New books for young readers

New Books - Jan 14

We just got in this super shipment for our younger readers. Whether your kids are into mysteries, fantasy, humour or uplifting stories, we’ve got something for them to enjoy!

– “Dead Man’s Switch” by Sigmund Brouwer
Sigmund Brouwer, with nearly three million books in print, will have thrill seekers of all ages on the edge of their seats with this captivating young adult novel.

When a teen boy receives a written warning from his friend to avoid his church and leave his remote island town immediately, he’s terrified–his friend died weeks ago!

He knows danger is up ahead when he realizes that his friend’s dead man’s switch computer program has been activated. Unsure who to trust, he sets out alone to unravel a dark conspiracy. Soon, the seeker soon becomes the hunted in an unknown wilderness. The only hope for escape is a trigger-happy hermit–a man with his own secrets to hide.

Fiction fans who love a great mystery and the quest for justice will talk about and think about this book long after the last chapter is read.

– “Striker” by David Sku
Thirteen-year-old Cody is aching to get back onto the pitch. Last year he had a tumor removed from his leg. Though it’s a struggle, Cody tries out for the Lions and makes the team as a “super sub” — one of eleven players who jokingly named themselves that because they’re never allowed to play. Secretly Cody is relieved, since he hasn’t told anyone on the team that he had cancer. But then there’s a shakeup in team management and suddenly Cody and the super subs are the only players left. Cody has no choice now but to play, even if his leg does begin to hurt. At an end-of-season tournament it becomes clear that he and another player, Paulo, are close to being the perfect scoring duo. Without being aware of it, Cody has been holding himself back, striking with his left leg instead of his right. When he finally comes clean to his teammates about his disease and injury from the year before, they encourage him to trust his leg and his skill.

– “The Creature Department” by Robert Paul Weston
A hidden laboratory…

A brilliant invention…

A team of quite unusual creatures…

But can they save the department?

Elliot Von Doppler and his friend Leslie think nothing ever happens in Bickleburgh, except inside the gleaming headquarters of DENKi-3000—the world’s fifth-largest electronics factory.

Beneath the glass towers and glittering skywalks, there’s a rambling old mansion from which all the company’s amazing inventions spring forth. And no one except Uncle Archie knows what’s behind the second-to-last door at the end of the hall.

Until Elliot and Leslie are invited to take a glimpse inside.

They find stooped, troll-like creatures with jutting jaws and broken teeth; tiny winged things that sparkle as they fly; and huge, hulking, hairy nonhumans (with horns). It is unlike anything they’ve ever seen!

But when Chuck Brickweather threatens to shut down the DENKi-3000 factory if a new product isn’t presented soon, the creatures know they are in danger. And when Uncle Archie vanishes, it’s up to Elliot, Leslie, and every one of the unusual, er, “employees” to create an invention so astonishing it will save The Creature Department.

– “The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden” by Philippa Dowding
This morning, I woke up on the ceiling … So begins the strange story of Gwendolyn Golden. One perfectly ordinary day for no apparent reason, she wakes up floating around her room like one of her little brother’s Batman balloons.

Puberty is weird enough. Everyone already thinks she’s an oddball with anger issues because her father vanished in a mysterious storm one night when she was six. Then there are the mean, false rumours people are spreading about her at school. On top of all that, now she’s a flying freak.

How can she tell her best friend or her mother? How can she live her life? After Gwendolyn almost meets disaster flying too high and too fast one night, help arrives from the most unexpected place. And stranger still? She’s not alone.

– “Sisters” by Raina Telgemeier
The companion to Raina Telgemeier’s #1 New York Times bestselling and Eisner Award-winning graphic memoir, Smile.

Raina can’t wait to be a big sister. But once Amara is born, things aren’t quite how she expected them to be. Amara is cute, but she’s also a cranky, grouchy baby, and mostly prefers to play by herself. Their relationship doesn’t improve much over the years, but when a baby brother enters the picture and later, something doesn’t seem right between their parents, they realize they must figure out how to get along. They are sisters, after all.

Raina uses her signature humor and charm in both present-day narrative and perfectly placed flashbacks to tell the story of her relationship with her sister, which unfolds during the course of a road trip from their home in San Francisco to a family reunion in Colorado.

– “The Night Gardener” by Jonathan Auxier
This much-anticipated follow-up to Jonathan Auxier’s exceptional debut, Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, is a Victorian ghost story with shades of Washington Irving and Henry James. More than just a spooky tale, it’s also a moral fable about human greed and the power of storytelling.

The Night Gardener follows two abandoned Irish siblings who travel to work as servants at a creepy, crumbling English manor house. But the house and its family are not quite what they seem. Soon the children are confronted by a mysterious spectre and an ancient curse that threatens their very lives. With Auxier’s exquisite command of language, The Night Gardener is a mesmerizing read and a classic in the making.

– “The Comic Book War” by Jacqueline Guest
It’s 1943 when Robert Tourond sees a meteorite fall to earth and is convinced something supernatural has happened–in his comic books, all his heroes have meteorites in their story lines. He sees more proof of a cosmic connection when the story lines mirror what is happening to his brothers, who are fighting overseas.

Robert knows that each superhero is a guardian to one of his brothers, and this mystical protection will only work if he continues to buy each edition of the comic. He is frantic to find a way to ensure that the comic-book connection continues, and more frantic still when one of his comic-book heroes is shot down.

Luckily, with the help of the French Resistance, that hero manages to get back to England, so when a telegram arrives at Robert’s house with news that his brother George has been shot down over France, Robert’s not worried. But lives may be changed forever, and Robert may be forced to face the future with hard evidence about the comic-book connection. Robert has to question if he can still believe in his comic-book war.

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