F ALM
Almond, David. The fire-eaters. New York: Delacorte Press, [2004, 2003].
Note: Despite observing his father's illness and the suffering of the fire -eating Mr. McNulty, as well as enduring abuse at school and the stress of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Bobby Burns and his family and friends, living in England in 1962, still find reasons to rejoice in their lives and to have hope for the future.  

F AVI
Avi. Crispin : the cross of lead. 1st ed. New York: Hyperion Books For Children,   [2002].  
Note: Falsely accused of theft and murder, an orphaned peasant boy in fourteenth   -century England flees his village and meets a larger-than-life juggler who holds a dangerous secret. 

F BAL
Balliett, Blue and Helquist, Brett. Chasing Vermeer. 1st ed. New York: Scholastic Press, [2004]. 
Note: When seemingly unrelated and strange events start to happen and a precious   Vermeer painting disappears, eleven-year-olds Petra and Calder combine their   talents to solve an international art scandal.  

F COL
Colfer, Eoin. Artemis Fowl : the opal deception. 1st. American ed. New York, NY:   Hyperion Books For Children, [2005].   Note: After his last run-in with the fairies, Artemis Fowl's mind was wiped of memories of the world belowground and any goodness grudgingly learned is now gone with the young genius reverting to his criminal lifestyle.    

F FAR
Farmer, Nancy. The sea of trolls. 1st ed. New York: Atheneum Books for Young   Readers, [2004].  
Note: After Jack becomes apprenticed to a Druid bard, he and his little sister Lucy are captured by Viking Berserkers and taken to the home of King Ivar the Boneless and his half-troll queen, leading Jack to undertake a vital quest to Jotunheim, home of the trolls.  

F FUN
Funke, Cornelia Caroline. Inkheart. 1st American ed. New York: Scholastic, [2003]. Note: Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father Mo, a bookbinder, can "read"   fictional characters to life when an evil ruler named Capricorn, freed from the novel "Inkheart" years earlier, tries to force Mo to release an immortal monster from the story.  

F  GAV
Gavin, Jamila.. The blood stone . 1st American ed. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005, c2003.
Note:  In the early seventeenth century, young Venetian Filippo Veroneo travels from Venice to Afghanistan to rescue his imprisoned father, Geronimo, and stops in India to raise the  ransom by selling his father's beautiful diamond to the ruler Shah Jehan, who later uses the stone as the model for the Taj Mahal.

F HAL
Hale, Shannon. The goose girl. 1st U.S. ed. New York: Bloomsbury, [2003].
Note: Princess Anidori, on her way to marry a prince she has never met, is betrayed by her guards and her lady-in-waiting and must become a goose girl to survive until she can reveal her true identity and reclaim the crown that is rightfully hers.  

F HEN
Henkes, Kevin. Olive's ocean. 1st ed. New York: Greenwillow Books, [2003].
Note: On a summer visit to her grandmother's cottage by the ocean, twelve-year -old Martha gains perspective on the death of a classmate, on her relationship with her grandmother, on her feelings for an older boy, and on her plans to be a writer.

F HIA
Hiaasen, Carl. Hoot. 1st ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, [2002].
Note: Roy, who is new to his small Florida community, becomes involved in another boy's attempt to save a colony of burrowing owls from a proposed  construction site.

F  HOR
Horowitz, Anthony. Ark Angel. Penguin Gr, 2006.
Note: After recovering from a near fatal gunshot wound, teenage spy Alex Rider embarks on a new mission to stop a group of eco-terrorists from sabotaging the launch of the first outer space hotel.

F KAD
Kadohata, Cynthia. Kira-kira. 1st ed. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, [2004].  
Note: Chronicles the close friendship between two Japanese-American sisters   growing up in rural Georgia during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the despair when one sister becomes terminally ill.  

F LAI
Laird, Elizabeth and Nimr, Sonia. A little piece of ground. London: Macmillan Children's, [2004, 2003].
Note: A novel that brings close to home the suffering and fear of the oppressed  people in Ramallah, Palestine.  

F LOW
Lowry, Lois. Messenger. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, [2004].
Note: In this novel that unites characters from "The Giver" and "Gathering Blue," Matty, a young member of a utopian community that values honesty, conceals an emerging healing power that he cannot explain or understand.

F MOR
Morpurgo, Michael. Private Peaceful. 1st American ed. New York: Scholastic Press, [2004, 2003].  
Note: When Thomas Peaceful's older brother is forced to join the British Army, Thomas decides to sign up as well, although he is only fourteen years old, to prove himself to his country, his family, his childhood love, Molly, and himself.  

F NAI
Naidoo, Beverley. Web of lies. London: Puffin, [2004].
Note: Close to receiving a decision on whether they will be granted political asylum in England a sister learns that her brother is lost to a gang and may become the reason they do not get asylum.  

F NIX
Nix, Garth. Mister Monday. New York: Scholastic, [2003].
Note: Arthur's life is saved by a key shaped like the minute hand of a clock, but bizarre creatures from another realm are determined to take the key even if it means killing him.  

F PAR
Park, Linda Sue. When my name was Keoko. New York: Clarion Books, [2002].
Note: With national pride and occasional fear, a brother and sister face the   increasingly oppressive occupation of Korea by Japan during World War II, which threatens to suppress Korean culture entirely.  

F PAT
Pattou, Edith. East. Orlando, Fla: Harcourt, [2003].
Note: A young woman journeys to a distant castle on the back of a great white  bear who is the victim of a cruel enchantment.  

F REE
Reeve, Philip. Mortal engines. 1st American ed. New York: EOS, [2003, 2001].
Note: Tom, a third class apprentice in a distant future in which technology has been lost and tiered cities move about the Earth on caterpillar tracks, often absorbing smaller locales, has many dangerous adventures after being pushed off London by Thaddeus Valentine, a historian who is trying to resurrect an ancient atomic weapon. 

F SNI
Snicket, Lemony. The grim grotto. Illustrations by Brett Helquist. Publisher: HarperCollins, c2004.
Note: The Baudelaire orphans attempt to reach an important VFD meeting, but first they must travel in an old submarine to the Gorgonian Grotto, a dangerous underwater cave, in search of a sugar bowl.

F SPI
Spinelli, Jerry. Milkweed. 1st ed. New York: Knopf, [2003].
Note: A street child, known to himself only as Stopthief, finds community when he is taken in by a band of orphans in Warsaw ghetto which helps him weather the horrors of the Nazi regime.

F STR
Stroud, Jonathan. The amulet of Samarkand. 1st ed. New York: Miramax Books/Hyperion Books For Children, [2003].  
Note: Nathaniel, a young magician's apprentice, becomes caught in a web of magical espionage, murder, and rebellion, after he summons the djinni Bartimaeus and instructs him to steal the Amulet of Samarkand from the powerful magician Simon Loveland.  

F WHI
Whitesel, Chery, Blue Fingers: A Ninja's Tale. New York : Clarion Books, c2004.
Note: Having failed an apprenticeship as a dye maker, Koji is captured and forced to train as a ninja, where he remains disloyal until he discovers samurai have burned his former village.

F WIL
Wilkinson, Carole. Dragon keeper. 1st U.S. ed. New York: Hyperion Books For  Children, [2005, 2003].  
Note: In ancient China during the Han Dynasty, a nameless orphan is hopeless and   lonely until she comes to the aid of an aging dragon, and together they journey to protect a mysterious stone.