What caught my eye today from Bloomsbury USA:

Larklight: A Rousing Tale of Intrepid Pluck in the Farthest Reaches of Space by Philip Reeve. Reeve has already done quite well with the Mortal Engines series (I have the second, Predator's Gold, on deck to review this summer) and this one is compared to Jules Verne with some Lemony Snickett thrown in. It involves two siblings who live with their father in a Victorian mansion that travels through outer space. A strange visitor shows up and then there is a huge battle against the forces of evil. I have been so desperate for some YA sci fi that I am delirious over this one. Space! We are finally in space! And I love that it has a Victorian sensibility. I think this will be a kick

Wind Tamer by PR Morrison. Archie thinks the wind can talk to him and as he nears his tenth birthday a strange ball of light hovers over his bed. Then he gets a gift from long lost uncle Rufus and an icegull appears at his bedroom window. It all comes down to a family curse and includes a bright red airplane. There are a lot of things that could go wrong with this kind of book, but if it's done right there are a ton of things that could go right and make it wonderful. I am oddly thrilled that the author is from the Orkney Islands off Scotland and says his childhood landscape heavily influenced the book. He's also working on a sequel - we'll see how this one goes.

Perfect, Once Removed by Phillip Hoose. I really loved Hoose's natural history that came out last year, The Race to Save the Lord God Bird. Perfect is about his love of baseball while growing up and the perfect game his cousin pitched in the 1956 World Series. I'm a sucker for baseball history, sign me up for this one. (It's an adult title that will appeal to teens from the catalog copy.)

Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet by David McLimans. Gorgeous illustrations and great idea. Look at it; you'll want it too.

Barnum Brown: Dinosaur Hunter by David Sheldon. I love a good dinosaur book and really enjoyed writing about the golden age of bone collecting a few months ago. This looks like the same kind of cool material and I can't wait to share it with my son.

Notes From the Teenage Underground by Simmone Howell. This title has been postponed, but sounds great. It follows the adventures of 17 year old Gem, a film buff, and her best friends who set out to make an underground film about themselves. Things go wrong and Gem relies upon "great movies, bad poetry and a pantheon of inspirational guides from Andy Warhol to Henry David Thoreau" to mend friendships and grow up. It sounds like a very quirky coming of age story (ala King Dork) and I hope it makes it out next year.

Finally, Ophelia by Lisa Klein. This is a reworking of Hamlet where Opehlia does not die (and also apparently isn't a flaming ninny). She escapes the bloodbath of Elsinore and "will flee with nothing more than the clothes on her back...and one very dangerous secret". I'm so excited about this title - I'm thinkng about a piece on the reworking of classic literature wtih this title, Romeo's Ex,(which I'm already pining for), the comic Dorothy that I reviewed a few months ago (and love love love) and the new Looking Glass Wars, which is blowing my mind. I love the idea of twisting around old stories, even Shakespeare, and looking at them from a new angle. I think it would make a great piece and I'd love to ask some of these authors some questions. (Maybe December....we'll see!)

(I linked to the Bloomsbury UK site where I could - the Bloomsbury USA site doesn't have it's new catalog online yet, but all of these titles will be out in the US starting in September.)