Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the Aurora, a huge airship that sails hundreds of feet above the ocean, ferrying wealthy passengers from city to city. It is the life Matt's always wanted; convinced he's lighter than air, he imagines himself as buoyant as the hydrium gas that powers his ship. One night he meets a dying balloonist who speaks of beautiful creatures drifting through the skies. It is only after Matt meets the balloonist's granddaughter that he realizes that the man's ravings may, in fact, have been true, and that the creatures are completely real and utterly mysterious.

A high school teacher hosts open-mike poetry in his classroom, and his students forge unexpected connections with one another. While studying the Harlem Renaissance, 18 students at a Bronx high school read aloud poems they've written, revealing their innermost thoughts and fears to their formerly clueless classmates.

Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father- the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.

Ben and his dog, Ned, are trapped aboard the "Flying Dutchman", cursed to sail the seas forever. Rescued by an angel, they set off on a journey of their own, exploring new places and times. They land in the Victorian village of Chapelvale. Ben and Ned, given the gift of speech and can read Ben's thoughts, figure out the clues and riddles they keep discovering, in order to save Chapelvale and its people.

When a book of unexplainable occurrences brings Petra Andalee and Calder Pillay together, strange things start to happen: Seemingly unrelated events connect, an eccentric old woman seeks their company, and an invaluable Vermeer painting disappears. Before they know it, the two find themselves at the center of an international art scandal, where no one -- neighbors, parents, teachers -- is spared from suspicion. As Petra and Calder are drawn clue by clue into a mysterious labyrinth, they must draw on their powers of intuition, their problem-solving skills, and their knowledge of Vermeer. Can they decipher a crime that has left even the FBI baffled?

Frances O’Roark Dowell Durham NC author

Since Tobin McCauley's mom death, his family has fallen apart. Nobody talks about grief at home, off a highway near Raleigh, North Carolina, where Tobin lives with his dad and his older, delinquent siblings. Granny is sometimes kind to Tobin, but she's always feuding with Dad. Then in seventh grade, Tobin meets Henry, who helps him raise chickens and supports him so he can stand up for himself. In Tobin’s life are adults; his kind decent teacher along with his flawed granny and dad, both of whom let Tobin down.

Esperanza Ortega lives in a beautiful home filled with servants and the promise of one day presiding over all of Rancho de las Rosas. But tragedy shatters that dream, forcing Esperanza and her mother to flee from Mexico and their life of privilege to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great Depression.

Two boys—both, eighth graders--forge a unique friendship when they pair up to create one formidable human force. A slow learner stuck in the body of a teenage giant, meet Maxwell Kane, narrator of Freak the Mighty. He’s a timid soul stuck in the body of a teenage giant with size 14 shoes. Haunted by a dark secret in his past, he hides out in his basement room, avoiding the world. Kevin, a tiny genius in leg braces from a birth defect, moves in next door and Max’s life changes forever. The two outcasts form the ‘normal’ world team up to become “Freak the Mighty.”

A chilling account of life in 2154, when most jobs are done by machines. Lisse and her friends are unemployable after graduation, but the government gives them an abandoned warehouse in a bleak neighborhood, in their "Designated Area“, to live in. Then the government invites them to play a game. Anxious to escape their dreary lives, the friends embrace "The Game", which takes them to paradise. But is this world real or is it only a computer simulation?

In trying to save his widowed mother from a horrendous second marriage, twelve-year-old Haoyou has life-changing experiences. The Great Miao, master of the Jade Circus, offers Haoyou the amazing chance to escape his family's poverty -- by becoming a kite rider. Strapped onto a beautiful scarlet-and-gold kite, Haoyou is sent into the sky, earning money, freedom, and unexpected fame. Miao even plans for Haoyou to perform before Kublai Khan himself. This story is of adventure, betrayal, family, and sacrifice set in the dramatic world of thirteenth-century China.

Abused by his mother and her boyfriend, George Burgess learns to hide his pain and withdraws into a safe and secret world of beautiful gardens filled with roses, just like those in the library book he treasures. When Georgie wins a small rosebush in a grocery store lottery, he gives it the love and caring he's never had.

Ever wonder how Captain Hook lost his hand to a crocodile? Then crack open this thoroughly entertaining prequel to Peter Pan. Peter, the orphan boy, and his friend Molly fight off thieves and pirates in order to keep the secret safe away from the diabolical Black Stache and his evil associate Mister Grin.

The true story of Phineas Gage is an incredible story of the railroad worker who, in 1848, survived the piercing blast of a 13-pound iron rod as it entered below his cheekbone and exited the front of his skull. Gage survived and became a case study in how the brain functions.

North Carolina Story

In 1895, after his mother's death, twelve-year-old Nathan moves with his father and grandfather to Pea Island off the coast of North Carolina, where he hopes to join the all-black crew at the nearby lifesaving station, despite his father's objections.

Alex Rider can speak many languages; drives a car; is a blackbelt in karate; and his last remaining relative, an uncle, is mysteriously killed. Now the government wants him to take over his uncle's job as a spy with Britain's top secret intelligence agency MI6. Rider poses as a computer whiz in this first of four adventures featuring a teenage secret agent.

World War II has come to 12 year-old Patty Bergen's hometown in Arkansas, in the form of a German prisoner of war camp. She is curious about these Nazi soldiers, who must be monsters for the killing they have done. Anton, a German soldier, is not the monster that Patty imagined, but a frightened young man with feelings not unlike her own. He sees Patty as "a person of value." When she decides to help him escape from the camp, the consequences will change Patty's life forever.

This story includes formal tea times, grandparents of team members getting married, along with some magic and calligraphy. The students of Epiphany School called themselves The Souls and met on Saturdays even before they became Mrs. Olinski's sixth-grade Academic Bowl team. At the state finals, Mrs. Olinskia, a paraplegic, knows which questions each of the four students can answer and why. After reading their individual stories, the reader knows why, too.

After being taught in a boarding school run by whites that Navajo is a useless language, Ned Begay and other Navajo men are recruited by the Marines to become Code Talkers, sending messages during World War II in their native tongue.

Now that the four abandoned Tillerman children are settled in with their grandmother at her rundown farm on the Maryland shore, Dicey finds that their new beginnings require love, trust, humor, and courage.

This is what Dicey has dreamed of for her three younger siblings, but after watching over the others for so long, it's hard to let go.

Thirteen-year-old Steven has a totally normal life: he plays drums in the All-Star Jazz band, has a crush on the hottest girl in the school, and is constantly annoyed by his five-year-old brother, Jeffrey. But when Jeffrey is diagnosed with leukemia, Steven's world is turned upside down. He is forced to deal with his brother's illness and his parents' attempts to keep the family in one piece.

With their father jailed for sinking a river boat, Noah Underwood and his younger sister, Abbey, must gather evidence that the owner of a floating casino is emptying his bilge (waste) tanks into the protected waters around their Florida Keys home.

After escaping the murder of his family, a toddler is taken in by the ghostly denizens of a local graveyard. Growing up in this strange setting entails many adventures, leading to a final showdown with the murderer. Occasional art enhances the otherworldly atmosphere with a flowing line and deep grays and blacks. This ghost-story-coming-of-age novel is both bittersweet and action-filled.

In one month Jeremy Fink will turn thirteen. But does he have what it takes to be a teenager? He collects mutant candy, he won't venture more than four blocks from his apartment if he can help it, and he definitely doesn't like surprises. On the other hand, his best friend, Lizzy, isn't afraid of anything, even if that might get her into trouble now and then.

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

In this continuation of the Cinderella story, fifteen-year-old Ella finds that accepting Prince Charming's proposal ensnares her in a suffocating tangle of palace rules and royal etiquette, As she deals with her newfound status, she comes to realize she is not "your majesty" material. But breaking off a royal engagement is no easy feat, especially when you're crushing on another boy in the palace.... For Ella to escape, it will take intelligence, determination, and spunk — and no ladylike behavior allowed.

The emotional, tension-filled story of a 14-year-old, caught climbing a building; judge tells him he must leave New York and join his father in Thailand; father wants him to climb Mt. Everest. Peak attempts to be the youngest person to reach the top of Mount Everest in this action-packed adventure about friendship, sacrifice, family and the drive to take on Everest, despite the incredible risk.

During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker's classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare and Holling learns much of value about the world he lives in.

Part wolf and part dog, orphaned White Fang relies on his instincts as well as his inborn strength and courage to survive in the Yukon wilderness despite both animal and human predators but eventually comes to make his peace with man. This classic adventure novel centers on a ferocious and magnificent creature, through whose experiences we feel the essential savagery of wilderness life among animals and men.

http://www.destiny.dpsnc.net

For more information on any of these book titles, look them up on your school’s Media Center catalog - Destiny. See the web address listed below.