This remarkable novel holds a fantastic puzzle at its heart.

By sixth grade, Miranda and her best friend, Sal, know how to navigate their New York City neighborhood. They know where it's safe to go, and they know who to avoid. Like the crazy guy on the corner.

But things start to unravel. Sal gets punched by a kid on the street for what seems like no reason, and he shuts Miranda out of his life. The apartment key that Miranda's mom keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen. And then a mysterious note arrives, scrawled on a tiny slip of paper. The notes keep coming, and Miranda slowly realizes that whoever is leaving them knows things no one should know. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Until the final note makes her think she's too late.

Rebecca Stead is the Newbery Award Winning author of When You Reach Me and First Light. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.


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Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnats. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the warden makes the boys "build character" by spending all day, every day, digging holes: five feet wide and five feet deep. It doesn't take long for Stanley to realize there's more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment—and redemption.

"If you take a bad boy and make him dig a hole every day in the hot sun, it will turn him into a good boy." Such is the reigning philosophy at Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention facility where there is no lake, and there are no happy campers. In place of what used to be "the largest lake in Texas" is now a dry, flat, sunburned wasteland, pocked with countless identical holes dug by boys improving their character. Stanley Yelnats, of palindromic name and ill-fated pedigree, has landed at Camp Green Lake because it seemed a better option than jail. No matter that his conviction was all a case of mistaken identity, the Yelnats family has become accustomed to a long history of bad luck, thanks to their "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather!" Despite his innocence, Stanley is quickly enmeshed in the Camp Green Lake routine: rising before dawn to dig a hole five feet deep and five feet in diameter; learning how to get along with the Lord of the Flies-styled pack of boys in Group D; and fearing the warden, who paints her fingernails with rattlesnake venom. But when Stanley realizes that the boys may not just be digging to build character--that in fact the warden is seeking something specific--the plot gets as thick as the irony.

It's a strange story, but strangely compelling and lovely too. Louis Sachar uses poker-faced understatement to create a bizarre but believable landscape--a place where Major Major Major Major of Catch-22 would feel right at home. But while there is humor and absurdity here, there is also a deep understanding of friendship and a searing compassion for society's underdogs. As Stanley unknowingly begins to fulfill his destiny--the dual plots coming together to reveal that fate has big plans in store--we can't help but cheer for the good guys, and all the Yelnats everywhere. (Ages 10 and older) --Brangien Davis


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On the coldest morning of the year, Vicki Myron found a tiny, bedraggled kitten almost frozen to death in the night drop box of the library where she worked, and her life -- and the town of Spencer, Iowa -- would never be the same.Vicki was a single mother who had survived the loss of her family farm and an alcoholic, abusive husband. But her biggest challenge as the new head librarian in Spencer was to raise the spirits of a small, out-of-the-way town mired deep in the farm crisis of the 1980s.Dewey, as the townspeople named the kitten, quickly grew into a strutting, adorable library cat whose antics kept patrons in stitches, and whose sixth sense about those in need created hundreds of deep and loving friendships. As his fame grew, people drove hundreds of miles to meet Dewey, and people all over the world fell in love with him.Through it all, Dewey remained a loyal companion, a beacon of hope not just for Vicki, but for the entire town of Spencer as it slowly, steadily pulled itself up from the worst financial crisis in its long history. Dewey won hearts and proved to everyone he encountered that unconditional love comes in many forms.

One frigid Midwestern winter night in 1988, a ginger kitten was shoved into the after-hours book-return slot at the public library in Spencer, Iowa. And in this tender story, Myron, the library director, tells of the impact the cat, named DeweyReadmore Books, had on the library and its patrons, and on Myron herself. Through her developing relationship with the feline, Myron recounts the economic and social history of Spencer as well as her own success story—despite an alcoholic husband, living on welfare, and health problems ranging from the difficult birth of her daughter, Jodi, to breast cancer. After her divorce, Myron graduated college (the first in her family) and stumbled into a library job. She quickly rose to become director, realizing early on that this was a job I could love for the rest of my life. Dewey, meanwhile, brings disabled children out of their shells, invites businessmen to pet him with one hand while holding the Wall Street Journal with the other, eats rubber bands and becomes a media darling. The book is not only a tribute to a cat—anthropomorphized to a degree that can strain credulity (Dewey plays hide and seek with Myron, can read her thoughts, is mortified by his hair balls)—it's a love letter to libraries. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

≪返却ボックスから救いだされた子ねこが、幸せをはこんできた! ― ほんとうにいた、世界一かわいい図書館員の物語。 ≫

1988年、アメリカの小さな町の、こごえるような冬の朝。
出勤してきた図書館長のヴィッキーは、
本の返却ボックスのなかでうずくまる子ねこをみつける。

その赤茶色の子ねこは、救いだされると健気にしもやけの足で立ちあがり、
ヴィッキーの手に頭をすりつけて挨拶をした。
信頼しきった大きな目と、人なつこい表情――
この子は図書館に必要な存在だ、とヴィッキーは直観する。
こうして、2人の物語は始まったのだ。

来訪者を出迎え、ひざの上で眠る「図書館ねこデューイ」に、
子どもたちは笑顔になり、大人は心をいやされた。
やがて人びとはデューイに会おうと図書館に集い、語らうようになる。
そしてデューイとヴィッキーは小さな図書館にいながら、
町の人を勇気づけ、アメリカじゅう、さらに海外へとあたたかい物語を伝えていくこととなった。

自身の病気や子育てに苦労しながらも、デューイの世話をし、
ともに図書館をもりたててきた図書館長が、町の人びとに、
そして世界じゅうに愛された1ぴきのねこの一生を愛情をこめてつづる。

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