WN - WN's Book's To Read

Don't know what to read while you are waiting for the next Harry Potter book? Well just check on one of these great books!

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	Dealing with Dragons	The Princess Climorene, sick and tired of doing the proper thing, runs away from home. She ends up volunteering to work for the dragon Kazul, who allows her to do improper things like studying Latin, learning magic spells and making cherries jubilee.	www.amazon.com
	Wizard's Hall	At the age of 11, Henry finds himself enrolled as the 113th pupil at a school for wizards. Henry, who is renamed Thornmallow (he's prickly on the outside and squishy on the inside), is rather inept at wizardry, but he does try-and he does become the key figure in saving Wizard's Hall from the evil that threatens to take over the school and his homeland.	www.amazon.com
	Holes	Stanley Yelnats's family has a history of bad luck, so he isn't too surprised when a miscarriage of justice sends him to a boys' juvenile detention center, Camp Green Lake. There is no lake - it has been dry for over a hundred years - and it's hardly a camp. As punishment, the boys must each dig a hole a day, five feet deep, five feet across, in the hard earth of the dried-up lake bed. The warden claims that this pointless labor builds character, but she is really using the boys to dig for loot buried by the Wild West outlaw Kissin' Kate Barlow. The story of Kissin' Kate, and of a curse put on Stanley's great-great-grandfather by a one-legged Gypsy, weaves a narrative puzzle that tangles and untangles, until it becomes clear that the hand of fate has been at work in the lives of the characters - and their forebears - for generations.	www.amazon.com
	Half Magic	Half Magic, the most popular of (Edward Eager's) tales about four children who encounter magical coins, time-travel herb gardens, and other unlikely devices, is a warm, funny, original adventure. The title refers to a coin that the children find. Through a comical series of coincidences, they discover that the coin is magic. Well, it's not totally magic--it's only (you guessed it) half magic. That means there's a certain logic to the wishes one must make to generate a desired outcome. Imagine the results emerging from inaccurate efforts: half invisible, half rescued, half everything!	www.amazon.com

 

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	The Chronicles of Narnia BOXED SET	In brief, four children travel repeatedly to a world in which they are far more than mere children and everything is far more than it seems. Richly told, populated with fascinating characters, perfectly realized in detail of world and pacing of plot, and profoundly allegorical, the story is infused throughout with the timeless issues of good and evil, faith and hope.	www.amazon.com
	So You Want to Be a Wizard	In the spirit of Madeleine L'Engle's classic A Wrinkle in Time, this is a fascinating and powerfully involving story about two lonely kids who are inadvertently caught up in the never-ending battle between good and evil. The problems of everyday adolescent life and the mysteries of magic are perfectly blended, along with plenty of humor and suspense.	www.amazon.com
	Dragonflight	This is the first in the Dragonriders of Pern trilogy. At a time when the number of Dragonriders has fallen too low for safety and only one Weyr trains the creatures and their riders, the Red Star approaches Pern, threatening it with disaster.	www.amazon.com
	Ever World	David's life was pretty normal. School. Friends. Girlfriend. Actually, Senna was probably the oddest aspect of his life. She was beautiful. Smart. But there was something very different about her. Something strange. And on the day it began, everything happened so quickly. One moment, Senna was with him. The next, she was swallowed up by the earth. Her screams echoing from far, far away. David couldn't just let her go. Neither could the others. His friends - and hers. So, they followed. And found themselves in a world they never could have imagined. Now they have to find Senna and get home without losing their lives. Or their minds. Or both...
	Charmed Life	Cat doesn't mind living in the shadow of his sister, Gwendolen, the most promising witch ever seen on Coven Street. But trouble starts brewing the moment the two orphans are summoned to live in Chrestomanci Castle. Frustrated that the enchanter Chrestomanci refuses to acknowledge her talents, Gwendolen conjures up a scheme that could throw whole worlds out of whack.	www.amazon.com

 

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	The Forgotten Beasts of Eld	When her father dies, 16-year-old Sybel's only companions are the magical menagerie called to Eld Mountain long ago by her reclusive grandfather, the progeny of a powerful wizard and a mortal. The animals provide Sybel's only sense of family until a man brings her the infant son of her mother's sister, forcing Sybel to return to the world of humans--a world where she learns the intricacies of guile and treachery as well as the power of human love.	www.amazon.com
	The Phantom Tollbooth	This ingenious fantasy centeres around Milo, a bored ten-year-old who comes home to find a large toy tollbooth sitting in his room. Joining forces with a watchdog named Tock, Milo drives through the tollbooth's gates and begins a memorable journey.	www.amazon.com
	The Book of Three	A classic story of high adventure and conflict between good and evil placed in the mythical land of Prydain, The Book of Three is read grippingly and enchantingly by Chris King. Vocal switches are mostly smooth with a few minor pronunciation slips which are quickly corrected. King's voice is clear, easy to understand and memorable, giving the listener a sense of the characters as well as a pronunciation guide to those incredible Gaelic names Alexander uses.	www.amazon.com
	A Wrinkle in Time	Meg Murray, her little brother Charles Wallace, and their mother are having a midnight snack on a dark and stormy night when an unearthly stranger appears at their door. He claims to have been blown off course, and goes on to tell them that there is such a thing as a "tesseract," which, if you didn't know, is a wrinkle in time.Meg's father had been experimenting with time-travel when he suddenly disappeared. Will Meg, Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin outwit the forces of evil as they search through space for their father?	www.amazon.com
	Boxed set of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings	This is a boxed set containing paper editions of Tolkien's four stories of Middle-earth: The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King.	www.amazon.com

 

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	Redwall	Magical, mystical, and the stuff of legends, this stunning tale of good battling with--and ultimately triumphing over--evil takes the reader on a roller-coaster adventure that barely draws breath from the first page to the very last. Brian Jacques is a true master of his craft.	www.amazon.com
	The Golden Compass	Philip Pullman's acclaimed epic novel about missing children, a golden, truth-divining compass and a young girl and her "daemon" who are catapulted into a life-and-death struggle against dark forces, is transformed into spellbinding theater for the imagination, thanks to a flawless British cast and Pullman's own narration. A 1999 Parents' Choice® Gold Award Winner.	www.amazon.com
	Sandra's Book	Rescued by a powerful mage and brought to a school of magic, four children, each orphaned or unwanted, discover their previously unrealized magical powers in different areas of mage craft. Although the children, who come from very different stations in life, begin at odds with one another, they learn how to work together for a common purpose. Despite the title, the novel focuses equally on all of the characters.	www.amazon.com
	Which Witch?	When Arriman the Awful, the handsome wizard of the North, announces a contest to choose his bride, every witch in town is a flutter. The meanest, most powerful witch will wed the wizard. But little Belladonna is dismayed, because as hard as she tries, her spells conjure up begonias and baby birds, and not a single viper or bloodshot eyeball. She just has to do something seriously sinister in time for the contest....	www.amazon.com
	The lost years of Merlin	A young boy destined to become a great wizard has no name, no family, and an uncertain heritage and blossoming power. When that power injures another and blinds him, he makes a vow never to use it again - even though his journeys bring him into contact with an overwhelming evil which could change his world. Merlin's quest for the truth brings him many new friends and insights. ~Midwest Book Review	www.amazon.com
	The 10th Kingdom	Virginia, a beautiful New York waitress, didn't know the adventure that would unfold the day she hit a dog with her bike. She and her single parent father, Tony, a bumbling but caring man, follow the magical Prince turned dog into a world straight out of Grimm's Fairy Tales. They soon find Happily Ever After didn't turn out the way everyone hoped as they are pursued by Trolls, and an Evil Queen. They are joined by Wolf, a werewolf who can't decide whether he wants to love or eat Virginia. Through page after page of striking comedy, fast-paced chases pitfalls and magic spells, they fight to save all the 10 Kingdoms and find out about their true destinies.	www.amazon.com

 

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	The Austere Academy (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 5)	If you are looking for a story about cheerful youngsters spending a jolly time at boarding school, look elsewhere. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire arc intelligent and resourceful children, and you might expect that they would do very well at school. Don't. For the Baudelaires, school turns out to be another miserable episode in their unlucky lives.	www.amazon.com
	The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 1)	The Baudelaire childrenViolet, 14, Klaus, 12, and baby Sunnyare exceedingly ill-fated; Snicket extracts both humor and horror from their situation, as he gleefully puts them through one terrible ordeal after another. After receiving the news that their parents died in a fire, the three hapless orphans are delivered into the care of Count Olaf, who ``is either a third cousin four times removed, or a fourth cousin three times removed.'' The villainous Count Olaf is morally depraved and generally...	www.amazon.com
	The Wide Window (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 3)	The third book in A Series of Unfortunate Events (The Bad Beginning, 1999, etc.) has all the stuff of its predecessors' melodrama--bold narration, dark humor, exaggerated emotions and dialogue, humorously stereotypical characters, and an overriding conflict between good and evil. The orphaned Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus, and baby Sunny, experiencing still more misfortune, are sent to live with their irrationally fearful, grammar-spouting Aunt Josephine in a drafty old...	www.amazon.com
	The Reptile Room (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 2)	Three orphans are sent to live with evil Count Olaf, who desperately plots to secure their inheritance. In the second volume, the children find happiness with a kindly herpetologist uncle until Olaf appears to cause more trouble. Related by a (per)snickety narrator, the books' unbelievable plot turns and one-dimensional characters parody bygone dime novels, but stylistic flourishes keep the stories entertaining.	www.amazon.com
	The Miserable Mill (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 4)	The fourth in Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events opens with the Baudelaire orphans aboard a train bound for Paltryville, where they will meet their new guardian, the owner of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill. Even children who have not read the earlier books will soon learn that the Baudelaire children are heirs to a large fortune, that their evil nemesis Count Olaf plots against them in hopes of stealing their fortune, and that the children must depend upon each other, since the banker who...	www.amazon.com