Matt has always been nothing but a clone--grown from a strip of old El Patron's skin. Now, at age fourteen, he finds himself suddenly thrust into the position of ruling over his own country. The Land of Opium, on the one-time US/Mexico border, is the largest territory of the Dope Confederacy, which ranges on the map like an intestine from the ruins of San Diego to the ruins of Matamoros. But while Opium thrives, the rest of the world has been devastated by ecological disaster--and hidden in Opium is the cure.
And that isn't all that awaits from within the depths of Opium. Matt is haunted by the ubiquitous army of eejits, zombie-like workers harnessed to the old El Patron's sinister system of drug growing...people stripped of the very qualities which once made them human.
Matt wants to use his newfound power to help, to stop the suffering , but he can't even find a way to smuggle his childhood love Maria across the border and into Opium. Instead, his every move hits a roadblock--both from the traitors that surround him and from a voice within himself. For who is Matt really but the clone of an evil, murderous dictator?
Matteo Alacrán was not born; he was harvested. His DNA came from El Patrón, lord of a country called Opium -- a strip of poppy fields lying between the United States and what was once called Mexico. Matt's first cell split and divided inside a petri dish. Then he was placed in the womb of a cow, where he continued the miraculous journey from embryo to fetus to baby. He is a boy now, but most consider him a monster -- except for El Patrón. El Patrón loves Matt as he loves himself, because Matt is himself. As Matt struggles to understand his existence, he is threatened by a sinister cast of characters, including El Patrón's power-hungry family, and he is surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards. Escape is the only chance Matt has to survive. But escape from the Alacrán Estate is no guarantee of freedom, because Matt is marked by his difference in ways he doesn't even suspect.
Jack has caused an earthquake. He was trying to save his sister, Lucy, from being thrown down a well, but he is, after all, only a bard-in-training. Sometimes the magic doesn't quite work out. Not only does Jack demolish a monastery, but Lucy is carried off by the Lady of the Lake. Jack has to follow her through the Hollow Road which lies underground. It leads to all sorts of unexpected places-caves full of dragon poop, knocker holes (you do not want to know what knuckers are) and Elfland. He is aided by Pega, a slave girl, and the berserker Thorgil, whom Jack rescues from being devoured by moss. On the way they meet hobgoblins, kelpies, yarthkins and elves-not the enchanted sprites one would expect but fallen angels who steal human children for pets. It is the year 790 AD and the world is caught between belief in the Old Gods and Christianity. What Jack and his companions do will decide the fate of both religions.
Jack was eleven when the berserkers loomed out of the fog and nabbed him. "It seems that things are stirring across the water," the Bard had warned. "Ships are being built, swords are being forged." "Is that bad?" Jack had asked, for his Saxon village had never before seen berserkers. "Of course. People don't make ships and swords unless they intend to use them." The year is A.D. 793. In the next months, Jack and his little sister, Lucy, are enslaved by Olaf One-Brow and his fierce young shipmate, Thorgil. With a crow named Bold Heart for mysterious company, they are swept up into an adventure-quest in the spirit of The Lord of the Rings. Award-winner Nancy Farmer has never told a richer, funnier tale, nor offered more timeless encouragement to young seekers than "Just say no to pillaging
Baby Ruva lives with her giraffe family in a beautiful jungle. One sad day she is kidnapped and taken across the ocean to a horrible zoo. Thanks to four wise and magical friends she has met along the way, the baby giraffe is managing to survive, but time is running out. The zookeepers are going to kill her so they can use her cage for a new shipment of hyenas. Now she and her friends must outwit their evil captors and find their way back to "the warm place", which is their home in Africa. This Newbery Award-winning author of The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, an ALSC Notable Recording, and A Girl Named Disaster has a talent for captivating young readers with nonstop suspense. Combined with Lisette Lecat's sensitive narration, the incredibly horrid bad guys and wonderful heroes keep listeners glued to their seats until the very end.
Eleven-year-old Nhamo is running for her life. When the village witch finder decrees that she must marry a cruel stranger to propitiate an evil spirit, her only recourse is to steal a fishing boat and go looking for a father she has never met. Alone on the Musengezi River, Nhamo has meager resources to help her survive loneliness, hunger, wild animals, and even land mines. During the grueling months in her leaking boat and on a deserted island, she has only visions of her dead mother and other spirit ancestors to sustain her. They transform her solitary journey into a luminous spiritual odyssey, one from which she will need to draw strength when she reaches her destination. Listeners who have enjoyed another of her Newbery Honor books, The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, know the broad range of imagination and talent this award-winning author brings to her work. Young listeners will gain a healthy respect for the richness of cultural diversity even as they're realizing the universality of the human experience.
You're about to enter the world of the future-a world turned inside out and upside down, beyond anything you've ever imagined. Zimbabwe, 2194. General Matsika's three children sneak out of the house on a forbidden adventure and disappear. Immediately, the general calls Africa's most unusual detectives: the Ear, the Eye, and the Arm. Together, these three detectives combine their superhuman powers to find the missisng children. It's a dangerous mission that leads them from the seedy streets of the Cow's Guts to the swaying top of the Mile-High MacIlwaine Hotel. With the evil spirits of the past and the villains of the future chasing them all the way, can the Ear, the Eye, and the Arm find the Matsika children before it's too late? African tribal folklore meets futuristic technology in this brilliantly imaginative Newbery Honor Book. The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm blends adventure, laugh-out-loud humor, and an unforgettable cast of characters (black, brown, white, and even blue) into an extraordinary tale that listeners wil find unforgettable.
