Airborn, by Kenneth Oppel.

Matt is a young cabin boy aboard the mammoth luxury airship Aurora. When wealthy Kate and her chaperone come aboard, Matt discovers that she is determined to prove her grandfather's claims of strange creatures flying in the sky in that area the year before. The man's diary describes them as huge, furry beasts with batlike wings and sharp claws. Soon after Kate arrives, pirates attack the ship and rob its rich passengers. A storm forces the damaged airship to set down on a seemingly deserted island, and Kate and Matt begin to discover evidence of the mysterious flying creatures.

Even though a hospital error left Fern to be raised by the dull Drudger family, her biological parents were Anybodies-- professional shapeshifters. When 12-year-old Fern reunited with her widowed father, she learns that his transforming abilities have mysteriously disappeared. Their quest is to restore his powers.

Fifth-grader Naomi's great-grandmother has taken care of Naomi and Owen, her handicapped brother, since their abusive mother divorced their father and abandoned them in Lemon Tree, Calif., seven years before. Life is happy and peaceful, until Naomi and Owen's mother, Skyla, reappears to claim her. Naomi runs away to Mexico with her great-grandmother and younger brother in search of her father.

When their parents begin a twenty-five year sentence for embezzling from a children's charity, Ivy and Ray try to make the best of their comically gloomy situation when they are ordered by a judge to live with the charity's highly unpleasant founders. Ivy decides that they will spend their time searching the mansion for evidence to free their parents.

Tiger's parents help people in a foreign country, but they must escape when war breaks out. A guide with a donkey leads them over the mountains and to the border. Right before they leave, Tiger saves a fish from a dying pond and carries it with him as they escape. It becomes their symbol of hope throughout their journey.

Everyone agrees-there's something fishy about the Flots! Toby can't remember a time he didn't live at the hotel by the sea. Left there as a baby, he's grown up without a family of his own. So when he meets Eliza Flot down by the pier, he takes to her like a fish to water. When he gets to know her parents, that tips the scales even more. In fact, Toby practically joins the family. So what if they're mermaids? But when Toby's friendship with Eliza arouses suspicion, Toby decides to disguise the Flots as hotel guests. But disguising a family with fins and tails is tougher than Toby thinks!

Jack, a Labrador Retriever, tells about his daily life of food, walks, and the "apedogs" and "funny-looking dogs" (cats) in his pack, as well as how everything changes when a pretty girl dog moves into the neighborhood. The book includes explanatory footnotes written by the cats.

A strange creature, which initially looks like a cat, appears in the yard of Davy's house one day and proceeds to destroy the family's life by "hypnotizing" everyone except Davy and his little brother.

One day old Mr. Franklin asks Bet to go out to the field and read aloud from a book about earthworms. Why? Who is listening? Soon, Bet becomes the most trusted friend of her listener, who turns out to be a bewitched mole. At first she and the mole simply sit together in their field, reading, talking, sharing hopes and fears. Eventually Bet helps the Little Gentleman unravel his long and legendary past, that includes the death of a king and a pouch of magic herbs. Soon Bet begins to believe the mole's powers are stronger than he knows.

Julia Song and her friend Patrick would love to win a blue ribbon at the state fair. They've always done projects together, and they work well as a team. This time, though, they're having trouble coming up with just the right plan. Then Julia's mother offers a suggestion: They can raise silkworms, as she did when she was a girl in Korea. Patrick thinks it's a great idea. Of course there are obstacles—for example, where will they get mulberry leaves, the only thing silkworms eat?—but nothing they can't handle. But Julia isn't so sure. The club where kids do their projects is all about traditional American stuff, and raising silkworms just doesn't fit in. Moreover, the author, Ms. Park, seems determined to make Julia's life as complicated as possible, no matter how hard Julia tries to talk her out of it.

The 7th son of the 7th son, aptly named Septimus Heap, is stolen the night he is born by a midwife who pronounces him dead. That same night, the baby's father, Silas Heap, comes across a bundle in the snow containing a newborn girl with violet eyes. The Heaps take this helpless newborn into their home, name her Jenna, and raise her as their own. But who is this mysterious baby girl, and what really happened to their beloved son, Septimus?

Alvin Bixby: Hulking, knuckles of steel, hideous breath, foul temper. Kids call him: Bubba. Nolan Byrd: Puny, power walker, math genius, can't keep shoes tied. Kids call him: Nerd. Bubba has been the bane of Nolan's existence for five long years. So when Mr. Green asks the class to become reporters, Nolan decides he'll write an expose--on Bubba. He doesn't want to sign his name to it (that'd be suicidal), so Nolan creates a secret identity for himself--on the Internet. He launches Shredderman.com as a place where truth and justice prevail--and bullies get what's coming to them. This hilariously triumphant story is for any kid who's ever dreamed of unleashing their own inner superhero!

Yellow blood, silk of steel, skeletons on the outside! These amazing attributes don't belong to comic book characters or alien life forms, but to Earth's biggest and hairiest spiders: tarantulas. Here you are invited to follow Sam Marshall, spider scientist extraordinaire (he's never been bitten), as he explores the dense rainforest of French Guiana, knocking on the doors of tarantula burrows, trying to get a closer look at these incredible creatures. You'll also visit the largest comparative spider laboratory in America—where close to five hundred live tarantulas sit in towers of stacked shoeboxes and plastic containers, waiting for their turn to dazzle and astound the scientists who study them.