The Gargoyle Hunters

A spellbinding story – by turns poignant and electrifying – about the magical, often forbidden, discoveries of childhood and a lifelong journey that begins unexpectedly with a spectacular sea voyage. In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy in Colombo boards a ship bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the “cat’s table” – as far from the Captain’s Table as can be – with a ragtag group of “insignificant” adults and two other boys, Cassius and Ramadhin.

A starry-eyed young beauty, Marjorie Morgenstern is nineteen years old when she leaves New York to accept the job of her dreams-working in a summer-stock company for Noel Airman, its talented and intensely charismatic director. Released from the social constraints of her traditional Jewish family, and thrown into the glorious, colorful world of theater, Marjorie finds herself entangled in a powerful affair with the man destined to become the greatest-and the most destructive-love of her life. Rich with humor and poignancy, Marjorie Morningstar is a classic love story, one that spans two continents and two decades in the life of its heroine. This unforgettable paean to youthful love and the bittersweet sorrow of a first heartbreak endures as one of Herman Wouk’s most beloved creations.

After eighth grader Bart Rangely is granted a mercy scholarship to an elite private school after his father is killed in the North Tower on 9 11, doors should have opened. Instead, he is terrorized and bullied by his own mentor. So begins the worst year of his life.

An atmospheric coming-of-age story about a young man’s transformative year on his family’s struggling Icelandic cattle farm as he falls in love, discovers the purpose he’s been missing, and seeks to connect with his stoic father, who remains haunted by a tragic past. Growing up on his family’s cattle farm in western Iceland, young Orri has gained an appreciation for the beauty found in everyday things: the cavorting of a newborn calf, the return of birdsong after a long winter, the steadfast love of a good (or tolerably good) farm dog. But the outer world still beckons, so Orri leaves his no-nonsense Lithuanian Jewish mother and his taciturn father, Pabbi, to attend university in Reykjavik.

If Naomi had picked tails, she would have won the coin toss. She wouldn’t have had to go back for the yearbook camera, and she wouldn’t have hit her head on the steps. She wouldn’t have woken up in an ambulance with amnesia. She certainly would have remembered her boyfriend, Ace. She might even have remembered why she fell in love with him in the first place. She would understand why her best friend, Will, keeps calling her “Chief.” She’d know about her mom’s new family. She’d know about her dad’s fiancée. She never would have met James, the boy with the questionable past and the even fuzzier future, who tells her he once wanted to kiss her. She wouldn’t have wanted to kiss him back. But Naomi picked heads. After her remarkable debut, Gabrielle Zevin has crafted an imaginative second novel all about love and second chances. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac is a 2008 Bank Street – Best Children’s Book of the Year.

A young girl must face a life-altering decision after awakening her sister’s ghost, navigating truths about love, friendship, and power as the Civil War looms. Sixteen years old and enslaved since she was born, Junie has spent her life on Bellereine Plantation in Alabama, cooking and cleaning alongside her family, and tending to the white master’s daughter, Violet. Her daydreams are filled with poetry and faraway worlds, while she spends her nights secretly roaming through the forest, consumed with grief over the sudden death of her older sister, Minnie. When wealthy guests arrive from New Orleans, hinting at marriage for Violet and upending Junie’s life, she commits a desperate act–one that rouses Minnie’s spirit from the grave, tethered to this world unless Junie can free her.