New Young Adult Books

Sass and Serendipity

by Jennifer Ziegler

• Reading level: Young Adult
• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (July 12, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385738986
• ISBN-13: 978-0385738989

Daphne Rivera and her sister Gabby could not be more different.

For fifteen-year-old Daphne, the glass is always half full, a dab of lip-gloss can ward off a bad day, and the boy of her dreams—the one she's read about in all of her beloved romance novels—is waiting for her just around the corner.

But Daphne's older sister Gabby wishes Daphne would get real. In Gabby's world, everyone's out for themselves, wearing makeup is a waste of time, and boys only distract you from studying before they break your heart. The only boy Gabby trusts is her best friend, Mule, who has always been there for her.

Both Gabby and Daphne are still reeling from their parents' divorce, though in very different ways. While Gabby will never forgive her unreliable father for failing her mother, Daphne idolizes her daddy and is sure that everything would work out fine if her cranky mom would just let him back into their lives.

When a crisis leaves the girls and their mom homeless, help comes from an unexpected source, and both girls are courted by surprise suitors who shake up their views of the world. Suddenly the glass isn't so clearly half empty or half full… and love seems a lot more complicated than they ever could have imagined.

90 Miles to Havana

by Enrique Flores-Galbis

• Pub. Date: August 2010
• Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
• Format: Hardcover , 304pp
• Age Range: 9 to 12
• ISBN-13: 9781596431683
• ISBN: 1596431687

When Julian's parents make the heartbreaking decision to send him and his two brothers away from Cuba to Miami via the Pedro Pan operation, the boys are thrust into a new world where bullies run rampant and it's not always clear how best to protect themselves.

Enrique Flores-Galbis, at age nine, was one of 14,000 children who left Cuba in 1961, without their parents, in a mass exodus called "Operation Pedro Pan." He and his two older brothers spent months in a refugee camp in southern Florida and this historical novel is inspired by that experience. Enrique is the author of RAINING SARDINES and he lives in Forest Hills, NY with his family.