Not Your Teacher's Reading List! discussed on June 2nd

Jin Wang starts at a new school where he's the only Chinese-American student. When a boy from Taiwan joins his class, Jin doesn't want to be associated with an FOB like him. Jin just wants to be an all-American boy, because he's in love with an all-American girl. Danny is an all-American boy: great at basketball, popular with the girls. But his obnoxious Chinese cousin Chin-Kee's annual visit is such a disaster that it ruins Danny's reputation at school, leaving him with no choice but to transfer somewhere he can start all over again. The Monkey King has lived for thousands of years and mastered the arts of kung fu and the heavenly disciplines. He's ready to join the ranks of the immortal gods in heaven. But there's no place in heaven for a monkey. Each of these characters cannot help himself alone, but how can they possibly help each other? They're going to have to find a way - if they want fix the disasters their lives have become. Recommended Reading Level Minimum Age: 12 Maximum Age: UP Minimum Grade Level: 7th Grade Maximum Grade Level: Up

It all starts with a school essay. When twelve-year-old Gratuity ("Tip") Tucci is assigned to write five pages on "The True Meaning of Smekday" for the National Time Capsule contest, she's not sure where to begin. When her mom started telling everyone about the messages aliens were sending through a mole on the back of her neck - Maybe on Christmas Eve, when huge, bizarre spaceships descended on the Earth and the aliens - called Boov - abducted her mother - Or when the Boov declared Earth a colony, renamed it "Smekland" (in honor of glorious Captain Smek), and forced all Americans to relocate to Florida via rocketpod - In any case, Gratuity's story is much, much bigger than the assignment. It involves her unlikely friendship with a renegade Boov mechanic named J.Lo.; a futile journey south to find Gratuity?s mother at the Happy Mouse Kingdom; a cross-country road trip in a hovercar called Slushious; and an outrageous plan to save the Earth from yet another alien invasion. Fully illustrated with photos, drawings, newspaper clippings, and comics sequences, this is a hilarious, perceptive, genre-bending novel by a remarkable new talent. Recommended Reading Level Minimum Age: 8 Maximum Age: 12 Minimum Grade Level: 3rd Grade Maximum Grade Level: 7th Grade

Juniper Berry's parents are the most beloved actor and actress in the world - but Juniper can't help but feel they haven't been quite right lately. And she and her friend Giles are determined to find out why. On a cold and rainy night, Juniper follows her parents as they sneak out of the house and enter the woods. What she discovers is an underworld filled with contradictions: one that is terrifying and enticing, lorded over by a creature both sinister and seductive, who can sell you all the world's secrets bound in a balloon. For the first time, Juniper and Giles have a choice to make. And it will be up to them to confront their own fears in order to save the ones who couldn't. M.P. Kozlowsky's debut is a modern-day fairy tale of terror, temptation, and ways in which it is our choices that make us who we are. Recommended Reading Level Minimum Age: 8 Maximum Age: 12 Minimum Grade Level: 3rd Grade Maximum Grade Level: 7th Grade

Per Kate Brasch, our children's and young adult backlist buyer: This is Agassi's own coming-of-age story and it is filled with lots of tennis (lots, I said) but also lots of celebrity, hard work, parental pushing and fast living; yet it is surprisingly funny and tender. He lays it all out there with the help of J.R. Moehringer of Tender Bar fame, and so we see a child who hit 2500 tennis balls a day, a teen who went to a famous tennis academy but never graduated from high school, a tennis STAR, and an adult finding his way through marriages, friends, coaches and finally as a parent with his own causes. A marvelous read for all ages.