I love new books.

I really do. I had a case of the lazy Mondays when I got up this morning, so I was thrilled to find a box of new books waiting for me in the office.

Here are the four I'm stealing away and taking home with me before anyone else can get to them first. :)

Elephants never forget. 1, Big city Otto
741.5 SLA    Slavin, Bill.    Author's website
Published 2011
Reading Level: 3.0  Interest Level: 3-6    
Otto, a sweet-natured elephant, dons a trenchcoat and fedora and, accompanied by his pal Crackers the parrot, heads to America in search of his childhood friend Georgie, a chimpanzee who was abducted from their forest home by a man with a wooden nose.     

Charlie Joe Jackson's guide to not reading           

FIC GRE    Greenwald, Tom.     Author's website

Published 2011

Reading Level: 5.8  Interest Level: 5-8      

Middle schooler Charlie Joe is proud of his success at avoiding reading, but eventually his schemes go too far.    

Book trailer (YouTube)

The other half of my heart          

FIC FRA    Frazier, Sundee Tucker.  Author's website         

Published 2010

Reading Level: 4.9  Interest Level: 3-6      

Twin daughters of interracial parents, eleven-year-olds Keira and Minna have very different skin tones and personalities, but it is not until their African American grandmother enters them in the Miss Black Pearl Pre-Teen competition in North Carolina that red-haired and pale-skinned Minna realizes what life in their small town in the Pacific Northwest has been like for her more outgoing, darker-skinned sister.   

The limit              

FIC LAN    Landon, Kristen.   Author's website            

Published 2010

Reading Level: 4.1  Interest Level: 5-8      

When his family exceeds its legal debt limit, thirteen-year-old Matt is sent to the Federal Debt Rehabilitation Agency workhouse, where he discovers illicit activities are being carried out using the children who have been placed there.    

Book trailer (YouTube)