Middle

As his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry approaches, 15-year-old Harry Potter is in full-blown adolescence, complete with regular outbursts of rage, a nearly debilitating crush, and the blooming of a powerful sense of rebellion.

For twelve long years, the dread fortress of Azkaban held an infamous prisoner named Sirius Black. Convicted of killing 13 people with a single curse, he was said to be the heir apparent to the Dark Lord, Voldemort.

Harry Potter has never been the star of a Quidditch team, scoring points while riding a broom far above the ground. He knows no spells, has never helped to hatch a dragon, and has never worn a cloak of invisibility.

Just when Joey Pigza's wired world finally seems to be under control, his good-for-nothing dad pops back into his life. This time, though, Carter Pigza is a new man - literally. After a lucky lotto win, he has a crazy new outlook on life, and he's even changed his name to Charles Heinz. He thinks Joey and his mom should become new people, too.

This is the story of a wild dog's journey toward becoming civilized in the Canadian Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush, at the end of the 19th Century. White Fang is a companion novel (and a thematic mirror) to London's best-known work, The Call of the Wild, about a kidnapped civilized dog becoming a wild wolf.

These are the stories that catapulted James Herriot to literary fame. When this book was first published, it was a simple volume of memoirs by an unknown Scottish veterinarian. But within a year, the book became recognized as a masterpiece. And in the two and a half decades that followed, Dr. Herriot became one of the most universally loved authors of our time.

When Ruben and Jed find a dead body on the Rhode Island shore, they are certain it has something to do with smuggling liquor. It's the 1920s, Prohibition and bootlegging is in full swing, and almost everyone in the shore community is involved. Suddenly, the boys find themselves involved as well: didn't the dead man have something on him, and didn't they take it?

The city of Ember was built as a last refuge for the human race. Two hundred years later, the great lamps that light the city are beginning to flicker. When Lina finds part of an ancient message, she's sure it holds a secret that will save the city. She and her friend Doon must decipher the message before the lights go out on Ember forever!

The People of Sparks picks up where The City of Ember leaves off. Lina and Doon have emerged from the underground city to the exciting new world above, and it isn't long before they are followed by the other inhabitants of Ember. The Emberites soon come across a town where they are welcomed, fed, and given places to sleep.

It's 50 years before the settlement of the city of Ember and the world is in crisis. War looms on the horizon as 11-year-old Nickie and her aunt travel to the small town of Yonwood, North Carolina. There, one of the town's respected citizens has had a terrible vision of fire and destruction. Her garbled words are taken as prophetic instruction on how to avoid the coming disaster.

It's a survival story almost too incredible to believe, but it's the extraordinary true tale of endurance in the harshest environment on earth. Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men set off from England aboard the ship Endurance, intending to cross Antarctica from one side to the other.

When Charlie turns 12 on New Year's Eve, the Flame Cats give him a grave warning: something ancient has awoken, and Charlie must be watchful. Soon Charlie learns that the shadow from the Red King's portrait has been released, and that it will do anything to keep Charlie from finding his father.

This semester at Bloor's Academy brings a few changes. There is a new art teacher, Mr. Boldova, and a new student, Belle, who lives with the Yewbeam aunts and seems to have a strange power over them.

Charlie hopes that the new term at Bloor's Academy will hold no nasty surprises. But then Henry Yewbeam appears, twisted through time from the icy winter of 1916.

With the scheming Yewbeam aunts on the prowl, and the Bloors out to catch him, Henry will need Charlie's help just to stay alive. Bloor's Academy can be a very dangerous place!

Just like other kids, Zinkoff rides his bike, hopes for snow days, and wants to be like his dad when he grows up. But Zinkoff also raises his hand with all the wrong answers, trips over his own feet, and falls down with laughter over a word like "Jabip".