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by Charles Benoit

Charles Benoit has created a stunner of a debut novel, one of the most anticipated titles of the fall season. Told entirely in the second person, the story quickly immerses us in the world of bright, disaffected Kyle Chase, who once showed great potential but by tenth grade has become a genuine slacker. With uncanny insight, crafting what can only be called YA Noir, Benoit takes us deep inside the mind of a young man on a collision course with catastrophe.

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What I Call Life

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by Jill Wolfson

When Cal Lavender’s mother has an “unfortunate episode” at the library, Cal is taken to a group care home run by a strange old woman called “The Knitting Lady.” Cal is clear that this is not her real life, just a temporary detour. But even detours can take you where you need to be. A charming, funny, and insightful first novel.

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United Tates of America

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by Paula Danziger

Skate Tate has a good life. She has close friends, a loving family, and her beloved Great Uncle Mort (GUM for short) who lives every day as if it were an adventure. Skate would like things to stay just the way they are. But life doesn’t work that way. For one thing, Skate has to figure out the strange new world of Biddle Middle, where eighth graders rule the roost, old friendships start to change, and a lowly sixth-grader has to struggle to make a place for herself. But other, more painful changes, are also in store for the Tates, and the story of how this close knit family responds to sudden tragedy will move and delight listeners everywhere. Told with her trademark wit and wisdom, filled with big laughs and unexpected tears, Paula Danziger’s newest novel is one of her finest achievements.

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Kissing the Bee

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by Kathe Koja

About to graduate from high school, quivering on the edge of adulthood, Dana, Avra, and Emil are locked in an intricate dance of commitment, desire, and promises. Dana, investigating the enigmatic world of bees, is ready to pursue her education as a science writer. Avra is longing to bolt for freedom. And Emil… well, Emil is keeping his own counsel.

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Guitar Boy

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by M.J. Auch

Travis Tacey is in a peck of trouble. His mother is hospitalized from a serious accident and his father, lost in a haze of grief, has focused his anger and guilt on his oldest son. Which is why, at age fourteen, Travis finds himself out of a home and on the road in New York State’s Adirondack Mountains.

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Girls, The

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by Amy Goldman Koss

This multiple-viewpoint novel explores several days in the life of a middle school clique that suddenly shuns one of its members. With poignant, painful detail the author takes us into the mind of each girl involved, brilliantly illuminating the problem of girl-on-girl meanness. Must listening for middle school girls—and the parents who love them!

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Disappearing Act

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by Sid Fleischman

What do you do when your mother disappears and a strange man starts stalking you? If you’re Kevin and Holly Kidd, you try to lose yourself in the wacky world of Venice Beach, California, where boardwalk entertainers do everything from juggling watermelons to telling fortunes to try to make a living.

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