Active Voice

By Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi [Series at LibraryThing - Series at Amazon]

When Jared Grace’s mother decides to move Jared, his identical twin Simon, and their older sister Mallory out of the city, their Great-Aunt Lucinda’s house seems like the perfect place. After all, it’s lain dormant since Lucinda Spiderwick was carted off to a mental institution for claiming to talk to faeries. But soon the Grace children start to notice strange things happening on the Spiderwick estate. Faeries, it seems, are real…and not all of them are nice. Armed only with their Great-Great-Uncle Arthur’s handwritten guide to the faerie world, they must protect their home, themselves…and the entire human race.

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By Suzanne Collins [Collins at LibraryThing - Collins a Amazon]

Gregor is more or less an average kid growing up in New York City, though he does miss his father, who disappeared over two years ago…But everything changes one day when he and his toddler sister, Boots, fall down an airshaft from their building’s laundry room and land in a strange realm called the Underland, where giant creatures—cockroaches, rats, and bats, among others—can talk.

There are humans in the Underland, too, a colony that was led there by Bartholomew of Sandwich four hundred years ago. But it’s a hard life: resources are scarce, and the humans and rats are constantly at war. Gregor, of course, wants nothing to do with war or the strange civilization, but he discovers that his falling was foretold in a prophecy Sandwich wrote…and the prophecy also tells of a quest he must undertake to find his father, who has now been a prisoner of the rats for over two years.

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By Carol Hughes [Librarything - Amazon]

When Joe follows the strange girl called Katherine who’s been sent to fetch him, he finds himself in a land torn apart by war, where the people live in fear of secret police and horrifying machines capable of immense destruction. With Katherine and a blind guide named Spider, Joe must make his way across the perilous no man’s land to the capital city in order to find his little sister, Hannah – for this is the land where sick children go, and Hannah is deathly ill. But as Joe finds himself awash in this land’s secret history and deceptive politics, two questions arise: Just who is behind this war, anyway? And is Hannah the one who needs saving – or is Joe?

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By G. P. Taylor [Librarything - Amazon]

Blind 12-year-old Tersias can see the future, thanks to the possession of the demonic Wretchkin, making him a useful tool for the various powers in London, particularly the potentially regicidal Lord Malpas and the cult leader/religious charlatan Solomon. Along with a young thief named Jonas Ketch and the bumbling street magician Magnus Malachi, Malpas and Solomon fight for the possession of Tersias, the beautiful Tara, a very deadly knife, and a box that just may be a portal to another world.

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By Ahmet Zappa [Librarything - Amazon]

Minerva McFearless and her younger brother Max come from a long line of monster hunters (or “monsterminators”), but their widowed father has forbidden them to study something so dangerous. The two young McFearlesses practice in secret, though, which comes in handy when their father is kidnapped and brought before the king of all evil, the Zarmaglorg. Now, with the help of the talking encyclopedia Ms. Monstranomicon, and Mr. Devilstone, a mysterious one-eyed coyote with plans of his own, Max and Minerva must rescue their father before the Zarmaglorg uses his knowledge to flood the world with monsters.

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By James Moloney [Librarything - Amazon]

When a young boy wakes up at Mrs. Timmin’s Home for Orphans and Foundlings, all he can remember is his name: Marcel. And if the terrifying sorcerer Lord Alwyn has his way, that’s all Marcel will ever remember. But with the help of three of the other children at the orphanage, all of whom have equally mysterious backgrounds, Marcel may just manage to learn the truth after all. But who can he trust? And though Lord Alwyn’s greatest creation is sworn to tell only the truth, is it wise to believe the Book of Lies?

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