Annotation:This is a timely story of a widowed mom and her three children losing their home to foreclosure. The mom, a teacher, decides to send the children to her uncle in Colorado while she stays in California to finish out the school year. She does not tell the children until the day before that they will be leaving on a plane to go to an uncle they do not know well. It is after take-off that the story takes a turn for the strange.

Annotation:Horton Halfpott works in M’Lady Lugertuck’s kitchen along with a cast of other servants including Miss Nervously, Bump Blight and Blemish, who all suffer to serve the Luggertucks – the crotchety M’Lady Luggertuck and the insufferable Luther Luggertuck. Life is, well, awful, until plans for a ball to be held late in the summer give everyone more work to do. And when the famous Luggertuck Lump – the source of pride and Luggertuck fortune- goes missing the charge to uncover the plot falls to the hapless but well-renowned Portney St. Pomfrey.

Annotation:In Wonderstruck Brian Selznick reveals two parallel lives. The first is that of Ben Wilson who lives in Gunflint, MN. Ben’s story is told through words. It is 1977, his mother has just died, and he doesn't know the whereabouts of his father. A strike by lightening renders Ben deaf. The second is the story of Rose Kincaid, a young woman who lives in Hoboken NJ. Rose is also deaf and her story, set in 1927, is told through illustrations. Both children run away to New York City, Ben because he has clues that he thinks will help him find his father, Rose because she feels confined and limited by her parents. Both find solace in the Museum of Natural History. In a natural and organic way, Selznick intertwines their stories and, in a satisfying conclusion, the characters meet.

Annotation:Marvel Comics have now done the first 3 books in the Wizard of Oz series as graphic novels and each have been stupendous. The latest book in the series is the Ozma of Oz, and it marks the return of the heroine Dorothy Gale from Kansas. This time Dorothy is on her way to Australia when her boat meets some unexpected weather and she is shipwrecked in the Land of Ev where she joins up with many of her friends and the newly crowned illustrious ruler of Oz, Ozma, as they travel to the kingdom of the Gnome King to free the royal family of Ev from his clutches.