Ninja Librarians: The Accidental Keyhand


Book Description

Just a little story about your average sword-swinging, karate-chopping, crime-fighting ninja librarians. "[Downey] shows a rare gift for crafting scrambles so madcap that it's hard to turn the pages fast enough to keep up." -Kirkus Starred Review An Overdue Library Book Can Change Your Life. (So Can a Pet Mongoose.) When Dorrie and her brother Marcus chase Moe-an unusually foul-tempered mongoose-into the janitor's closet of their local library, they make an astonishing discovery: the headquarters of a secret society of ninja librarians. Their mission: protect those whose words get them into trouble, anywhere in the world and at any time in history. Petrarch's Library is an amazing, jumbled, time-traveling secret base that can dock anywhere there's trouble, like the Spanish Inquisition, or ancient Greece, or...Passaic, New Jersey. Dorrie would love nothing more than to join the society, fighting injustice with a real sword! But when a traitor surfaces, she and Marcus are prime suspects. Can they clear their names before the only passage back to the twenty-first century closes forever?




The Ninja Librarians: Sword in the Stacks


Book Description

Second in this swashbuckling middle grade series following 12-year-old Dorrie Barnes' adventures as a sword-wielding ninja librarian (apprentice). Dorrie and her brother have joined the Lybrariad, a secret society of heroic librarians—their mission: save people whose words get them into trouble. But now the Lybrariad itself is in danger from an ancient evil called the Stronghold. After stumbling upon the secret society of time-traveling ninja librarians, Dorrie has finally joined Petrarch's Library as an apprentice! One day, she'll actually go on missions to rescue people whose words have gotten them into trouble. For now she's taking some interesting classes: First and Last Aid: When Nobody Else is Coming Spears, Axes, and Cats: Throwing Objects with Precision and Flair Codes, Invisible Inks, and Smoke Signals: Keeping Secrets 101 But on a training mission to 1912 England, Dorrie finds herself dangerously close to a member of the Stronghold—the Library's biggest enemy. This is her opportunity! Dorrie can spy on the enemy, find the missing key...and become a real Lybrarian! But if she makes a mistake, Dorrie could lead their enemy right to the very place she's trying to save...and everyone she cares about. Praise for The Ninja Librarians: The Accidental Keyhand: "Scrambles so madcap that it's hard to turn the pages fast enough to keep up."—Kirkus STARRED Review "[A] melding of fantasy, adventure, and history...Readers who miss the collegial, magical setting of Hogwarts will enjoy exploring Petrarch's Library."—School Library Journal "Delightfully funny from the first page."—Booklist "A rollicking adventure with a smart heroine, heaps of mystery and the whole of history to explore. It's like finding Lara Croft running your local library!"—Lissa Evans, author of Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms




Wonder Light


Book Description

Deep in the heart of a mist-shrouded island, an impossible secret is about to be discovered. Twig is used to feeling unwanted. Sent to live on a pony ranch for "troubled" girls on a misty, haunted island, Twig is about to discover the impossible — someone who needs her. Jolted awake from a bad dream, Twig follows the desperate whinny of a terrified horse out to the stables. There in the straw is a bleating little scrap of moonbeam. A silver-white filly with cloven hooves and a tiny, spiraling horn. A baby unicorn. Now Twig knows what secret is hiding in the island's mist: the last free unicorn herd. And a mysterious boy named Ben who insists that this impossible creature is now Twig's to care for. That she needs Twig's love and protection. Because there's something out there in the deep, dense shadows that's hunting for them... "R. R. Russell's Wonder Light dares to explore a world where unicorns are creatures of wonder and power, and girls can find both strength and courage to be themselves."—Robin Hobb, International bestselling author




Filming the Children's Book


Book Description

Just as a work of self-reflexive 'metafiction' - and the experience of reading it - differ from other types of literature, the work and the experience of viewing films that adapt metafiction are distinct from those of other films, and from other film adaptations of literary works. This book explores the adaptation of children's metafictions, including works such as Inkheart, The Invention of Hugo Cabret and the Harry Potter series. Not only are the plot devices of books and reading explored on screen in these adaptations, but so is the nature of transmedial adaptation itself - the act of representing one work of art in another medium. Analysing the 'work' done by children's metafiction and the experience of reading it, Casie E. Hermansson situates the adaptations of these types of books to film within contemporary adaptation criticism.




Libriomancer


Book Description

Isaac Vainio is a Libriomancer, a member of a secret society founded five centuries ago by Johannes Gutenberg. As such, he is gifted with the magical ability to reach into books and draw forth objects. But when Gutenberg vanishes without a trace, Isaac finds himself pitted against everything from vampires to a sinister, nameless foe who is bent on revealing magic to the world at large... and at any cost.




The Book of Jonah


Book Description

A major literary debut, an epic tale of love, failure, and unexpected faith set in New York, Amsterdam, and Las Vegas The modern-day Jonah at the center of Joshua Max Feldman's brilliantly conceived retelling of the Book of Jonah is a young Manhattan lawyer named Jonah Jacobstein. He's a lucky man: healthy and handsome, with two beautiful women ready to spend the rest of their lives with him and an enormously successful career that gets more promising by the minute. He's celebrating a deal that will surely make him partner when a bizarre, unexpected biblical vision at a party changes everything. Hard as he tries to forget what he saw, this disturbing sign is only the first of many Jonah will witness, and before long his life is unrecognizable. Though this perhaps divine intervention will be responsible for more than one irreversible loss in Jonah's life, it will also cross his path with that of Judith Bulbrook, an intense, breathtakingly intelligent woman who's no stranger to loss herself. As this funny and bold novel moves to Amsterdam and then Las Vegas, Feldman examines the way we live now while asking an age-old question: How do you know if you're chosen?




Dead Letter


Book Description

When Herculeah discovers a mysterious letter inside the lining of a secondhand coat, she suspects it's a desperate cry for help. If so, what happened to the person who wrote it? Herculeah thinks she knows the answer. What she doesn't know is that someone is watching her-someone who will do anything to keep her quiet.




Friday Barnes Under Suspicion


Book Description

The second book in the hilariously clever mystery series starring Friday Barnes, genius girl detective!




Enemy Rising


Book Description

Hiro, a young ninja-in-training, must help his family uncover an ancient amulet and defeat Fujita, the most evil ninja in the kingdom.




Small Change for Stuart


Book Description

"Stuart Horten -- ten years old and small for his age -- moves to the dreary town of Beeton, far away from all his friends. And then he meets his new next-door neighbours, the unbearable Kingley triplets, and things get even worse. But in Beeton begins the strangest adventure of Stuart's life as he is swept up in quest to find his great-uncle's lost workshop -- a workshop stuffed with trickery and magic. There are clues to follow and puzzles to solve, but what starts as fun ends up as danger, and Stuart begins to realise that he can't finish the task by himself ..."--Dust jacket. Suggested level: primary, intermediate.