza's brother, Patrick, changes overnight, Liza knows exactly what has happened: The spindlers have gotten to him and stolen his soul.

She knows, too, that she is the only one who can save him.

To rescue Patrick, Liza must go Below, armed with little more than her wits and a broom. There, she uncovers a vast world populated with talking rats, music-loving moles, greedy troglods, and overexcitable nids . . . as well as terrible dangers. But she will face her greatest challenge at the spindlers' nests, where she encounters the evil queen and must pass a series of deadly tests--or else her soul, too, will remain Below forever.

September 2012 Selection: It's tough to be thirteen, especially when somebody's trying to kill you.
Not that Egg's life was ever easy, growing up on sweaty, pirate-infested Deadweather Island with no company except an incompetent tutor and a pair of unusually violent siblings who hate his guts.
But when Egg's father hustles their family off on a mysterious errand to fabulously wealthy Sunrise Island, then disappears with the siblings in a freak accident, Egg finds himself a long-term guest at the mansion of the glamorous Pembroke family and their beautiful, sharp-tongued daughter Millicent. Finally, life seems perfect.
Until someone tries to throw him off a cliff.
Suddenly, Egg's running for his life in a bewildering world of cutthroat pirates, villainous businessmen, and strange Native legends. The only people who can help him sort out the mystery of why he's been marked for death are Millicent and a one-handed, possibly deranged cabin boy.
Come along for the ride. You'll be glad you did.

June 2012 Pick: Prince Liam. Prince Frederic. Prince Duncan. Prince Gustav. You've never heard of them, have you? These are the princes who saved Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, and Rapunzel, respectively, and yet, thanks to those lousy bards who wrote the tales, you likely know them only as Prince Charming. But all of this is about to change. Rejected by their princesses and cast out of their castles, Liam, Frederic, Duncan, and Gustav stumble upon an evil plot that could endanger each of their kingdoms. Now it's up to them to triumph over their various shortcomings, take on trolls, bandits, dragons, witches, and other assorted terrors, and become the heroes no one ever thought they could be.

April 2012 Pick: The acclaimed, Edgar Award-winning author of "Down the Rabbit Hole" launches a new series for middle graders. After getting a strange charm bracelet from a homeless woman, 13-year-old Robyn Forester and new friends join together to fight injustice in their Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood.

February 2012 Pick: Raised to be a thief, blind 10-year-old orphan Peter Nimble steals from a mysterious stranger three pairs of magical eyes that lead him to a hidden island where he must decide to become a hero or resume his life of crime.

October 2011 Pick: Born half-grown in a world that is being destroyed, Fisher--the last boy on Earth--has instinctive knowledge of many things, including that he must avoid the robot that knows his name.