Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt: With the wit, heart, precision, and depth of understanding that ha
s characterized his work, Roger Rosenblatt peels back the layers on this most personal of losses to create both a tribute to his late daughter and a testament to familial love. The day Amy died, Harris told Ginny and Roger, “It’s impossible.” Roger’s story tells how a family makes the possible of the impossible.
The Night Fairy by Laura Amy Schlitz (a lower school librarian at Park School in Baltimore). From 2008 Newbery Schlitz comes an exhilarating new adventure — and a thoroughly original fairy who is a true force of nature. What would happen to a fairy if she lost her wings and could no longer fly? Flory, a young night fairy no taller than an acorn and still becoming accustomed to her wings — wings as beautiful as those of a luna moth — is about to find out. What she discovers is that the world is very big and very dangerous. But Flory is fierce and willing to do whatever it takes to survive. If that means telling others what to do — like Skuggle, a squirrel ruled by his stomach — so be it. Not every creature, however, is as willing to bend to Flory’s demands.
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith (Pride, Prejudice and Zombies). Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense wood that surround the one room cabin, where Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother’s bedside. She’s been stricken with something old timers call “Milk Sickness.” “My baby boy…” she whispers before dying. Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mothers fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire. When the truth becomes known to the young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, “henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become master of mind and body. And this master shall have but one purpose…” Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.