Billy Clikk’s just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill . . . hero? A guy whose hobbies include skateboarding, extreme mountain biking—and a brand of snowboarding he wishes would include a few good old-fashioned body slams. Unfortunately, 12-year-old Billy’s boring home town of Piffling, Indiana, will probably never host the X Games. But that doesn’t stop him from bungee jumping off a bridge and winning the X-Sports Challenge in front of Dave’s Cycle and Fitness. Then one day, things suddenly get more interesting. Billy discovers his insect-exterminating parents—supposedly the best in Piffling—have been living a double life. In just a few short hours, he’s sucked into a world that his parents have been trying to hide from him. And this world is much bigger, stranger, and scarier than the one he left behind. How could his own dull parents have so many secrets that even their secrets have secrets? On the bright side, this could be Billy’s chance to fight some real bad guys: the huge kind with teeth and too many hairy tentacles to count. Within a few hours of learning the truth, he’s flying to India and testing out some very cool James Bond–style gadgetry, things no average 12-year-old can even imagine. But before Billy can fight alongside his parents, he’ll have to prove himself. Being a hero doesn’t always mean getting the bad guy—sometimes it means keeping a cool head to figure out what’s really going on. And at the end of the day, Billy just might get to save the world—or go down trying.

Twelve-year-old Billy discovers that his parents' extermination business is really a cover for something a whole lot more sinister.

Billy's double life--elementary school in Piffling, Indiana, and international monster killer--intensifies as he makes his first solo creatch op in a Chinese mountain village.

After months of intensive training, Billy is finally ready to go on his first solo creatch op for AFMEC (Allied Forces for the Management of Extraterritorial Creatches). Godzilla-like monsters are menacing the Chinese mountain village of Hua Qing. Billy is more than fired up to fend them off–until he discovers that bossy Ana García will be tagging along. Though Ana is no older than Billy, she’s a full-fledged AFMEC agent–and doesn’t hesitate to remind him of that fact. Whenever possible. At first, the mission is pretty straightforward. Billy and Ana help Hua Qing fight off the monsters, and life for the villagers goes back to normal. But Billy can’t shake the feeling that things in Hua Qing are not what they seem. Is Billy being paranoid? Or is something really bad about to go down? If Billy is right, then he, Ana, and the villagers of Hua Qing are in a whole lot of trouble.

Do you remember your first book crush? You know, the first time a book completely captured your imagination, transported you to a magical place, or introduced you to a lifelong friend you will never forget? In Book Crush, popular librarian and reading enthusiast Nancy Pearl reminds us why we fell for reading in the first place—how completely consuming and life-changing a good book can be. Pearl offers more than 1,000 crush-worthy books organized into over 100 recommended reading lists aimed at youngest, middle-grade, and teen readers. From picture books to chapter books, YA fiction and nonfiction, Pearl has developed more smart and interesting thematic lists of books to enjoy. Parents, teachers, and librarians are often puzzled by the unending choices for reading material for young people. It starts when the kids are toddler and doesn’t end until high-school graduation. What’s good, what’s not, and what’s going to hold their interest? Popular librarian Nancy Pearl points the way in Book Crush.

Akiko and her crew–Spuckler Boach, Mr. Beeba, Poog, and Gax–are competing in an intergalactic race from one side of the universe to the other. Along the way they have to make it through the narrow passages of the Labyrinth of Lulla-ma-Waygo, the notorious Almost Black Hole of Luzbert-7, and the deadly Jaws of McVluddapuck. All Akiko wants to do is make it back to Earth in one piece! But when Spuckler discovers that his old rival Bluggamin Streed is also in the race, winning becomes the most important thing. And Akiko quickly finds herself caught up in the competition. Who will go home with the celebrated Centauri Cup?

It’s July, and Nicholas Borelli II’s parents are scheduled to spend two weeks on a cruise. Nicholas will spend those two weeks, as he does every summer, at Camp Wannameka. The night before he’s to leave, however, there’s a phone call: thanks to an explosion in the septic system, camp is canceled. The only place for Nicholas to go instead is to his grandmother’s house in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York. Nicholas’s father grew up in Brooklyn, but you’d hardly know it. An Italian dinner at Nicholas’s house in the suburbs is whole wheat pasta, organic tomato sauce, and, if he’s lucky, a tofu meatball. And Brooklyn? Well, Brooklyn is the place his father left and never talks about. Nicholas has never been there, and he doesn’t want to go now. But when Nicholas tastes his grandma Tutti’s meatballs for the first time, gets a nickname from his uncle Frankie, and makes a friend in the neighborhood, his feelings about Brooklyn–and family–begin to change.