READERS CIRCLE BOOKS
Counting
Stars
David Almond
0-440-41826-7
With stories that shimmer and vibrate in the bright heat of memory, David Almond creates a glowing mosaic of his life growing up in a large, loving Catholic family in northeastern England.
Heaven
Eyes
David Almond
0-440-22910-3
Erin Law and her friends in the orphanage are labeled Damaged Children. They run away one night, traveling downriver on a raft. What they find on their journey is stranger than you can imagine.
Kit’s
Wilderness
David Almond
0-440-41605-1
Kit Watson and John Askew look for the childhood ghosts of their long-gone ancestors in the mines of Stoneygate.
Skellig
David Almond
0-440-22908-1
Michael feels helpless because of his baby sister’s illness, until he meets a creature called Skellig.
Becoming
Mary
Mehan:
Two
Novels
Jennifer Armstrong
0-440-22961-8
Set against the events of the American Civil War,
The Dreams of
Mairhe Mehan
depicts an Irish immigrant girl and her family, struggling to find their place in the war-torn country.
Mary Mehan
Awake
takes up Mary’s story after the war, when she must begin a journey of renewal.
Forgotten
Fire
Adam Bagdasarian
0-440-22917-0
In 1915, Vahan Kenderian is living a life of privilege when his world is shattered by the Turkish-Armenian war.
The
Rag
and
Bone
Shop
Robert Cormier
0-440-22971-5
A seven-year-old girl is brutally murdered. A twelve-year-old boy named Jason was the last person to see her alive—except, of course, for the killer. Unless
Jason
is the killer.
Dr.
Franklin’s
Island
Ann Halam
0-440-23781-5
A plane crash leaves Semi, Miranda, and Arnie stranded on a tropical island, totally alone. Or so they think. Dr. Franklin is a mad scientist who has set up his laboratory on the island, and the three teens are perfect subjects for his frightening experiments in genetic engineering.
When
Zachary
Beaver
Came
to
Town
Kimberly Willis Holt
0-440-23841-2
Toby’s small, sleepy Texas town is about to get a jolt with the arrival of Zachary Beaver, billed as the fattest boy in the world. Toby is in for a summer unlike any other—a summer sure to change his life.
Ghost
Boy
Iain Lawrence
0-440-41668-X
Fourteen-year-old Harold Kline is an albino—an outcast. When the circus comes to town, Harold runs off to join it in hopes of discovering who he is and what he wants in life. Is he a circus freak or just a normal guy?
Lord
of
the
Nutcracker
Men
Iain Lawrence
0-440-41812-7
In 1914, Johnny’s father leaves England to fight the Germans in France. With each carved wooden soldier he sends home, the brutality of war becomes more apparent. Soon Johnny fears that his war games foretell real battles and that he controls his father’s fate.
Gathering
Blue
Lois Lowry
0-440-22949-9
Lamed and suddenly orphaned, Kira is mysteriously taken to live in the palatial Council Edifice, where she is expected to use her gifts as a weaver to do the bidding of the all-powerful Guardians.
The
Giver
Lois Lowry
0-440-23768-8
Jonas’s world is perfect. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear or pain. There are no choices, until Jonas is given an opportunity that will change his world forever.
Shades
of
Simon
Gray
Joyce McDonald
0-440-22804-2
Simon is the ideal teenager—smart, reliable, hardworking, trustworthy. Or is he? After Simon’s car crashes into a tree and he slips into a coma, another portrait of him begins to emerge.
Both
Sides
Now
Ruth Pennebaker
0-440-22933-2
A compelling look at breast cancer through the eyes of a mother and daughter. Liza must learn a few life lessons from her mother, Rebecca, about the power of family.
Her
Father’s
Daughter
Mollie Poupeney
0-440-22879-4
As she matures from a feisty tomboy of seven to a spirited young woman of fourteen, Maggie discovers that the only constant in her life of endless new homes and new faces is her ever-emerging sense of herself.
The
Baboon
King
Anton Quintana
0-440-22907-3
Neither Morengáru’s father’s Masai tribe nor his mother’s Kikuyu tribe accepts him. Banished from both tribes, Morengáru encounters a baboon troop and faces a fight with the simian king.
Holes
Louis Sachar
0-440-22859-X
Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys’ detention center, Camp Green Lake. But there’s more than character improvement going on at the camp—the warden is looking for something.
Shabanu:
Daughter
of
the
Wind
Suzanne Fisher Staples
0-440-23856-0
Life is both sweet and cruel to strong-willed young Shabanu, whose home is the windswept Cholistan Desert of Pakistan. She must reconcile her duty to her family and the stirrings of her own heart in this Newbery Honor–winning modern-day classic.
The
Gospel According
to
Larry
Janet Tashjian
0-440-23792-0
Josh Swensen’s virtual alter ego, Larry, becomes a huge media sensation. While it seems as if the whole world is trying to figure out Larry’s true identity, Josh feels trapped inside his own creation.
Memories
of
Summer
Ruth White
0-440-22921-9
In 1955, thirteen-year-old Lyric describes her older sister Summer’s descent into mental illness, telling Summer’s story with humor, courage, and love.
about the author
Ann Halam was born and raised in Manchester, England, and after graduating from Sussex University spent some years traveling throughout Southeast Asia. She now lives in Brighton, England, with her husband and son. As well as being a children’s author, Ann Halam writes adult science fiction and fantasy books as Gwyneth Jones.
Ann Halam says, “Readers may be interested to know that
Dr. Franklin’s Island
was inspired partly by H. G. Wells’s story
The Island of Dr. Moreau.
”
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM DELL LAUREL-LEAF BOOKS
COUNTING STARS
David Almond
SHABANU
Suzanne Fisher Staples
GODDESS OF YESTERDAY
Caroline B. Cooney
ISLAND BOYZ: SHORT STORIES
Graham Salisbury
SHATTERED: STORIES OF CHILDREN AND WAR
Jennifer Armstrong
LUCY THE GIANT
Sherri L. Smith
THE LEGEND OF LADY ILENA
Patricia Malone
MIDNIGHT PREDATOR
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
LORD OF THE NUTCRACKER MEN
Iain Lawrence
WHEN ZACHARY BEAVER CAME TO TOWN
Kimberly Willis Holt
Published by
Dell Laurel-Leaf
an imprint of
Random House Children’s Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
Copyright © 2002 by Ann Halam
First published in Great Britain by Orion Children’s Books in 2001
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without the written permission of the
publisher, except where permitted by law.
For information address Wendy Lamb Books.
Dell and Laurel are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
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RL: 6.2
October 2003
eISBN: 978-0-307-43331-2
v3.0