TEENS

Meg Murry, her brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger.

Updating a classic edition of a literary classic, Martin Gardner combines the notes from his 1959 and 1990 editions with new discoveries and additions from his extensive knowledge of the text and the period and with a few more contemporary drawings by John Tenniel. Notes in the wide margins identify characters and events that Carroll (1832-98) lampooned in his famous work of fantasy, and compare some of his earlier or other passages. He includes a selected bibliography and a list of movie adaptations.Lexile 320

In Le Guin's series of 16 vivid stories, an airport-bound woman with an inquiring mind visits assorted other planes of existence. With dispassion, wry humor, and a keen eye, and aided as well by research conducted in libraries of various kinds, she describes those excursions in hopes of inducing the reader to try interplanary travel. Each story features a different society and culture, and some of these settings allow telling commentary on the foibles of our world.

Generations of readers have delighted in the biting social satire and hilarious adventures of the Connecticut Yankee, a nineteenth-century mechanic who suffers a blow to the head and wakes up in King Arthur's Britain. The Yankee soon realizes this is not the gallant world of fairy tales, but a cruel, feudalistic society. Ever resourceful, he sets out to modernize and improve things through an ingenious and funny mix of magic and technology, chivalry and sheer tomfoolery.

The moment Ivan stumbled upon a clearing in the dense Carpathian forest, his life was forever changed. Atop a pedestal encircled by fallen leaves, the beautiful princess Katerina lay still as death. But beneath the foliage a malevolent presence stirred and sent the ten-year-old Ivan scrambling for the safety of Cousin Marek's farm. Now, years later, Ivan is an American graduate student, engaged to be married. Yet he cannot forget that long-ago day in the forest--or convince himself it was merely a frightened boy's fantasy. Compelled to return to his native land, Ivan finds the clearing just as he left it. This time he does not run.

Kate Beacham had had a bad day. After almost being assaulted in an alley by three masked bigots, she arrived home to find her beloved stallion lying dead in her driveway with a note reading YoU'Re nExt. Too tough a cookie to crumble, Kate got out her shotgun and loaded it. Then she saw the book on her nightstand -- a guide book to a place she had never heard of: Glenraven.When she opened it, words magically appeared: Get out of the house, quick. Still holding the shotgun, she obeyed; and saw riders on horseback gallop from a hole in midair, pursued by a nightmarish flying thing like a cross between a dragon and a shark. Good thing she had the shotgun, or there would have been no hope for Kate, the riders, and both their worlds.

Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living, can "read" fictional characters to life when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service.

The long-awaited sequel to Moonheart returns to those magical urban streets and to the dense forests of the fantasy world that lies just a heartbeat beyond them. Tamson house is a mysterious place in the center of modern Ottawa, with a wild garden which is actually a Gateway into a mystical Otherworld.

All seven books in the Chronicles of Narnia are now available together in a hardcover volume which includes an essay by C.S. Lewis, On Three Ways of Writing for Children, where he explains precisely how the magic of Narnia first came to life.

When Jilly Coppercorn becomes a victim of a hit-and-run driver, her happy life as a popular Newford artist comes to a screeching halt. Half of her body, including her painting hand, no longer works properly, and the prospect of a long recovery, despite supportive friends, depresses her. Her dreams - the only escape she enjoys - connect her to friend Sophie's dreamland of Mabon. Another friend, of otherworldly origin, Joe Crazy Dog, calls it manido-aki, a place where magic dwells amid mythic creatures and e-landscapes far away from the World As It Is. Joe also knows that's where Jilly must heal what has broken inside herself to speed recovery of her physical body.