Our Living Earth: A Story of People, Ecology, and Preservation
by Isabelle Delannoy, with photos by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Come see this stunningly beautiful book. It provides a "photographic journey that focuses on people around the world who are making environmental changes in order to protect the earth." (TitleWave)





3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows
by Ann Brashares

Ama, Jo, and Polly, three close friends from Bethesda, Maryland, spend the summer
before ninth grade learning about themselves, their families, and the changing
nature of their friendship. (NoveList)

Miss Crandall's School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color
by Elizabeth Alexander and Marilyn Nelson

Elizabeth Alexander has been invited to write a poem and to recite it at President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20, 2009. She is one of only four poets in U.S. history to receive this honor. In the volume of her poetry that we have just added to the Middle School Library collection, "[her] poems tell the story of nineteenth-century teacher Prudence Crandall and the students she taught at her Canterbury, Connecticut, school for African-American girls before persecution forced its closing." (Follett TitleWave)


Diary of a Wimpy Kid: the Last Straw
by Jeff Kinney

Middle-schooler Greg Heffley nimbly sidesteps his father's attempts to change Greg's wimpy ways until his father threatens to send him to military school. (NoveList)

To view a Border's interview with Jeff Kinney, click here.

Palace of Mirrors by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Fourteen-year-old Cecilia has always known she is the true princess of Suala, but when she and her best friend, Harper, decide to speed up her ascendancy to the throne, they find danger and many imposters who challenge her claim. (NoveList)




Birth of a Warrior by Michael James Ford

When Persians invade Sparta while thirteen-year-old Lysander is training to be a soldier, he finds his loyalties are divided between Spartan honor and the Helot slaves with whom he lived most of his life.(TitleWave)