Magic Under Stone

For star-crossed lovers Nimira and Erris, there can be no happily ever after until Erris is freed from the clockwork form that entraps him. And so they go in search of the sorcerer Ordoria Valdana, hoping he will know how to grant Erris real life again. But Valdana has mysteriously vanished, and it's not long before Nimira decides to take matters into her own hands-and begins to study the sorcerer's spell books in secret. Yet even as she begins to understand the power and limitations of sorcery, it becomes clear that freeing Erris will mean returning him to the fairy capital. But with a new ruling family in power, Erris's return will bring danger, if not out-and-out war as factions within the faerie world are prepared to stop at nothing to prevent Erris from regaining the throne. Only Nimira, with her fledgling grasp of sorcery can help, but saving the man she loves could prove doom for the fairie world and beyond.

A wealthy sorcerer's invitation to sing with his automaton leads seventeen-year-old Nimira, whose family's disgrace brought her from a palace to poverty, into political intrigue, enchantments, and a friendship with a fairy prince who needs her help.

Nimira is a foreign music-hall girl forced to dance for pennies. When wealthy sorcerer Hollin Parry hires her to sing with a piano-playing automaton, Nimira believes it is the start of a new and better life. In Parry's world, however, buried secrets are beginning to stir. Unsettling below-stairs rumors swirl about ghosts, a madwoman roaming the halls, and Parry's involvement with a league of sorcerers who torture fairies for sport. Then Nimira discovers the spirit of a fairy gentleman named Erris is trapped inside the clockwork automaton, waiting for someone to break his curse. The two fall into a love that seems hopeless, and breaking the curse becomes a race against time, as not just their love, but the fate of the entire magical world may be in peril. Look out for the follow-up to this book, Magic Under Stone, out next year!

Three siblings embark on an epic quest for a mythic grail in this first installment of Susan Cooper’s epic and award-winning The Dark Is Rising Sequence, now with a brand-new look! All through time, the two great forces of Light and Dark have battled for control of the world. Now, after centuries of balance, the Dark is summoning its terrifying forces to rise once more…and three children find themselves caught in the conflict. The Drew siblings—Simon, Jane, and Barney—are on a family holiday in Cornwall when they discover an ancient map in the attic of the house they are sharing with their Great Uncle Merry. They know immediately that the map is special but have no way of knowing how much. For the map leads to a grail: a vital weapon for the Light’s fight against evil. In taking on the quest to find the grail, the Drews will have to race against the sinister human beings who serve the dreadful power of the dark—an adventure that puts their own lives in grave peril.

The Upside-Down Magic kids are back in another topsy-turvy adventure in the next installment of this New York Times bestselling series, now a Disney Channel Original Movie! Strange things are happening at Dunwiddle Magic School -- and the Upside-Down Magic class is getting blamed! Yes, Marigold did shrink Lacey Clench to the size of a gerbil. But that was an accident. And, yes, most people weren't prepared for Nory to transform into a squippy (that's half squid, half puppy) -- but it's not like Nory meant to mix up paws and tentacles. And while Bax does have the unfortunate magical condition of turning into a stone, he swears he has nothing to do with the rocky magic that's been happening in Dunwiddle's halls. When things get messy, it's easy to point your finger at the kids with the messiest magic. But the Upside-Down Magic students aren't going to let themselves get in trouble. Instead, they're going to find out what's really going on -- and get their school back on track before something really wacky happens.

*NOW A NETFLIX LIMITED SERIES—from producer and director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) starring Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti* Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, the beloved instant New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the Resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge. Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).

Chisella, a young artist, looks longingly out onto the mountains beyond her tiny village. Cooped up in her tiny room, she dreams of making art on a much grander scale and having friends to play with. One day, she goes into the mountains where she chisels and sculpts her BIG IDEAS to life in the form of a gaggle of gargoyles! Follow along with Chisella and her new friends as they transform their hilly hideaway into a magical city of majestic arches, spiraling columns, and smiling clouds. Who says dreams don't come true?

Themes: Optimism, Magic, Fiction, Tween, Emergent Reader, Chapter Book, Hi-Lo, Hi-Lo Books, Hi-Lo Solutions, High-Low Books, Hi-Low Books, ELL, EL, ESL, Struggling Learner, Struggling Reader, Special Education, SPED, Newcomers, Reading, Learning, Education, Educational, Educational Books. Kirby is a pessimistic kid. He's a good student with some close friends. But he's intimidated by schoolmate Lee, who always seems to have better grades and more friends. On the way home from school one day, Kirby saves a man from being hit by a truck. The man gives him a magic stone. You make a wish and rub the stone, the man tells Kirby. Your wish will come true. Kirby is skeptical, but then his wishes start to come true! This series of short novels was designed to engage a broad spectrum of struggling readers. No longer will upper-elementary students have to read material junior to their maturity and interests. Characters are age appropriate and come from diverse cultures and backgrounds. Science ficion, sports, paranormal, realistic life, historical fiction, and fantasy are just a few of the many genres. Books are no higher than a 1.5 reading level, with illustrations on every spread that support visual literacy and draw kids into the text. Each book is around 70 pages.