Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

35th Anniversary Editon with new Text and a New Preface by the Author! Long ago, the Tripods -- huge, three-legged machines -- descended upon Earth and took control. Now people unquestioningly accept the Tripods' power. They have no control over their thoughts or their lives. But for a brief time in each persson's life -- in childhood -- he is not a slave. For Will his time of freedom is about to end --... (more)

Shoeless Joe

by W. A. Kinsella, Ray Kinsella, W. Kinsella

"If you build it, he will come." Them mysterious words of an Iowa baseball announcer lead Ray Kinsella to carve a baseball diamond in his cornfield in honor of his hero, the baseball legend Shoeless Joe Jackson. This is a book "not so much about baseball as it is about dreams, magic, life, and what is quintessentially American," said the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Eva

by Peter Dickinson

The picnic on the beach is Eva's last memory. As she lies in the hospital bed while her mother explains about the accident and the coma, Eva senses there is something they are not telling her--a price she must pay to be alive.20,000 print.

Killing Mr. Griffin (Laurel Leaf Books)

by Lois Duncan

A group of students kidnap their teacher to "teach him a lesson," but their plans go awry when he dies, leaving them in a morass of lies and guilt.

Blackbird House

by Alice Hoffman

With “incantatory prose” that “sweeps over the reader like a dream,” ( Philadelphia Inquirer) , Hoffman follows her celebrated bestseller The Probable Future , with an evocative work that traces the lives of the various occupants of an old Massachusetts house over a span of two hundred years. In a rare and gorgeous departure, beloved novelist Alice Hoffman weaves a web of tales, all set in Blackbird House. This... (more)

The Night Country

by Stewart O'Nan

One year following their deaths in a late-night car accident, teenagers Danielle, Marco, and Christopher return, in spirit, to the sleepy New England suburb of Avon. Over the course of the evening, the three will drift into and out of the lives of those who knew and were affected by them. None is more affected than Tim, survivor of the crash, who plots a grisly act of remembrance, and Brooks, the well-intentioned... (more)

The Body of Christopher Creed

by Carol Plum-Ucci

Torey Adams, a high school junior with a seemingly perfect life, struggles with doubts and questions surrounding the mysterious disappearance of the class outcast.

Here in Harlem: Poems in Many Voices (Bank Street College of Education Claudia Lewis Award (Awards))

Here in Harlem: Poems in Many Voices (Bank Street College of Education Claudia Lewis Award (Awards))

by Walter Dean Myers

These fifty-four poems, all in different voices but written by one hand, do sing. They make a joyful noise as the author honors the people-the nurses, students, soldiers, and ministers-of his beloved hometown, Harlem. Worship with Deacon Allen, who loves "a shouting church," and study with Lois Smith, who wants "a school named after me." Don't get taken by Sweet Sam DuPree, who "conned a shark right outta his... (more)

Touching Spirit Bear (rack)

by Ben Mikaelsen

Will the attack of the Spirit Bear destroy Cole's life or save his soul? Cole Matthews has been fighting, stealing, and raising hell for years. So his punishment for beating Peter Driscal senseless is harsh. Given a choice between prison and Native American Circle Justice, Cole chooses Circle Justice: He'll spend one year in complete isolation on a remote Alaskan island. In the first days of his banishment, Cole... (more)

House of Stairs

by William Sleator

One by one, five sixteen-year-old orphans are brought to a strange building. It is not a prison, not a hospital; it has no walls, no ceiling, no floor. Nothing but endless flights of stairs leading nowhere —except back to a strange red machine. The five must learn to love the machine and let it rule their lives. But will they let it kill their souls? This chilling, suspenseful indictment of mind control... (more)

Z For Zachariah

by Robert C. O'Brien

A gripping, thought-provoking story about life after a nuclear holocaust, by a Newbery Medalist.

Imani All Mine

by Connie Rose Porter

"With authority and grace" (Essence), Imani All Mine tells the story of Tasha, a fourteen-year-old unwed mother of a baby girl. In her ghettoized world where poverty, racism, and danger are daily struggles, Tasha uses her savvy and humor to uncover the good hidden around her. The name she gives her daughter, Imani, is a sign of her determination and fundamental trust despite the odds against her: Imani means... (more)

Borrowed Finery: A Memoir

by Paula Fox

Born in the 1920s to nomadic, bohemian parents, Paula Fox is left at birth in a Manhattan orphanage, then cared for by a poor yet cultivated minister in upstate New York. Her parents, however, soon resurface. Her handsome father is a hard-drinking screenwriter who is, for young Paula, "part ally, part betrayer." Her mother is given to icy bursts of temper that punctuate a deep indifference. Never sharing more than... (more)

The Moves Make the Man (rpkg) (HarperClassics)

The Moves Make the Man (rpkg) (HarperClassics)

by Bruce Brooks

Reverse spin, triple pump, reverse dribble, stutter step with twist to the left, stutter into jumper, blind pass. These are me. The moves make the man.The moves make me. Jerome foxworthy -- the Jayfox to his friends -- likes to think he can handle anything. He handled growing up without a father. He handled being the first black kid in school. And he sure can handle a basketball. Then Jerome meets bix Rivers --... (more)

Cajas De Carton (Nuestra Vision)

by Francisco Jime?nez

"'La frontera'...I heard it for the first time back in the late 1940s when Papa and Mama told me and Roberto, my older brother, that someday we would take a long trip north, cross la frontera, enter California, and leave our poverty behind." So begins this honest and powerful account of a family's journey to the fields of California -- to a life of constant moving, from strawberry fields to cotton fields, from... (more)

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Private Peaceful (After Words)

by Michael Morpurgo

As the enemy lurks in the darkness, Thomas struggles to stay awake through the night. He has lived through the terror of gas attacks and watched friends die by his side. But in the morning, Thomas will be forced to confront an even greater horror. As the minutes tick by, Thomas remembers his childhood spent deep in the countryside with his mother, his brothers, and Molly, the love of his life. But each... (more)

An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio

An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio

by Judith Ortiz Cofer

A collection of stories captures the lives of different teenagers growing up in the barrio, including Rita, who goes to live with her grandparents in Puerto Rico; Luis, who spends his days working at his father's junkyard; and Sandra, who tries to rediscover her natural Latino beauty. Reprint. PW. AB. SLJ.

The Agony of Alice

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Alice McKinley is about to become a teenager, but she doesn't know how. Her mother has been dead for years, and what do her father and her nineteen-year-old brother, Lester, know about being a teenage girl? If only she had a role model, like the beautiful sixth-grade teacher Miss Cole. But instead Alice gets assigned to plain, pear-shaped Mrs. Plotkin's class. Is Alice doomed to a life of one embarrassment... (more)

Child of the Owl: Golden Mountain Chronicles: 1965 (Golden Mountain Chronicles)

Child of the Owl: Golden Mountain Chronicles: 1965 (Golden Mountain Chronicles)

by Laurence Yep

Twelve-year-old Casey is waiting for the day that Barney, her father, hits it big -- 'cause when that horse comes in, he tells her, it's the penthouse suite. But then hr ends up in the hospital, and Casey is sent to Chinatown to live with her grandmother, Paw-Paw. Now the waiting seems longer than ever. Casey feels lost in Chinatown. She's not prepared for the Chinese school, the noisy crowds, missing her father.... (more)

After the Rain

by Norma Fox Mazer

At fifteen, Rachel is a worrier. She worries about whether her family understands her, whether her friends like her, and whether she'll get her first kiss before she turns sixteen. And she worries about whether she can handlehaving a real boyfriend if he does come along. But it takes a dying old man -- her grandfather -- who has never been easy for anyone to handle, to show Rachel she has very special... (more)

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