Your favorite new release?

Okay, I realize the two bookstores in my town specialize in something other than kidlit. (One sells mainly textbooks, the other, religious books.) But as neither of them, nor the B&N in the Big City Near Me happen to have a book I really want to read and intend to shell out real money for, my only other option is to order it. Which means that as long as I'm going to have to pay $25 anyhow, it may as well be for two books than one book plus exhorbitant postage. So. What's your favorite new release (YA or upper MG, with leanings more toward fun, fantasy, or adventure over solely Heavy Issues)? What would you recommend? 

Friday at the park

Fun--we just got back from a surprise birthday party in the park for someone from foreign languages. I know I'm an introvert, but I can't help enjoying an evening in the park with people who have randomly come from all over the country (and world) to this one spot. I mean, our German-born 10YO ran around the whole time with a French 10YO, and we met other Americans who had had children in Germany, and we chatted with a couple we knew in grad school--and now we're once again at the same university. (Our oldest two match up with two of their kids. But ours are boys, so they try to pretend their girls don't exist. Whenever we ask our oldest how their daughter is doing and if he ever talks to her in math class, he runs and hides. We find this terribly amusing.) Apparently our 10YO's dance teacher left Illinois weeks before we arrived for grad school, and these friends know them. Yes, my poor, tortured son is indeed getting a cotillion class through the public school system. Hee!

Temperatures still in the 80s, at least through Sunday. I know winter is coming, but I'm so glad we still have a few days of nice weather left!