Ya fic aid aidinoff, Elsie The Garden

YA FIC TUN Tunnell, Michael Wishing Moon

Aminah is literally knocked over by Aladdin's lamp, and she has the moon-shaped scar on her forehead to prove it. Once she discovers the power that she now possesses, she bickers with her jinni (who is no Barbara Eden) and comes to the conclusion that she wants to use the three wishes given to her per moon cycle to help people. First she takes care of her monetary needs, and then she enlists the jinni's help in finding people who need her help. After assisting a tailor with his business, she sets her wishing abilities on a baker who feeds the poor with his bread, leaving virtually nothing to sell to make money. Soon Aminah has fallen in love with the baker, which causes her trouble with the people with whom she shares a house—people she has come to know as her family—and with her rather obstinate jinni. What will happen when the spoiled princess who threw the old lamp at Aminah finds her and takes the lamp back? Will all of Aminah's good deeds evaporate?

Tween & YA SF UEH Uehashi, Nahoko Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit

Balsa was a wanderer and warrior for hire. Then she rescued a boy flung into a raging river -- and at that moment, her destiny changed. Now Balsa must protect the boy -- the Prince Chagum -- on his quest to deliver the great egg of the water spirit to its source in the sea. As they travel across the land of Yogo and discover the truth about the spirit, they find themselves hunted by two deadly enemies: the egg-eating monster Rarunga . . . and the prince's own father.

YA SF UEH Uehashi, Nahoko Guardian of the Darkness

(Moribito series v. 2)

Balsa returns to her native Kanbal to clear the name of Jiguro, her dear mentor, who saved her life when she was six years old. But what should be a visit of truth and reconciliation becomes a fight for her life when she learns that Jiguro had been a member of King Rogsam's personal bodyguard. After Jiguro fled Kanbal with her, Rogsam sent the other bodyguards after them one by one--Jiguro's best friends, whom he had to kill to protect Balsa. Now, with the help of two Kanbalese children, Balsa must unwind the conspiracy surrounding Jiguro and the mystery of the Guardians of the Dark.

Tween & YA SF URS Ursu, Anne The Shadow Thieves

Charlotte has always been careful to remain unremarkable. She has few friends but few enemies, and does just well enough in school not to get in trouble. All that changes when her cousin Zee arrives from England. Zee is smart, polite, charismatic-and has been followed from England by a mysterious plague that afflicts kids in his vicinity with a terrible weakness. Charlotte and Zee are drawn into a conflict among the Greek gods for control of Hades; only by going down into the underworld can they heal the sick children. Though they rescue the children, unresolved questions lead the way into a second volume.

YA FIC VAN Vande Velde, Vivian The Book of Mordred

Dark forces are taking hold in the kingdom of Camelot: King Arthur struggles to keep his knights in line as they steadily divide themselves into factions; the great Merlin has vanished at the hands of his lover and pupil, Nimue; wizards all over the countryside battle for whatever measures of power they can find. At the center of the maelstrom stands Keira, an innocent girl who possesses the ability to foretell the fate of her world. When Keira is kidnapped from her village home, her mother, Alayna, flees to Camelot and finds Mordred, an enigmatic knight who will ultimately become Keira's greatest champion, Alayna's greatest love, and King Arthur's greatest enemy. In the long tradition of Arthurian legend, Mordred has been characterized as a buffoon, a false knight, and a bloodthirsty traitor. The Book of Mordred reveals a mysterious man through the eyes of three women who love him.

YA FIC VIG Viguie, Debbie Midnight Pearls

Pearl is rescued from the sea during a storm by a fisherman; he and his barren wife take the child in, lovingly raising her despite her silvery hair, translucent skin, and too-long legs. Pearl lives a lonely life with only a young prince, James, for a friend. Years later, when she is 17, her true identity is revealed. When their boat capsizes, Pearl makes her way to shore, but James must be saved by Faye, a mermaid who instantly falls in love with him. Looking on from the waves is Kale, Faye's merman brother, who realizes that Pearl is actually Adriana, his betrothed who was kidnapped years before. After the Sea Witch becomes involved, Faye becomes a mute human charged to get a marriage proposal from James or die, and Kale becomes a blind human charged to attain the love of his beloved or meet the same fate.

YA FIC WEB Weber, Lori Strange Beauty

Part of the SideStreets series of novels, this deceptively thin book packs some deeper meaning into intertwining stories about beauty, love, and the unseen connections between lives. Penelope, increasingly frustrated with her best friend's focus on her looks and getting the attention of a boy, has a close bond with her 85-year-old grandmother. While helping Penelope with an assignment to research and write about something exciting in her family history, Penelope's grandmother unveils a mysterious story involving gypsies and the old woman living down the street who is known to the local kids as the Queen of Sheba; they thrive on taunting and ridiculing her. Penelope comes to learn the truth about the Queen's life and the hardships she has had to endure. When Penelope's grandmother dies suddenly, Penelope is left to discover some of the story that was left unshared and find out how her grandmother and the Queen were forever linked.

YA FIC WEY Weyn, Suzanne The Night Dance

Rowena, the youngest of twelve sisters, loves to slip out of the castle at night and dance in a magical forest. Soon she convinces her sisters to join her. When Sir Ethan notices that his daughters' slippers look tattered every morning, he is certain they've been sneaking out. So he posts a challenge to all the suitors in the kingdom: The first man to discover where his daughters have been is free to marry the one he chooses. Meanwhile a handsome young knight named Bedivere is involved in a challenge of his own: to return the powerful sword, Excalibur, to a mysterious lake. While looking for the lake, Bedivere meets the beautiful Rowena and falls for her. Bedivere knows that accepting Sir Ethan's challenge is the only opportunity for him to be with Rowena forever. But this puts both Bedivere and Rowena in a dangerous situation... one in which they risk their lives for a chance at love.

YA FIC WEY Weyn, Suzanne Water Song

Set in Belgium during World War II, this magical story mirrors the traditional tale of The Frog Prince. In this case, the prince is a young American who loves to swim. Jack's skin and lungs have been injured by the poison gas used by the Germans so that when beautiful Emma Pennington first meets him, she sees "his mottled skin, and bulging, slitted eyes," resembling nothing more than a giant amphibian. Emma was stranded in Belgium by the events of the war, and recently lost her mother, a casualty of the fighting. She is young, inexperienced and willful. She instinctively knows that she must protect her froggy friend from the Germans so she poses as his wife, allowing him to recover in the shelter of her room when the German soldiers take over her family's estate. Weyn weaves magic into the context of the story, as Jack, a native of New Orleans, slips in and out of the bedroom through secret passageways, converses with his mother through dreams, and puts together healing poultices from local plants.

YA FIC WEY Weyn, Suzanne The Crimson Thread

The year is 1880, and Bertie, having just arrived in New York with her family, is grateful to be given work as a seamstress in the home of textile tycoon J. P. Wellington. When the Wellington family fortune is threatened, Bertie's father boasts that Bertie will save the business, that she is so skillful she can "practically spin straw into gold." Amazingly, in the course of one night, Bertie creates exquisite evening gowns — with the help of Ray Stalls, a man from her tenement who uses an old spinning wheel to create dresses that are woven with crimson thread and look as though they are spun with real gold. Indebted to Ray, Bertie asks how she can repay him. When Ray asks for her firstborn child, Bertie agrees, never dreaming that he is serious....

Tween & YA FIC WHE Whelan, Gloria Chu Ju’s House

In order to save her baby sister, fourteen-year-old Chu Ju leaves her rural home in modern China and earns food and shelter by working on a sampan, tending silk worms, and planting rice seedlings, while wondering if she will ever see her family again.

YA FIC WHI White, Kiersten The Chaos of Stars

Isadora’s family is seriously screwed up. Of course, as the human daughter of Egyptian gods, that pretty much comes with the territory. She’s also stuck with parents who barely notice her, and a house full of relatives who can’t be bothered to remember her name. After all, they are going to be around forever—and she’s a mere mortal. Isadora’s sick of living a life where she’s only worthy of a passing glance, and when she has the chance to move to San Diego with her brother, she jumps on it. But Isadora’s quickly finding that a “normal” life comes with plenty of its own epic complications—and that there’s no such thing as a clean break when it comes to family. Much as she wants to leave her past behind, she can’t shake the ominous dreams that foretell destruction for her entire family. When it turns out there may be truth in her nightmares, Isadora has to decide whether she can abandon her divine heritage after all.
YA FIC WHI White, T.H. Sword in the Stone

The Sword in the Stone is the first novel in The Once and Future King, T. H. White's epic fantasy re-telling of the Arthurian legend. A cartoon adaptation by Walt Disney made it into an enduring favourite for the young. But like Tolkien'sThe Lord of the Rings, it appeals to adults and children alike.

YA FIC WHI Whitman, Emily Radiant Darkness

In the classic Greek myth of Persephone, Underworld god Hades abducts Persephone against her will. In Whitman's retelling, Demeter's daughter leaps at the chance to escape an overbearing, controlling mother who refuses to let her grow up. Life in the sunlit Underworld is more complicated than Persephone anticipated, however, and she has trouble adjusting to being a queen. She much prefers to work in her garden and talk to the mortal dead, for whom she feels an un-goddess-like sympathy. Through them, she learns of the drought and famine her mother is visiting on the earth, which Persephone realizes is a result of her own disappearance. But having forsaken earth, is there anything she can now do to save it? Whitman offers an interesting take on the myth and has a talent for lyrical descriptions that bring her worlds to life.

YA SF WIL Williams, Allen The Witches' Kitchen

Deep in the walls of a witches' cottage lays an ancient magical kitchen. Dangling over that kitchen's cauldron, pinched between the fingers of two witches, is a toad. And the Toad has no idea how she got there, and no memory of even her name. All she knows is she doesn't think she was always a Toad, or that she's ever been here before. Determined to recover her memories she sets out on a journey to the oracle, and along the way picks up a rag-tag team of friends: an iron-handed imp, a carnivorous fairy, and a few friendly locals. But the Kitchen won't make it easy. It is pitch black, infinite, and impossible to navigate, a living maze. Hiding in dark corners are beastly, starving things. Worse yet are the Witches themselves, who have sent a procession of horrific, deadly monsters on her trail. With some courage and wisdom, the Toad just might find herself yet-and with that knowledge, the power to defeat the mighty Witches.
YA FIC YOL Yolen, Jane Briar Rose

As a little girl, Rebecca Berlin found magic in listening to her grandmother, Gemma, tell the story of Briar Rose. Years later, as a young woman, Becca learned the real story. "I am Briar Rose," whispers Gemma as she lies dying. Her words launch her granddaughter on a journey of discovery to wartime Poland, Nazi death camps and Gemma's mysterious past.