Feiwel and Friends - Spring Book Picks 2011

   
Some magical books published by Feiwel & Friends this spring in the US. The first book on this list is on my reading pile now!    
                      
Ann Auguirre - Enclave - 12 April 2011 

The world is in chaos: war, plague, global ecological collapse. Seeking sanctuary for their children, parents enrol them in the elite Clothos Academy. Run by a mysterious man known only as Sarge, set in a former monastery atop a sheer cliff on a tiny island, Clothos will admit only one hundred children before it is sealed off perhaps permanently from the terrors outside. These precious, protected children are hardly the best and the brightest: empty-headed, anorexia-thin starlets ; troublemakers barely one step ahead of the law; cast-off junior royals too embarrassing to be let out in public. The staff isn't much better, from the alcoholic doctor and lovelorn guidance counsellor to a teacher with a lust for power and an ancient monk with secrets of his own. The dangers from which these castaways are being protected? Stored on hundreds of DVDs, ready to be trotted out whenever Sarge needs to terrify his little flock. And yet.... Two boys discover there are real dangers beyond Clothos thick stone walls when they hack the Academy's self-contained computer network and connect, for a brief but disastrous moment, to the outside world. Worse, a stranger has penetrated the Academy's defences. And he has brought Death.
               

  Love this book cover it may find it's way into this years book cover was,what do you think?                         
Helen Stringer - Midnight Gate -  10 May 2011
It’s been two months since Belladonna Johnson discovered she was the Spellbinder, and she’s full of questions about her powers. When a ghost finds Belladonna and her classmate, Steve, and gives them a mysterious map, the friends don’t know if they should be looking for or hiding from the one person who holds the answers to Belladonna’s powers: the Queen of the Abyss. Throw into the mix that Belladonna’s parents, who are ghosts, have disappeared and that her brand-new and maybe even sinister foster family seems to know more than they’ll let on, and you have a sequel made of high adventure and intrigue, seasoned with affecting characters and topped with a dollop of wit.

                         

Catherynne M. Valente - The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - 10 MAY 2011

Twelve-year-old September lives in Omaha, and used to have an ordinary life, until her father went to war and her mother went to work. One day, September is met at her kitchen window by a Green Wind (taking the form of a gentleman in a green jacket), who invites her on an adventure, implying that her help is needed in Fairyland. The new Marquess is unpredictable and fickle, and also not much older than September. Only September can retrieve a talisman the Marquess wants from the enchanted woods, and if she doesn’t . . . then the Marquess will make life impossible for the inhabitants of Fairyland. September is already making new friends, including a book-loving Wyvern and a mysterious boy named Saturday.

With exquisite illustrations by acclaimed artist Ana Juan, Fairyland lives up to the sensation it created when the author first posted it online. For readers of all ages who love the charm of Alice in Wonderland and the soul of The Golden Compass, here is a reading experience unto itself: unforgettable, and so very beautiful.