It’s a hot, hot summer, and in the depths of the Toronto Transit Authority’s Lost and Found, 17-year-old Duncan is cataloging lost things and sifting through accumulated junk.  Duncan’s just about had enough when he finds a little leather book, a diary filled with the dark and dirty secrets of a twisted mind, a serial killer stalking his prey in the subway. And Duncan can’t make himself stop reading. What would you do with a book like that? How far would you go to catch a madman? And what if time was running out. . . .

The first book in a new epic trilogy this book has already become a bestselling sensation in England and Australia, earning comparisons to The Lord of the Rings. It begins with the legend of a nightingale floor in a black-walled fortress-a floor that sings in alarm at the step of an assassin. It will take true courage and all the skills of an ancient Tribe for one orphaned youth named Takeo to discover the magical destiny that awaits him...across the nightingale floor.

Samantha Madison IS IN DEEP TROUBLE: She's in love with her big sister's boyfriend. She got caught selling celebrity portraits in school, and now she's being forced to take art classes. She's just saved the president of the United States from an assassination attempt, so the whole world thinks she is a hero. And now she's been appointed teen ambassador to the UN. Plus, the president's son just might be in love with her.

The Amazing Maurice runs the perfect Pied Piper scam. This streetwise alley cat knows the value of cold, hard cash and can talk his way into and out of anything. But when Maurice and his cohorts decide to con the town of Bad Blinitz, it will take more than fast talking to survive the danger that awaits. For this is a town where food is scarce and rats are hated, where cellars are lined with deadly traps, and where a terrifying evil lurks beneath the hunger-stricken streets.... Set in Terry Pratchett's widely popular Discworld, this masterfully crafted, gripping read is both compelling and funny. When one of the world's most acclaimed fantasy writers turns a classic fairy tale on its head, no one will ever look at the Pied Piper -- or rats -- the same way again!

Eight miles from his truck, in a deep and narrow slot canyon, Aron was climbing down off a wedged boulder when the rock suddenly, and terrifyingly, came loose. Before he could get out of the way, the falling stone pinned his right hand and wrist against the canyon wall.With scant water and little food, no jacket for the painfully cold nights, and the terrible knowledge that he'd told no one where he was headed, he found himself facing a lingering death -- trapped by an 800-pound boulder 100 feet down in the bottom of a canyon. As he eliminated his escape options one by one through the days, Aron faced the full horror of his predicament: By the time any possible search and rescue effort would begin, he'd most probably have died of dehydration, if a flash flood didn't drown him before that. What does one do in the face of almost certain death?

It takes three things to become a knight: a warhorse, a fair maiden, and a just cause.  Will has a blood red horse named Hosanna; Ellie is a fair maiden; and King Richard is calling for a Crusade to the Holy Land.  Will and his brother Gavin will go.  Blood will be shed.  Lives will be taken. But through it all, two things remain constant: Ellie, and a blood-red horse called Hosanna . . .a mystical adventure sure to please! 

He was 14 years old when he set himself on fire. This is a true story. Runyon takes the reader through that devastating suicide attempt, and he takes us into his own mind. He shares his thoughts and hopes and fears with such unflinching honesty that we understand--with a terrible clarity--what it means to want to kill yourself and how it feels to struggle back toward normality. Intense, exposed, insightful, The Burn Journals is a deeply personal story with universal reach. It is impossible to look away. Impossible to remain unmoved. This is a truly riveting memoir.

Meet Dexter Morgan: He’s handsome and charming, but something in his past has made him abide by a different set of rules. He’s a serial killer whose one golden rule makes him immensely likeable: he only kills bad people. And his job as a blood splatter expert for the Miami police department puts him in the perfect position to identify his victims. But when a series of brutal murders bearing a striking similarity to his own style start turning up, Dexter is caught between being flattered and being frightened–of himself or some other fiend.

Rosalind had two mommies. Now, thanks to a tragic accident involving foodstuffs, she has none. And Sean, the sperm donor responsible for half her DNA (and nothing else), is taking custody.  Told entirely through e-mail, instant messaging, journal entries, and other random communications, Donorboy is the comic, compellingly readable novel of how these two people learn to converse, cook, write heavy-metal songs, and nail windows shut on their way to becoming a family.

Edinburgh, 1822. Young Robbie is just eight years old when he witnesses his mother’s agonizing pain and then death from the removal of a breast tumor during public surgery at the hands of one savage surgeon, Dr. Knox. The sounds of his mother’s piercing cries haunt Robbie as he and his hapless father and baby sister try to go on. Fueled by anger and grief, the teenaged Robbie seems to be heading for a life on the wrong side of the law when he helps the men providing “the butcher Knox” with dead bodies for his medical research.Perhaps there will be a way to give some meaning to his mother’s tragic death after all.

Fed up with his parents' boring old religion, agnostic-going-on-atheist Jason Bock invents a new god -- the town's water tower. He recruits an unlikely group of worshippers: his snail-farming best friend, Shin, cute-as-a-button (whatever that means) Magda Price, and the violent and unpredictable Henry Stagg. As their religion grows, it takes on a life of its own. When the Chutengodians hold their first ceremony high atop the dome of the water tower, things quickly go from merely dangerous to terrifying and deadly. Jason soon realizes that inventing a religion is a lot easier than controlling it, but control it he must, before his creation destroys both his friends and himself.

It’s 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma’s reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she’s been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence’s most powerful girls—and their foray into the spiritual world—lead to?

Paulsen tells the real stories behind the Brian books: working as an emergency volunteer, the death that inspired the pilot's death in Hatchet, plane crashes he has seen and near-misses of his own, how he made his own bows and arrows, and his first hunting trips, including the night he attracted every mosquito in the county, or how he met the moose with a sense of humor, and the moose who made it personal. There's a handy chapter on "Eating Eyeballs and Guts or Starving: The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition." Recipes included.

Like the game of baseball, life is quirky and unpredictable, as Shane Hunter discovers in the spring of his sophomore year. Suddenly and without warning his life of privilege is turned upside down. And just as suddenly, life begins to seem utterly without fairness or purpose to him. Exciting, well-written sports scenes transport readers right into the stands while complex issues engage their hearts and minds. For here is a novel of loss, of morality, and of the rare, redemptive power of baseball. Can speaking the truth really determine lives? Just how does one accept, move on, and begin doing the right thing?

In the summer of 1971, Jack Gantos was looking for adventure, cash for college tuition, and a way out of a dead-end job. For ten thousand dollars, he recklessly agreed to help sail a sixty-foot yacht loaded with a ton of hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City, where he and his partners sold the drug until federal agents caught up with them. For his part in the conspiracy, Gantos was sentenced to serve up to six years in prison. In Hole in My Life, this prizewinning author of over thirty books for young people confronts the period of struggle and confinement that marked the end of his own youth

After Jude watches his drug-dealer father get gunned down at the kitchen table, he's taken from their dangerous neighborhood to a comfortable home, an elite private school, and a mother he doesn't remember. Only fifteen, Jude is under suspicion for his father's murder, but to save his own life, he can't tell the police what he knows. To make things worse, Jude's mother is the district attorney. She can protect him from the police -- but when Jude's classmate overdoses on heroin, Jude is implicated, and his mother decides to prosecute. Jude is determined to clear his name, though he doesn't know that mysteries from his past have yet to be revealed -- secrets that will forever alter the course of his life.

Lily has not seen her father for more than eight months. He was taken from her and her mother one night by the baron's men, forced against his will to leave England and to be part of a colony in the New World. And now Lily and her mother are in danger -- for the baron's men say they no longer have any right to their land. They also face persecution for being followers of Frere Lanther, a man who has been excommunicated by the church for wanting to purge it of its corrupt practices. Their one chance for safety and freedom is to take passage on the next ship out to the New World. Afraid her father is dead, hopeful that he might yet live, Lily and Frere Lanther persuade her mother to flee.

Fat, clumsy Simon Glass is a nerd, a loser who occupies the lowest rung on the high school social ladder. Everyone picks on him -- until Rob Haynes shows up. Rob, a transfer student with charisma to spare, immediately becomes the undisputed leader of the senior class. And he has plans for Simon. Rob enlists the help of his crew -- wealthy, intellectual Young, ladies' man Bob, and sweet, athletic Coop -- in a mission: Turn sniveling Simon from total freak to would-be prom king. But as Simon rises to the top of the social ranks, he shows a new confidence and a devious side that power-hungry Rob did not anticipate. And when Simon uncovers a dangerous secret, events darken. The result is disquieting, bone-chilling...and brutal.

"A young girl is perched on the cold chrome of yet another doctor’s examining table, missing yet another day of school. Just twelve, she’s tall, skinny, and weak. It’s four o’clock, and she hasn’t been allowed to eat anything all day. Her mother, on the other hand, seems curiously excited. She's about to suggest open-heart surgery on her child to 'get to the bottom of this.' She checks her teeth for lipstick and, as the doctor enters, shoots the girl a warning glance. This child will not ruin her plans."  A remarkable memoir of a horrifying sickness.

Carmen got the jeans at a thrift shop. They didn’t look all that great; they were worn, dirty, and speckled with bleach. On the night before she and her friends part for the summer, Carmen decides to toss them. But Tibby says they’re great. She’d love to have them. Lena and Bridget also think they’re fabulous. Lena decides they should all try them on. Whoever they fit best will get them. Nobody knows why, but the pants fit everyone perfectly. Even Carmen (who never thinks she looks good in anything), thinks she looks good in the pants. Over a few bags of cheese puffs they decide to form a sisterhood, and take the vow of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants . . . the next morning, they say good-bye. And now the journey of the pants–and the most memorable summer of their lives–begins.

The Winner!

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait to turn pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world -- and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

There is 'The Ugly One,' whose only solace comes when she is locked inside her own head. In 'Wanted: A Thug,' a teenager seeks advice on how to steal her best friend's bad-guy boyfriend. And then there's Erika, who only likes white boys. These 10 stories are humorous, provocative, and thought-provoking.

NOTE: All book descriptions are adapted from Amazon.com.