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Display - Notable Books of 2012


By Jim Arnosky
Celebrates the beauty and diversity of hundreds of insects and spiders in an illustrated work that features eight gatefolds depicting butterflies, beetles, spiders, and other insects.

By Marla Frazee
Boot and Shoe are dogs that live in the same house, eat from the same bowl, and sleep in the same bed but spend their days on separate porches until a squirrel mixes things up.

By Barbara Wright
In 1898, Moses Thomas's summer vacation does not go exactly as planned as he contends with family problems and the ever-changing alliances among his friends at the same time as he is exposed to the escalating tension between the African-American and white communities of Wilmington, North Carolina.

By Jennifer A. Nielsen
In the country of Carthya, a devious nobleman engages four orphans in a brutal competition to be selected to impersonate the king's long-missing son in an effort to avoid a civil war.

By Laura Amy Schlitz
When Clara vanishes after the puppeteer Grisini and two orphaned assistants were at her twelfth birthday party, suspicion of kidnapping chases the trio away from London and soon the two orphans are caught in a trap set by Grisini's ancient rival, a witch with a deadly inheritance to shed before it is too late.

By Jane Breskin Zalben
Janson the mouse, who lives in a museum, becomes an acclaimed artist by copying the styles of paintings she sees there. Includes notes about the artists and works featured.

By Deborah Hopkinson
Tells the tale of the sinking of the Titanic using the narratives of the witnesses and survivors to the disaster.

By Stephen Savage
Little Tug knows what to do when the tall ship, the speedboat, and the ocean liner need him, and at such times, he is indispensable.

By Loree Griffin Burns
Photographs by Ellen Harasimowicz
Shows young readers how a citizen scientist learns about butterflies, birds, frogs, and ladybugs.

 Retold by Kate Coombs
Illustrated by John Nickle 
Riding a rooster and playing magical music on his fiddle, a young man, who is half hedgehog, half human, wins the hand of a beautiful princess.

By Kelly Bingham
Illustrations by Paul O. Zelinsky
Moose, terribly eager to play his part in the alphabet book his friend Zebra is putting together, then awfully disappointed when his letter passes, behaves rather badly until Zebra finds a spot for him.

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