How to Ruin Your Life: And Other Lessons School Doesn't Teach You

Penelope Jane Parker – better known as PJ – is a precocious, sociable ten-year-old who, in the spring of her Grade 4 year, is keen to show her abilities as a sprinter in the annual track meet. Her best friend, Katie, has no interest in competing knowing that PJ will win. So to help her friend, PJ slows down during warm-ups to allow Katie to win and feel better about herself. But on the day of the race when PJ slows down, Katie surges ahead and wins the race, resulting in a spiral of jealousy and anger between the two.

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You Are What You Eat: And Other Mealtime Hazards

In this deliciously clever follow-up to Butterflies in My Stomach and Reach for the Stars, our young hero and his loyal dog, Roger, tackle another major aspect of life: eating. Mealtime should be a piece of cake, but this finicky eater eats like a bird. And that drives his mom bananas because he really should have three square meals a day. What will happen when he dines at the home of a friend whose mom is a real health nut? Maybe he'll discover that variety is the spice of life!
Children might find these sayings puzzling at first. But Bloch's witty and wonderful images, which mix whimsical line drawings with photographs of inanimate objects, make everything clear-and will leave readers of all ages pleased as punch.

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Pillars of Time

The Archaeolojesters - Cody, Eric, and Rachel - were clever enough to fool their town and expert archaeologists with a homemade "ancient Egyptian" tablet. Their exploits brought some much-needed tourism to Sultana, Manitoba, and earned them a trip to Cairo, to see some real Egyptian artifacts. But trouble seems to follow these kids where ever they go! Instead of exploring a foreign country, they find themselves on a rescue mission in a world beyond their imagination. Will their quick thinking and knack for history be enough to get them home?

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There Are No Cats in This Book

Our lovable feline friends Tiny, Moonpie, and Andre have returned, and this time they’re filled with the spirit of adventure: they want to go off to explore the world! They have their suitcases packed and are ready to set out, but can’t get out of the book. They try pushing their way out and jumping their way out, but nothing seems to work. Finally, they get a brilliant idea: they decide to wish themselves out! But they’re going to need help. Will it work? Are you missing them yet?

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A Good Horse

When eighth grader Abby Lovitt looks out at those pure-gold rolling hills, she knows there’s no place she’d rather be than her family’s ranch—even with all the hard work of tending to nine horses. But some chores are no work at all, like grooming young Jack. At eight months, his rough foal coat has shed out, leaving a smooth, rich silk, like chocolate. As for Black George, such a good horse, it turns out he’s a natural jumper. When he and Abby clear four feet easy as pie, heads start to turn at the ring—buyers’ heads—and Abby knows Daddy won’t turn down a good offer.

Then a letter arrives from a private investigator, and suddenly Abby stands to lose not one horse but two. The letter states that Jack’s mare may have been sold to the Lovitts as stolen goods. A mystery unfolds, more surprising than Abby could ever expect. Will she lose her beloved Jack to his rightful owners?

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A Tale Dark & Grimm

In a mischievous and utterly original debut, Hansel and Gretel walk out of their own story and into eight other classic Grimm-inspired tales that have never been more irreverent or subversive, as the siblings learn to take charge of their destinies and become the clever architects of their own happily ever after.

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Tales of Mystery and Magic

A bewitching world of mystery and magic awaits young readers in a collection of stories with an uncanny edge from Chile, Greenland, India, Nigeria, North America, Russia and Scotland that are ideal for holiday reading. Read by author Hugh Lupton.

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Reckless

For years, Jacob Reckless has been secretly disappearing to another world, a world behind a mirror, a world for which his father abandoned his family. The mirror world is Jacob's escape from reality. It's a place for treasure hunts and magnificent quests. A world where witches haunt the forests and giants and dwarfs roam. A world locked in a deadly war.

Jacob's secret seems safe, until one day his younger brother Will follows him, with disastrous consequence. Faced with a curse that is quickly turning Will to stone, the Reckless brothers are thrust into a race against time to find a cure before Will is lost forever.

Inspired by the Brothers Grimm, master storyteller Cornelia Funke introduces a lush, enchanting world where fantasy meets reality. Reckless is a thrilling adventure, a tale of heroism and loyalty, filled with danger, mystery, and magic--with fairy tales and legends re-imagined as never before.

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Lively Elizabeth!: What Happens When You Push

When rambunctious Elizabeth shoves her schoolmate Joe, it sets off a chain reaction throughout the classroom, and though she doesn't mean to hurt anyone, she discovers that one little push can lead to BIG problems!

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Librarian on the Roof!: A True Story

To earn money for a new children's section for the Dr. Eugene Clark Library in Lockhart, Texas, librarian RoseAleta Laurell spends a week living and working on the library roof, even surviving a dangerous storm, and manages to raise over $39,000 from within the community and across the nation.

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Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush

From sunup until bedtime, two energetic puppies are busy, not just going around the mulberry bush but getting dressed, marching to school, and having lots of fun. Jane Cabrera's delightful rendition of this well-loved nursery song makes for a perfect read-aloud or sing-along for preschoolers.

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Too Many Turkeys

Chaos ensues when Farmer Fred's wife fertilizes her beautiful garden with an secret ingredient that attracts turkeys from miles around.

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Crunch

Dewey Marriss is stuck in the middle of a crunch.
He never guessed that the gas pumps would run dry the same week he promised to manage the family's bicycle-repair business. Suddenly everyone needs a bike. And nobody wants to wait.
Meanwhile, the crunch has stranded Dewey's parents far up north with an empty fuel tank and no way home. It's up to Dewey and his older sister, Lil, to look after their younger siblings and run the bike shop all on their own.
Each day Dewey and his siblings feel their parents' absence more and more. The Marriss Bike Barn is busier than ever. And just when he is starting to feel crunched himself, Dewey discovers that bike parts are missing from the shop. He's sure he knows who's responsible—or does he? Will exposing the thief only make more trouble for Dewey and his siblings?
Award-winning author Leslie Connor has created another timely family story infused with humor and hope.

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Ducking for Apples

“Blue sky! Sunshine!
Head outside!
Let’s ride bikes!”
five ducks decide.
The five little ducks can’t wait to ride their bikes. Will they use their training wheels? No way! Teetering, swerving, tottering, curving, they ride full-steam until two ducks spy trees with ripe red apples on top. Those yummy apples will be perfect for pies and cakes, if only the ducks can reach them . . .

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Skyclan's Destiny: Super Edition

Many moons ago, five warrior Clans shared the forest in peace. But as Twolegs encroached on the cats' territories, the warriors of SkyClan were forced to abandon their home and try to forge a new life far away. Eventually, the Clan disbanded—forgotten by all until Firestar was sent on a quest to reunite its descendants and return SkyClan to its former glory.
Now, with Leafstar in place as leader, SkyClan is thriving. Leafstar is desperate to believe that her Clan will survive where the ancient SkyClan cats failed. But threats continue to plague the Clan, and as dissent grows from within, Leafstar must face the one question she dreads: Is SkyClan meant to survive?

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The Cowgirl Way: Hats Off to America's Women of the West

The 1840s ushered in the beginning of the largest migration in US history. People in crowded Eastern cities and Missouri River towns were feeling the pull of the Western frontier. It was the dawn of a new era of expansion, and over the next few decades, the making of a new kind of pioneer. It was the birth of the cowgirl!
Welcome to the world of nimble equestriennes, hawkeyed sharpshooters, sly outlaws, eloquent legislators, expert wranglers and talented performers who made eyes pop and jaws drop with their skills, savvy and bravery. In this fascinating account of an ever-evolving American icon, Holly George-Warren invites readers to saddle up with a host of these trailblazers who helped settle the West and define the cowgirl spirit.

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Seeds of Change: Planting A Path To Peace

"A biography of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner and environmentalist Wangari Maathai, a female scientist who made a stand in the face of opposition to women's rights and her own Greenbelt Movement, an effort to restore Kenya's ecosystem by planting millions of trees"

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Summer Reading Club Finale is August 17th from 4-7:30 pm at the Pruyn House

FINALE

MAKE A SPLASH AT THE BOARDWALK BASH!

Tuesday, August 17                 4:00–7:30 at the Pruyn House on Old Niskayuna Road

Save the date for our fabulous finale!  Just like the boardwalk at the beach, there will be games, food, music, crafts, and lots of summer fun!  You will receive an invite when you complete the Make a Splash @ Your Library!  reading program.  See you there! 

The Firehouse Light

Here is the true story of a little lightbulb, located in a firehouse, that has stayed lit for more than one hundred years. As horse-drawn carriages make room for automobiles, dirt roads give way to paved streets, and new buildings transform small clusters of homes into bustling neighborhoods, a small town grows and changes. And fighting fires changes, too: fires once fought by bucket brigades and hand-pulled hose carts are now attended by full-time firefighters and modern firetrucks. Yet now, just like then, the lightbulb glows, strong and steady, above the brave firefighters and their trucks.

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Cloud Tea Monkeys

Traveling alone to the tea plantations above her tiny foothill village when her mother falls ill, Tashi attempts to earn money for a doctor's services until her clumsiness angers a cruel overseer, in a story inspired by the Chinese legend of tea-picking monkeys. Co-written by the Carnegie Medal-winning author of Tamar.

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The Other Half of My Heart

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.

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Kiss My Math: Showing Pre-algebra Who's Boss

The television actress and mathematics guru author of Math Doesn't Suck presents a pre-algebra primer for seventh- to ninth-graders, in an accessible reference that shares time-saving tricks, real-world examples, and detailed practice problems.

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Once Upon a Baby Brother

Lizzie loves to make up stories and tell them to anyone and everyone, even though now that her annoying baby brother, Marvin, has joined the family, no one has time to listen.  She's so full of ideas, it seems like nothing can stop her. And then one day, something does. What’s a star writer to do?

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Rocky Road

Fashion-loving twelve-year-old Tess moves with her deaf younger brother and impulsive single mother to Schenectady, New York, where they open an ice-cream shop and lead a campaign for urban renewal. Check Catalog

Disney in Shadow

When Disney Imagineers installed hologram guides for the Magic Kingdom, using teenage models they had no idea the technology might backfire.  But backfire it did: some nights when the kids go to sleep, they wake up in one of the Disney parks as a hologram.
With the adventures set forth in the first books now behind them, Kingdom Keepers 3: Disney In Shadow follows the five teens, Finn, Philby, Willa, Charlene, and Maybeck as they search to find Wayne, their mentor and head Imagineer who has mysteriously gone missing. Concerned Wayne has been abducted by the Overtakers—Disney villains, who along with other Disney characters, take over the parks when the turnstiles stop spinning, and want desperately to steer the parks to a far darker place—the five kids pick up a major clue from a close friend, Jez, whose dreams (nightmares, really) often accurately predict the future.
The very few clues from Jez’s dream lead the kids into Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Epcot--through imaginary worlds that become real, by imaginary kids who are real.  Each clue seems tied to the last, and with the stakes growing ever higher, what starts out as a puzzle ends up as a fight for their lives. Through a transparent paper box, a quest for a sword, rides on Soarin' and Maelstrom, life-and-death encounters with giant snakes, and a devious Maleficent, the Kingdom Keepers not only begin to decipher deeper meanings to the clues, but discover new truths about themselves and their ever-growing friendships.Check Catalog

The Summer Camp Survival Guide: Cool Games, Camp Classics, and How to Capture the Flag

Let the summertime adventure begin! Whether they’re going to day camp, sleepaway camp, sports camp, dance camp, or any other kind of camp, this is the ultimate guide for happy campers!  It’s brimming with fun ideas to help children have the time of their lives, including icebreakers, games, crafts, campfire stories, sing-along songs, and more.  There’s advice on using a compass, winning camp contests, and keeping the homesick blues at bay. With charts, sidebars, tear-outs and postcards, plus time-tested information from two very expert authors, any kid carrying this book is sure to have an awesome summer. Check Catalog

Kaleidoscope Eyes

When Lyza helps her dad clean out her late grandfather’s house, a mysterious surprise brightens the sad task. In Gramps’s dusty attic, Lyza discovers three maps, carefully folded and stacked, bound by a single rubber band. On top, an envelope says “For Lyza ONLY.” What could this possibly be? It takes the help of her two best friends, Malcolm and Carolann, to figure out that the maps reveal three possible spots in their own New Jersey town where Captain Kidd (the Captain Kidd, seventeenth-century pirate) may have buried a treasure. Can three thirteen-year-olds actually conduct a secret treasure hunt? And what will they find?

In a tale inspired by a true story of buried treasure, Jen Bryant weaves an emotional and suspenseful novel in poems, all set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War during a pivotal year in U.S. history.

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Make a splash at your library begins June 29th

Kids and parents alike are invited to Make a Splash @ Your Library this summer!  You can choose to read aloud or alone, outside or in your home, just read, read, read!  Then come in to collect the prizes you’ve earned and to enjoy the free programs we offer.  Readers who complete four weeks will get an invite to our Boardwalk Bash Finale on Tuesday, August 17, so make sure you Make a Splash @ Your Library!  Registration begins Tuesday, June 29 in Youth Services and continues through the summer.

The Punctuation Station

Join a family of giraffes on their journey to Punctuation Station--as the train chugs along, young readers will learn the ins and outs of using periods, commas, apostrophes, question marks, hyphens, quotation marks and exclamation points.Check Catalog 

Layla, Queen of Hearts

When Layla's school announces a Senior Citizens’ Day, Layla is at a loss. Who can she take? Her friend Griffin Silk offers to share his grandmother, Nell, but Layla desperately wants someone of her own. So Nell introduces Layla to Miss Amelie and a friendship begins. Layla soon learns that Miss Amelie has problems with her memory. Layla is determined to help—and a small but significant miracle occurs in this warm and loving novel about the healing power of friendship.

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Athena the Brain

Athena learns that she is a goddess when she is summoned to Mount Olympus by her father, Zeus, and she must quickly adjust to her new status, make friends with the other godboys and goddessgirls, and catch up with all the studies she missed while attending mortal school

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Waggit Forever

When a shortage of food and too many humans make it impossible for Waggit and his friends to survive in the city park, they make a dangerous journey, guided by a team of street dogs, in search of a new place to live.

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Tween Night canceled

The Tween night for May 7th has been canceled due to lack of registration.  Please preregister for the July 16th Tween night

Tyrannosaurus Rex VS. Velociraptor: Power Against Speed

Describes the features of Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor, and how they may have battled each other in prehistoric times

Dinosaurs Eye to Eye: Zoom in on the World's Most Incredible Dinosaurs

Provides a zoomed-in encounter with dozens of the most incredible creatures ever to walk, stalk, swim or fly across the prehistoric planet and is packed with awesome imagery that brings children face-to-face with dinosaurs and other phenomenal prehistoric creatures.

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Storytelling: Art and Technique

Storytelling is one of our oldest activities, a way to convey values and keep cultures alive. Stories are also an important educational tool. By age six, children who have been read to or told stories have a vocabulary of 20,000 words compared to a vocabulary of 3,000 words for their less-lucky counterparts. Stories awake imagination, soothe the soul, and engender a life-long love of books and reading.

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My Mother Is So Smart

Mothers are so amazing is there anything they can't do? This little boy's mom is so smart she can make the perfect Halloween costume, drive a truck, dress like a movie star, dance the polka, make popsicles, teach the whole neighborhood to sing and even stand on her head.

Through the heartfelt words of a little boy awed by all the things his mom can do, this glowing celebration of mothers has a universal appeal that will make young readers everywhere want to share it with their own moms.

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There Was an Old Monkey Who Swallowed a Frog

A wacky retelling of a popular tale finds an insatiable monkey growing a distended belly as he swallows a frog, a toucan, an iguana and other rain forest creatures.

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Extreme Bugs: Creepy and Crawly, Mad and Bad!

Lively text about spiders, scorpions, tarantulas, dragonflies, centipedes, cicadas and more is enhanced with magnified photographs of insects and interactive features such as fold-outs, mini-booklets, a quiz, turning wheel and more.

Drizzle

Eleven-year-old Polly Peabody knows her family‚'s world-famous rhubarb farm is magical. The plants taste like chocolate, jewels appear in the soil, bugs talk to her, and her best friend is a rhubarb plant named Harry. But the most magical thing is that every single Monday, at exactly 1:00, it rains. Until the Monday when the rain just stops. Now it‚'s up to Polly to figure out why‚ and whether her brother‚'s mysterious illness and her glamorous aunt Edith‚'s sudden desire to sell the farm have anything to do with it. Most of all, Polly has to make it start raining again before it‚'s too late. Her brother‚'s life, the plants‚' survival, and her family‚'s future all depend on it.

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The Story of Cirrus Flux

In 1783 London, the destiny of an orphaned boy and girl becomes intertwined as the boy, Cirrus Flux, is pursued by a sinister woman mesmerist, a tiny man with an all-seeing eye, and a skull-collecting scoundrel, all of whom believe that he possesses an orb containing a divine power.

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Whistle Bright Magic: A Nutfolk Tale

 

Hard times have befallen the fairy town of Nutfolk Wood, but Whistle Bright is determined to stay in his forest village, even though humans are sure to destroy it. And Zelly wants to stay in the small town of Plunkit, even though her mother insists that they return to their lives in the big city. Zelly is convinced that she belongs in Plunkit, and only there will she find out more about her father, who disappeared when she was three.

In their quest to stay in the place that they love, the tiny Nutfolk boy and the human girl become allies, and both are surprised by the unexpected things that can happen in life.

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The Hallelujah Flight

Documents the heroic efforts of Depression-era pilot James Banning and his co-pilot and mechanic, Thomas Allen, to become the first African-Americans to fly across the country, an effort that was challenged by their dilapidated plane, treacherous weather and formidable racial barriers.

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Young Zeus

"This is the story of how young Zeus, with a little help from six monsters, five gods, an enchanted she-goat (that's me), and his mother, became god of gods, master of lightning and thunder, and ruler over all"

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Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder

Meeting an eccentric professor after moving to a new home in Norway, 11-year-old Nilly learns about the professor's gaseous invention that is powerful enough to send people into outer space, an innovation that Nilly and his friend Lisa must keep out of evil hands

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Kinetic Contraptions: Build a Hovercraft, Airboat, and More With a Hobby Motor

Provides step-by-step instructions for building two dozen hobby motor projects using readily available materials, in a guide for budding engineers that includes such examples as a mechanical bubble maker, a double paddle-wheeler and a waterless snow globe.

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Letters to a Soldier

When Mrs. Julie Hutt's fourth-grade class in Roslyn, New York, wrote letters to soldiers abroad to thank them for their service and ask them what it is like to be a U.S. soldier, First Lieutenant Falvey, a military police officer serving in Baghdad with the Army National Guard, answered their questions and shares his own personal photographs and words along with the children's letters.

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The Blessing of the Beasts

Francesca the cockroach and her good friend Martin the skunk, whom she met some time ago in a trash can, live in a soup kitchen on the poor side of town. When three uptown roaches bring word of a blessing of the animals to be held at the cathedral across town, Francesca decides that she and Martin should go. (She was after all, named after Francis the good human, who loved the unlovable). The lowly but determined friends manage to cross town - Francesca in Martin's left ear - and join all manner of creatures great and small for a glorious celebration and blessing. Ethel Pochocki is the author of several previous children's books and is a former librarian at the New York Public Library. Engravings by Barry Moser are almost haunting in their beauty, even - and maybe especially - the ones of the animal outcasts. Both text and pictures are witty and elegant. Readers of any age will be reminded that God's love is for all, even the least of these.

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Dweeb: Burgers, Beasts, and Brainwashed Bullies

	After being framed for stealing bake sale money, the five smartest boys in the eighth grade are imprisoned in a small room beneath their junior high school in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, and must use their nerdish powers to expose a conspiracy involving fast f ood, standardized testing, and a school full of overachieving zombies.
	When weird things start happening at their junior high, 8th-graders Denton, Wendell, Eddie, Elijah, and Bijay, better known as DWEEB, know they are the only ones who have the smarts to solve the mystery, but with Vice Principal Snodgrass on their case, the challenge to do so becomes even greater.

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Newbery winner When You Reach Me By Rebecca Stead

As her mother prepares to be a contestant on the 1980s television game show, "The $20,000 Pyramid," a twelve-year-old New York City girl tries to make sense of a series of mysterious notes received from an anonymous source that seems to defy the laws of time and space.

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Caldecott winner The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney

In award-winning artist Jerry Pinkney's wordless adaptation of one of Aesop's most beloved fables, an unlikely pair learn that no act of kindness is ever wasted. After a ferocious lion spares a cowering mouse that he'd planned to eat, the mouse later comes to his rescue, freeing him from a poacher's trap. With vivid depictions of the landscape of the African Serengeti and expressively-drawn characters, Pinkney makes this a truly special retelling, and his stunning pictures speak volumes.

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The Dog Who Loved Tortillas

When Gabriela and her brother Dieguito get a puppy named Sofie, they fight over who she belongs to, but when Sofie gets very sick they find the answer.

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Peter Rabbit Munch

Young children will love turning each page and watching as Peter nibbles and munches his way through almost everything in Mr. McGregor's garden. Each page is a little smaller than the one before, and Peter's little teeth marks prove he's not far away! Turn the last page to see if poor Mr. McGregor will be left with anything at all for HIS lunch! A soft learning approach is integrated as the book counts down from 5 to 1.

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