The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shulman

What if fairy tale magic really existed? What is there was a library where you could check out the magical items from fairy tales? What if you could get an after-school job at this library?

In The Grimm Legacy there is such a library. While it also loans out all kinds of other objects - costumes, dishes, tools, historical objects and artwork - in one special room there are magical items from the tales collected by the Brothers Grimm.

Our main character, Elizabeth, sometimes feels like she is living in a fairy tale, especially since her father remarried and she gained a step-mother and two step-sisters who are a little bit evil. At a new school with no friends, she jumps at the chance to work as a page at the New York Circulating Material Repository. She likes her new job putting things away on the shelves and finding objects for library patrons, but then she discovers the Grimm collections and scary things begin to happen. As magical items begin to be stolen from the library, Elizabeth and her new friends - Marc, Aaron, and Anjali - find themselves in a life or death race to find some very important items.

If you love fairy tales or magic or a little romance, this is the book for you! Or if you love libraries - like I do - you will really enjoy this special library. I wonder if there is some magic lurking somewhere on our library shelves? Hmmm . . .

Click here to read the first chapter online and watch The Grimm Legacy book trailer below.

The White Gates by Bonnie Ramthun

Here's a great book for kids who like snowboarding, adventure and a mystery!

Twelve-year old Torin Sinclair has just moved to Snow Park, Colorado. All of his life he's been pretty much a surfer boy living with his dad and step-mom, but now he's come to live with his mom who is the new town doctor. His first big goal is to learn to snowboard!

But the kids in school aren't too friendly and he begins to hear about the curse that seems to follow whoever is the town doctor. Fortunately he makes a couple of friends - Raine Douglas, whose father owns the snowboard shop, and Drake Wexler, whose father is a famous snowboarder. Raine's family is of Ute Indian heritage and she eventually tells him about the sacred mountain her family seeks to protect and the origins of the mysterious Ute curse.

Is there really a curse? Is someone out to develop the protected mountain land? And what is with the kids who keep threatening Torin on the slopes?

And what are the White Gates? Well - they are a dangerous avalanche run. Plenty of snowboard action ahead!

Nick of Time by Ted Bell

Pirates, time travel, spies, a Nazi submarine, sword fights, sailing ships - Nick of Time is non-stop adventure and action!

Nick McIver is the hero of our adventure and a hero is just what Nick wants to be. The year is 1939, and war with Germany is coming closer. Nick lives with is parents, the lighthouse keepers, on Greybeard Island in the Channel Islands between England and France. Nick is a marvelous sailor and longs for the days of his ancestor Captain Nicolas McIver and his idol Lord Nelson. Things are becoming dangerous for Nick himself as he gets caught up in his father's secret work as a spy against the Nazis.

Things really spin our of control when he discovers a time travel device sent to him from his ancestor Captain McIver, who desperately needs Nick's help in the past. He also meets Captain Blood, a time traveling pirate. Then a Nazi submarine surfaces off the island and Nick finds himself needed in two places as once. Author Ted Bell also introduces us to his adult fiction character Alex Hawke, who is a British spy.

When he was a boy, author Ted Bell loved books like Treasure Island and Kidnapped. His character Nick McIver seems to spring right out of books like these old-fashioned adventures.

This is the first adventure in the Nick McIver series. Nick of Time is followed by The Time Pirates.

Click here to read the first three chapters of Nick of Time.