Acts of faith by Caputo, Philip. Knopf, Distributed by Random House, 2005. ISBN: 0-375-41166-6 A group of men and women fighting the civil war in Sudan find themselves thrown into a well of moral corruption that tries to turn their strengths into weaknesses, forcing them to make ethical compromises in order to survive.

Allah doesn’t have to by Ahmadou Kourouma. William Heinemann, August 2006. ISBN 0434009571 Birahima is ten years old. He lives in the Ivory Coast. He is a soldier. In Ahmadou Kourouma's extraordinary novel, Birahima tells his story. At the age of ten his mother dies, and Birahima leaves his native village, accompanied by the sorcerer/crook Yacouba, to search for his aunt Mahan. Crossing the border into Liberia, they are seized by a rebel force and press-ganged into military service. Birahima is given a Kalashnikov, minimal rations of food, a small supply of dope and a tiny wage. Fighting in a totally chaotic civil war, and alongside many other boys, some no older than he, Birahima sees death, torture, amputation and madness, but somehow manages to retain his own sanity...Ahmadou Kourouma's masterpiece is powerful, terrible and frequently bitterly and blackly funny.  (Winner of Book Award “Goncourt des lyceens” 2000)

Ariel / Grace Tiffany. -- 1st ed. -- New York: Laura Geringer Books, 2005.
Summary:  The magic retelling of William Shakespeare's "The Tempest" from the point of view of Ariel, the mischievous air spirit.  ISBN 0060753277 

The book thief  by Zusak, Markus. Knopf, Distributed by Random House, c2006. ISBN: 0-375-93100-7   Originally published: Australia: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2005. Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.

Dreamhunter  by Knox, Elizabeth: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. ISBN: 0-374-31853-0 "Frances Foster books." In a world where select people can enter "The Place" and find dreams of every kind to share with others for a fee, a fifteen-year-old girl is training to be a dreamhunter when her father disappears, leaving her to carry on his mysterious mission.

Elsewhere by Zevin, Gabrielle. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.  ISBN: 0-374-32091-8       
After fifteen-year-old Liz Hall is hit by a taxi and killed, she finds herself in a place that is both like and unlike Earth, where she must adjust to her new status and figure out how to "live."

Eyes of the emperor by Salisbury, Graham, Wendy Lamb Books, c2005. ISBN: 0-385-90874-1 Following orders from the United States Army, several young Japanese American men train K-9 units to hunt Asians during World War II.

Gentlemen and players / Joanne Harris. William Morrow, c2006. ISBN: 0-06-055914-4  
Young Snyde, whose father was dismissed from St. Oswald's, an aristocratic British boys' school, returns masquerading as a teacher planning revenge.

The historian : a novel / Elizabeth Kostova.-- 1st ed.-- New York : Little, Brown and Co, c2005.
A young woman discovers an ancient book and a cache of old letters in her father's library, and thus begins her adventurous quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, a search that will span continents and generations, and a confrontation with the darkest powers of evil.  

Hit the road by Cooney, Caroline B. Delacorte Press, c2005. ISBN: 0-385-90174-7  Sixteen-year-old Brittany acts as chauffeur for her grandmother and three other eighty-plus-year-old women going to what is supposedly their college reunion, on a long drive that involves lies, theft, and kidnappings.

The house of Scorta by Gaude, Laurent. Trad. by S. Sararelli & S. Hawkes, MacAdam/Cage Publishing, 2006. ISBN 1-59696-159-5.Even among the impoverished peasants of Montepuccio, a village in southern Italy, the Scorta are known as paupers and degenerates. There seems to be no way to escape their harsh destiny. When the three children of Rocco the bandit and the woman known only as the Mute immigrate to America, they are turned away because the girl, Carmela, has a fever. Back in Montepuccio, Carmela and her brothers open a cigarette shop, and gradually, through hard work, determination, and a little larceny, they manage to provide a better life for the generations to come. Carmela's granddaughter, Anna, is the first Scorta to finally leave and make a life outside. People are like olives, don Salvatore, the village priest, tells Carmela's son, Elia. One olive doesn't last, but olives are eternal, part of the same unending succession of life and death. This stark family saga was a best seller in France and won Le Prix Goncourt 2004.

The killer's tears by Bondoux, Anne-Laure; translated from the French by Y. Maudet.
Delacorte Press, c2006. ISBN: 0-385-90314-6  Translation of: Larmes de l'assassin; Originally published in France in 2003 by Bayard Editions Jeunesse under the title: Les larmes de l'assassin. A young boy, Paolo, and the man who murdered his parents, Angel, gradually become like father and son as they live and work together on the remote Chilean farm where Paolo was born.

Koyal dark, mango sweet by Sheth, Kashmira. Hyperion, c2006. ISBN: 0-7868-3857-4 Growing up with her family in Mumbai, India, sixteen-year-old Jeeta disagrees with much of her mother's traditional advice about how to live her life and tries to be more modern and independent.

The march : a novel by Doctorow, E. L., 1931- Random House, c2005. ISBN: 0-375-50671-3  |
Presents an historical novel that centers around William Tecumseh Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas and those he encounters along the way which include a freed slave girl named Pearl; a Union regimental surgeon, Colonel Sartorius; Emily Thompson, the daughter of a Southern judge; and two misfit soldiers.

Mimus by Thal, Lilli. translated by John Brownjohn. Annick Press , Distributed in the U.S.A. by Firefly Books (U.S.), c2005. ISBN: 1-55037-925-9       Translated from the German. As Prince Florin of Moltovia races to join his father at a banquet to celebrate the war's end, he encounters a devastating betrayal that separates him from his father and loyal followers, placing him as a lowly apprentice to the spiteful and wily court jester, Mimus. 

The minister's daughter by Hearn, Julie, 1958-  In 1645 in England, the daughters of the town minister successfully accuse a local healer and her granddaughter of witchcraft to conceal an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, but years later during the 1692 Salem trials their lie has unexpected repercussions.

The mysterious flame of Queen Loana: an illustrated novel by Eco, Umberto. Translated from the Italian by Geoffrey Brock. Harcourt, c2005. ISBN: 0-15-101140-0     Translation of: La misteriosa fiamma della Regina Loana.  Includes bibliographical references. When Yambo, a sixtyish rare-book dealer in Milan, loses his memory, he returns to his family home in the hopes of rediscovering his past, and relives the story of his family through old newspapers, photo albums, and journals.  

Never let me go by Ishiguro, Kazuo. Vintage, c2006. ISBN: 1-40007-877-6
Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth were once classmates at Hailsham, a private school in the English countryside with a most unusual student body: human clones created solely to serve as organ donors. "You were brought into this world for a purpose,” advised Miss Lucy, one of Hailsham's guardians, "and your futures, all of them, have been decided." The tightly knit trio experienced love, loss, and betrayal as they pondered their destinies (to become "carers" for other donors and, eventually, donors themselves). The novel is narrated by Kathy, now 31 and a "carer,"who recalls how Hailsham students were "told and not told” about their precarious circumstances.

Ordinary heroes by Turow, Scott. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. ISBN: 0-374-18421-6otes: Retired newspaperman Stewart Dubinsky discovers a packet of his father's World War II letters and papers that reveal a secret life his family never knew of, including an fiancee and an involvement with a former war spy.

The painted drum by Erdrich, Louise. HarperCollins, c2005.ISBN: 0-06-051510-4
Faye Travers, a middle-aged divorcee and specialist in Native American antiquities, discovers a rare ceremonial drum while assessing the estate of a New Hampshire man descended from an Indian agent, and, when she hears the sound of the drum without even touching the instrument, she feels compelled to steal it and return it to a North Dakota reservation where its remarkable history is revealed.

Road of the dead by Brookes, Kevin. Chicken House, 2006. ISBN: 0-439-78623-1
Two brothers, sons of an incarcerated gypsy, leave London traveling to an isolated and desolate village, in search of the brutal killer of their sister.

Saturday / Ian McEwan.-- 1st ed.-- New York : Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2005.
Henry Perowne, a London neurosurgeon, goes through his normal Saturday activities, including a weekly squash game, but his unease grows as he makes his way through the throngs of anti-war protesters clogging London's streets, until a minor car accident with the petulant Baxter begins a series of events that erupts into violence.

The sea / John Banville.-- 1st American ed.-- New York : Knopf, c2005.
"Originally published in Great Britain by Picador, London, 2005"--T.p. verso
Winner of the Man Booker Prize. Irishman Max Morden, grieving the death of his wife, Anna, returns to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child, and finds himself engulfed in thoughts and memories of a momentous summer spent with the vacationing Grace family, his life with Anna, and his relationship with his grown daughter.

Singer in the snow / by Louise Marley. Publisher: Viking, 2005.   ISBN: 0-670-05965-X
On Nevya--a sunless world whose population is sustained by the heat and light its Cantors and Cantrixes create from psi energy channeled through music--Emle, a young Singer who cannot channel her psi, is sent to a remote outpost as a translator for a voiceless Cantrix, where, struggling to come to terms with her flaw, she gets involved in the life of a troubled, talented girl being exploited by her abusive stepfather.

Snow flower and the secret fan by See, Lisa. Random House, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-6028-1. In the nineteenth century China , when  wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion,  the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication.  Two girls are paired as "laotongs" ("old sames") at the age of seven and are the best friends until misunderstanding arises . Their lifelong friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart. A  nice book about female friendship and China.

Swallows of Kabul by Khadra, Yasmina. Vintage, 2005., ISBN 0099466023 Since the ascendancy of the Taliban the lives of Mosheen and his beautiful wife, Zunaira, have been gradually destroyed. Mosheen's dream of becoming a diplomat has been shattered and Zunaira can no longer even appear on the streets of Kabul unveiled. Atiq is a jailer who guards those who have been condemned to death; the darkness of prison and the wretchedness of his job have seeped into his soul. Atiq's wife, Musarrat, is suffering from an illness no doctor can cure. Yet, the lives of these four people are about to become inexplicably intertwined, through death and imprisonment to passion and extraordinary self-sacrifice. The Swallows of Kabul is an astounding and elegiac novel of four people struggling to hold on to their humanity in a place where pleasure is a deadly sin and death has become routine. (Selected for the book award “Goncourt des lyceens”)

Things you either hate or love by  Lowry, Brigid  Holiday House, c2006. ISBN: 0-8234-2004-3
Notes: First published: Crows Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2005, under title: With lots of love from Georgia. A cynical, overweight, and lonely Australian teenager spends her summer vacation making lists, eating comfort foods, and trying to earn enough money to attend a big rock concert.

Uglies by Westerfeld, Scott.  Simon Pulse, 2005. ISBN: 0-689-86538-4       Tally is faced with a difficult choice when her new friend Shay decides to risk life on the outside rather than submit to the forced operation that turns sixteen year old girls into gorgeous beauties, and realizes that there is a whole new side to the pretty world that she doesn't like.

Under the persimmon tree by Staples, Suzanne Fisher.  Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.
ISBN: 0-374-38025-2  A young Afghan girl, Najmah, befriends an American woman, Nusrat in Peshawar, Pakistan, after Najmah flees her native Afghanistan during the 2001 war; and together they begin a long journey to located their missing loved ones after the war ends.

Zorro : a novel by Allende, Isabel. translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden. HarperCollins Publishers, 2005. ISBN: 0-06-077897-0                
Translation of: Zorro. Presents an adventure novel that describes how Diego de la Vega, the son of a Spanish aristocrat and Shoshone woman, grew to become the elusive Zorro, who returns to California to reclaim the hacienda of his childhood and fight for the rights of the underprivileged.