New Middle School and Beyond Titles

December 1st -5th, 2014

Miller, Calvin, 1936-. The Christ of Christmas : readings for Advent : 31 days of devotions.

This book of brief, everyday devotions for the month of December draws readers behind the scenes of Christmas events, allowing them to stay for as little or as long as they like.

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Peretti, Frank E. No more bullies. [Nashville, Tenn.] : W Pub. Group, c2000.

Frank Peretti shares his own experiences with bullying, empathizing with victims and exploring how educators can address the problem of violence in schools today.

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Christmas cookie jar.

Contains over two hundred recipes for Christmas cookies, including drops, bars, cut-outs, and old-fashioned cookies, as well as candy and other treats.

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Greene, Graham, 1904-1991. The heart of the matter.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JAMES WOOD Scobie, a police officer serving in a wartime West African state, is distrusted, being scrupulously honest and immune to bribery. But then he falls in love, and in doing so he is forced to betray everything he believes in, with drastic and tragic consequences.

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McPhee, Peter, 1948-. Robespierre : a revolutionary life.

For some historians and biographers, Maximilien Robespierre (1758-94) was a great revolutionary martyr who succeeded in leading the French Republic to safety in the face of overwhelming military odds. For many others, he was the first modern dictator, a fanatic who instigated the murderous Reign of Terror in 1793-94. This masterful biography combines new research into Robespierre's dramatic life with a deep understanding of society and the politics of the French Revolution to arrive at a fresh understanding of the man, his passions, and his tragic shortcomings. Peter McPhee gives special attention to Robespierre's formative years and the development of an iron will in a frail boy conceived outside wedlock and on the margins of polite provincial society. Exploring how these experiences formed the young lawyer who arrived in Versailles in 1789, the author discovers not the cold, obsessive Robespierre of legend, but a man of passion with close but platonic friendships with women. Soon immersed in revolutionary conflict, he suffered increasingly lengthy periods of nervous collapse correlating with moments of political crisis, yet Robespierre was tragically unable to step away from the crushing burdens of leadership. Did his ruthless, uncompromising exercise of power reflect a descent into madness in his final year of life? McPhee reevaluates the ideology and reality of "the Terror," what Robespierre intended, and whether it represented an abandonment or a reversal of his early liberalism and sense of justice.

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Blackwood, Gary L. The Shakespeare stealer.

Fourteen year-old Widge has very little going for him, no family, no real name, but he can write shorthand and that is a very valuable asset to the man who wants to steal William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. In those days there was only one copy of the play script, and that was jealously guarded at the Globe Theatre, London by Shakespeare's company of players. Widge sets off for London, accompanied by Falconer, a cruel and fearsome cutthroat whose job is to make sure that the mission is accomplished, no matter what the cost. But Widge gets so caught up in the play that soon all that matters to him is whether Hamlet will take action to avenge his father, and he forgets his task. Then his notebook is stolen. Under threat from Falconer, he manages to work his way into the troupe of actors, who befriend him and, for the first time, make him feel part of a family. How can he betray them now?.

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Moran, Michelle. Nefertiti : a novel.

Mutny's family were living uneventful lives in the countryside, until her sister Nefertiti married the Crown Prince of Egypt and whisked the entire family into Malkata Palace in Thebes. Thrust into the public eye, the naturally shy Mutny finds herself in rooms more ornate than any she could have imagined.

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Smith, Roland, 1951-. Cryptid hunters. 1st Hyperion Paperbacks ed.

Twins, Grace and Marty, along with a mysterious uncle, are dropped into the middle of the Congolese jungle in search of their missing photojournalist parents.

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