fiction Archives - Page 633 of 718

clarahumble
Clara Humble and the Not-So-Super Powers
by Anna Humphrey (Author) and Lisa Cinar (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Clara Humble may seem like your average fourth-grader who doesn’t look before she leaps, but she has a secret: she thinks she might have superpowers. Which is convenient, because things aren’t going so well for Clara. Students from rival R. R. Reginald are moving into her school for the term, and Clara’s favorite neighbor, Momo, is moving to a faraway retirement home.

Together with her best friend, Bradley, the winsome and overconfident Clara becomes convinced that her knack for making liquids spill, overhearing her parents’ conversations, communicating with her pet chinchilla, and maybe even mind-controlling teachers could be used to put a stop to these injustices.

Snippet: I’d seen the For Sale sign on her lawn from the bus window when we went past. It had that lady with the very white teeth and very big hair on it–the same one who seemed to sell all the houses in our neighborhood. Above her picture there was a sign that read, “Coming soon.” It meant that Momo was about to break her terrible news to me. Under any other circumstances, I would ahve felt like crying. but for a girl who’d just learned that she has the power of mind control (in addition to her power to spill things, move things with her mind, burn out lightbulbs and batteries, wake up at 7:14 exactly, and communicate with chinchillas, a little For Sale sign didn’t seem like much of a match.

vampireslair
The Vampire’s Lair
by Dee Phillips (Author)

Booktalk: When twin brothers Dylan and Jack travel to a Romanian castle to attend their older sister’s wedding, they discover an old legend that haunts the remote castle. The twins’ fascination soon turns to horror, however, when they realize that there’s a vampire in the castle’s dungeon. What will happen once the bloodthirsty vampire begins stalking the castle’s dark passageways? Will Dylan and Jack be able to escape with their lives?

Snippet: “It was my destiny from birth to be a hunter of vampires,” he said. “My father was a vampire hunter, as was my grandfather before him. My family members have hunted and destroyed these evil monsters for generations.”