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"Megiddo's Shadow," by Arthur Slade. War in the Middle East is nothing new: This wrenching story, based on Slade's own family history, takes 16-year-old Edward from his farm in Canada to the battlegrounds of Palestine during World War I. After the death of his older brother on the German front, Edward's anger compels him to leave his grief-stricken father and lie about his age to enlist and avenge his brother. His experience with horses gets him the relatively safe job of horse-breaker, but he chafes, anxious to get on with the fighting. He never makes it to Germany, instead, he's sent to fight the Turks at Megiddo, with brutal consequences to his mind and body. Still, in the end, he is able to return home to his father, the farm and a completely new outlook on life.

"A Friend at Midnight," by Caroline B. Cooney. Lily is caught in a trap: She knows something terrible about her father, but has promised her little brother she'll never tell. Now her big sister is getting married and can't understand why Lily refuses to have anything to do with their dad. Lily's relationship with God and her family are strained to the breaking point as she struggles to honor her promise to Michael without compromising her principles in this nonpreachy story that is nonetheless grounded in Christian belief.

"Lemonade Mouth," by Mark Peter Hughes. When freshmen Mo, Wen, Stella, Charlie and Olivia wind up in detention together at Opequonsett High School, something happens that none of them expected. With Mo playing a rubber band, Charlie tapping out a rhythm on the desk, Stella strumming an old ukulele, Wen on kazoo and Olivia singing the lines to a commercial, a band is born. And what a band! They sing about things no one else will even talk about: grief over dead cats, the unfairness of dress codes, organic lemonade vending machines and more topics surprisingly near and dear to the student body's heart. Their popularity surprises and buoys them, but the riotous response to their Halloween concert gets them banned from performing in the school talent show. Will their fans get Lemonade Mouth reinstated?

"How to Get Suspended and Influence People," by Adam Selzer. Leon's eighth-grade gifted and talented class is making movies - specifically, educational films to show to the sixth-graders. But "educational" is a pretty broad topic, and Leon feels that if his teacher didn't want any films about puberty and masturbation, she should have said so in the beginning. Now he's a celebrity of sorts, suspended before his film is even finished. While school officials and parents debate censorship issues and kids protest in the halls, Leon and his friends add the music, special effects, and kisses to "La Dolce Pubert" and scheme to find a way to show the film to its intended audience.

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Don Sineti, folksinger, songwriter and part-time chanteyman, will express his love of the sea in a family program and concert at 4 p.m. Saturday at the Mendenhall Valley library.

As always, placing a hold on our material is easy: Call the Juneau Public Libraries at 586-5249, or go online to www.juneau.org/library.