Today's Deals

Edit to add: Sorry for the earlier partial Post. My computer is acting up and not all my edits were saved when I clicked to publish.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Breakdown ($1.99), by Katherine Amt Hanna. This is a genre I read more than most, so I'll definitely be checking out the sample on this one.

Book Description
An influenza plague decimates humanity...

A man loses his wife and baby daughter...

Six years after a pandemic devastates the human population, former rock star Chris Price finally makes it from New York to Britain to reunite with his brother. His passage leaves him scarred, in body and mind, by exposure to humankind at its most desperate and dangerous. But another ordeal awaits him beyond the urban ruins, in an idyllic country refuge where Chris meets a woman, Pauline, who is largely untouched by the world’s horrors. Together, Chris and Pauline undertake the most difficult facet of Chris’s journey: confronting grief, violence, and the man Chris has become. They will discover whether the human spirit is capable of surviving and loving again in this darker, harder world.

The Real Mad Men: The Remarkable True Story Of Madison Avenue's Golden Age, When a Handful Of Renegades Changed Advertising For Ever ($1.60 / £0.99 UK), by Andrew Cracknell, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $11.06).

Book Description
In New York City in the late 1950s and the 1960s - the era and location of TV's Mad Men - advertising went through a revolution. In a booming market, a punchy and proud new workforce of younger, multi-ethnic writers and art directors gorged themselves on a vibrant and artistic social scene. In many ways they were similar to Don Draper, Roger Sterling and Peggy Olsen: confident, driven and ambitious, they lived the three-martini life and worked the machine to their advantage. Also clever, creative and streetwise, they outclassed and out-thought the old advertising establishment, implementing a new way of thinking and behaving which spread across the newspapers, magazines and TV screens of America and beyond. The story of modern advertising starts here, with these real Mad Men - and women - of Madison Avenue who created the most radical and influential advertising ever, transforming the methods, practice and execution of the business. Their legacy still resounds in the industry today. How did this golden age of advertising happen? It is a remarkable, inspiring story of creativity, ingenuity and larger than life personalities who made it up as they went along.

Scarpetta ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), the sixteenth novel in the Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. The latest in the series, The Bone Bed, can now be pre-ordered and will be delivered Oct 16.

Book Description
Leaving behind her private forensic pathology practice in Charleston, South Carolina, Kay Scarpetta accepts an assignment in New York City, where the NYPD has asked her to examine an injured man on Bellevue Hospital’s psychiatric prison ward. The handcuffed and chained patient, Oscar Bane, has specifically asked for her, and when she literally has her gloved hands on him, he begins to talk—and the story he has to tell turns out to be one of the most bizarre she has ever heard.

The injuries, he says, were sustained in the course of a murder . . . that he did not commit. Is Bane a criminally insane stalker who has fixed on Scarpetta? Or is his paranoid tale true, and it is he who is being spied on, followed and stalked by the actual killer? The one thing Scarpetta knows for certain is that a woman has been tortured and murdered—and more violent deaths will follow. Gradually, an inexplicable and horrifying truth emerges: Whoever is committing the crimes knows where his prey is at all times. Is it a person, a government? And what is the connection between the victims?

In the days that follow, Scarpetta; her forensic psychologist husband, Benton Wesley; and her niece, Lucy, who has recently formed her own forensic computer investigation firm in New York, will undertake a harrowing chase through cyberspace and the all-too-real streets of the city—an odyssey that will take them at once to places they never knew, and much, much too close to home.

Throughout, Cornwell delivers shocking twists and turns, and the kind of cutting-edge technology that only she can provide. Once again, she proves her exceptional ability to entertain and enthrall.

End This Depression Now! ($3.99 Kindle, B&N), by Paul Krugman, is the Nook Daily Find: Election 2012, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
A call-to-arms from Nobel Prize–winning economist and best-selling author Paul Krugman.
The Great Recession is more than four years old—and counting. Yet, as Paul Krugman points out in this powerful volley, "Nations rich in resources, talent, and knowledge—all the ingredients for prosperity and a decent standard of living for all—remain in a state of intense pain."

How bad have things gotten? How did we get stuck in what now can only be called a depression? And above all, how do we free ourselves? Krugman pursues these questions with his characteristic lucidity and insight. He has a powerful message for anyone who has suffered over these past four years—a quick, strong recovery is just one step away, if our leaders can find the "intellectual clarity and political will" to end this depression now.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Sheep in a Jeep ($1.99), by Nancy E. Shaw and Margot Apple (Illustrator).

Book Description
A flock of hapless sheep drive through the country in this rhyming picture book.

Grade Level: K and up

Bargain Book Roundup

Newly published On The Train ($0.99), a short story collection by Rachel Turtledove, Harry Turtledove and Mike Resnick (Editor), is on sale as an intro special (but only for one more day).

Book Description
Is travelling on The Train a means to an end…a way to complete one’s journey…or is The Train the destination itself, rolling endlessly through realms both magical and mechanical?

And what of Javan, the lad from Pingaspor, whose third-class ticket entitles him to a spot on a hard bench? He has given up everything he had for that cherished spot. But where, exactly, is he headed?

Javan’s story is followed by the tale of nanny Eli, hired by Baroness Vasri to take care of her son and daughter as they travel on The Train in first class. But the Baroness’ agenda may run contrary to that of those running The Train...and what will become of the children?

Cold Vengeance ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), the eleventh and newest in the Pendergast series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, is marked down

Book Description
Devastated by the discovery that his wife, Helen, was murdered, Special Agent Pendergast must have retribution. But revenge is not simple. As he stalks his wife's betrayers-a chase that takes him from the wild moors of Scotland to the bustling streets of New York City and the darkest bayous of Louisiana-he is also forced to dig further into Helen's past. And he is stunned to learn that Helen may have been a collaborator in her own murder.

Peeling back the layers of deception, Pendergast realizes that the conspiracy is deeper, goes back generations, and is more monstrous than he could have ever imagined-and everything he's believed, everything he's trusted, everything he's understood . . . may be a horrific lie.

COLD VENGEANCE

Nothing is what it seems.

Two Graves ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), the twelfth in the Pendergast series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, is now available to pre-order. This is either a very short time promo price or a pricing error, I suspect, as there is also a free "sample" edition at Amazon and a short story in the series, Extraction, which is priced at $1.99.

Book Description
After his wife, Helen, is brazenly abducted before his eyes, Special Agent Pendergast furiously pursues the kidnappers, chasing them across the country and into Mexico. But then, things go terribly, tragically wrong; the kidnappers escape; and a shattered Pendergast retreats to his New York apartment and shuts out the world.

But when a string of bizarre murders erupts across several Manhattan hotels--perpetrated by a boy who seems to have an almost psychic ability to elude capture--NYPD Lieutenant D'Agosta asks his friend Pendergast for help. Reluctant at first, Pendergast soon discovers that the killings are a message from his wife's kidnappers. But why a message? And what does it mean?
When the kidnappers strike again at those closest to Pendergast, the FBI agent, filled anew with vengeful fury, sets out to track down and destroy those responsible. His journey takes him deep into the trackless forests of South America, where he ultimately finds himself face to face with an old evil that-rather than having been eradicated-is stirring anew... and with potentially world-altering consequences.

Confucius once said: "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, first dig two graves." Pendergast is about to learn the hard way just how true those words still ring.

Trunk Music ($2.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), the fifth Harry Bosch novel by Michael Connelly, who also has a new short story collection, Mulholland Dive, out for the series.

Book Description
Back on the job after an involuntary leave of absence, LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch is ready for a challenge. But his first case is a little more than he bargained for.

It starts with the body of a Hollywood producer in the trunk of a Rolls-Royce, shot twice in the head at close range - what looks like "trunk music," a Mafia hit. But the LAPD's organized crime unit is curiously uninterested, and when Harry follows a trail of gambling debts to Las Vegas, the case suddenly becomes more complex - and much more personal.

A rekindled romance with an old girlfriend opens new perspectives on the murder, and he begins to glimpse a shocking triangle of corruption and collusion. Yanked off the case, Harry himself is soon the one being investigated. But only a bullet can stop Harry when he's searching for the truth . . .

I read Feed ($1.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), the first title in the Newsflesh Trilogy by Mira Grant, as part of the Hugo nominees for 2011; I immediately had to go buy Deadline (sure, I could have waited a year - it made the Hugo nominee list for 2012) and put Blackout on my "watch for" list ... and now I see it is available!

Book Description
The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beat the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.

NOW, twenty years after the Rising, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives-the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them.

Sheri S. Tepper's Six Moon Dance ($0.99) and The Companions ($0.99) are stand-alone Science Fiction novels, published by HarperCollins.

Six Moon Dance

It was many years ago that humans came and settled the world of Newholme-cruelly bending the planet to their will; setting down roots and raising up cities and farms and a grand temple to their goddess.But now the ground itself is shaking with ever-increasing violence. And the Great Questioner, official arbiter of the Council of Worlds, has come to this isolated orb to investigate rumors of a terrible secret that lies buried deep within Newholme's past—a past that is not dead, not completely. And it will fall to Mouche, a beautiful youth of uncommon cleverness and spirit, to save his imperiled home by dicovering and embracing that which makes him unique among humans. For every living thing on newholme is doomed, unless Mouche can appease something dark and terrible that is coiled within...and surrender to the mysterious ecstatic revelry taht results when the six moons join.

The Companions

Three planets have been recently discovered in deep space, and prosaically named to reflect their respective environments. Jungle, lush and foreboding, swallowed up an eleven-member exploratory team more than a decade earlier, while hot, harsh, and dusty Stone turned out to be phenomenally rich in rare ore, the most profitable new world to be found in a century. But it is the third, Moss, that could well prove to be the most enigmatic . . . and dangerous.

Enlisted by the Planetary Protection Institute -- an organization founded to assess new worlds for potential development and profit -- famed linguist Paul Delis has come to Moss to determine whether the strange multicolored shapes of dancing light observed on the planet's surface are evidence of intelligent life. With Delis is his half sister, Jewel, the wife of one of the explorers lost on Jungle. Working together, they are to determine the true nature of the “Mossen” and decipher the strange "language" that accompanies the phenomenon.

Yet the great mysteries of this bucolic world -- three-quarters covered in wind-sculpted, ever-shifting moss -- don't end with the inexplicable illuminations; there is the puzzle of the rusting remains of a lost fleet of Earth ships, moldering on a distant plateau. Perhaps the biggest question mark is Jewel Delis herself and her mission here at the far reaches of the galaxy. Leaving an overpopulated homeworld that is rapidly becoming depleted of the raw materials needed for human survival, Jewel is a member of a radical underground group opposing a recent government edict that will eliminate all of the planet's “nonessential” living inhabitants. And it is here, at the universe's unexplored edge, where the fate of endangered creatures may ultimately be decided -- though it will mean defying ruthless and unforgiving ruling powers to repair humankind's disintegrating relationship with the beasts of the Earth.

Leviathan Wakes ($1.99), by James S.A. Corey, has been on sale a couple of times in the last couple of years, but never at this low a price. I checked the sample and it appears this edition is the one that also includes the full text of Daniel Abraham's The Dragon's Path, which is $9.99 on it's own.

Book Description
Humanity has colonized the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond - but the stars are still out of our reach.

Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, The Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for - and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to The Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations - and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

I bought Stan Nicholls' Orcs ($2.99) at Fictionwise, back before the Agency agreements pretty much killed it for larger publisher selections. I checked the sample of the Kindle edition and it also appears to be the omnibus edition of the Orcs: First Blood trilogy that I bought, containing all three novels in the series: Bodyguard of Lightning (1999), The Legion of Thunder (1999) and Warriors of the Tempest (2000).

Book Description

"Look at me. Look at the Orc."

"There is fear and hatred in your eyes. To you I am a monster, a skulker in the shadows, a fiend to scare your children with. A creature to be hunted down and slaughtered like a beast in the fields.

It is time you pay heed to the beast. And see the beast in yourself. I have your fear. But I have earned your respect.

Hear my story. Feel the flow of blood and be thankful. Thankful that it was me, not you, who bore the sword. Thankful to the orcs; born to fight, destined to win peace for all."

This book will change the way you feel about Orcs forever.

The Dwarves ($2.99), by Markus Heitz, gives us another viewpoint on the fantasy pantheon, also published by Orbit. This is the first novel of the series and it's 700+ pages should keep you reading for several days.

Book Description
For countless millennia, the dwarves of the Fifthling Kingdom have defended the stone gateway into Girdlegard. Many and varied foes have hurled themselves against the portal and died attempting to breach it. No man or beast has ever succeeded. Until now. . .

Abandoned as a child, Tungdil the blacksmith labors contentedly in the land of Ionandar, the only dwarf in a kingdom of men. Although he does not want for friends, Tungdil is very much aware that he is alone - indeed, he has not so much as set eyes on another dwarf. But all that is about to change.

Sent out into the world to deliver a message and reacquaint himself with his people, the young foundling finds himself thrust into a battle for which he has not been trained. Not only his own safety, but the life of every man, woman and child in Girdlegard depends upon his ability to embrace his heritage. Although he has many unanswered questions, Tungdil is certain of one thing: no matter where he was raised, he is a true dwarf.

And no one has ever questioned the courage of the Dwarves.

$5 Amazon MP3 Credit (KSO)

This offer is only for those with a Kindle with Special Offers (including any Kindle Touch or Kindle Keyboard that opts in to Special Offers, but not Kindle Fire with Special Offers):

Get $5 to Spend on Digital Music at Amazon

Click on the offer, then click on the link on the offer page sign up and you'll get an email with the promotion code. Sign-up for this offer expires October 7, 2012.

You'll get an email (right away), a link to the Amazon MP3 store page, a promotion code and a link to the redemption page. This one works like a gift card and you need to apply the credit to your account first, before going shopping. Once you have entered the promotional code(s), you have until October 14, 2012 to complete your purchases.

I'd recommend that you apply the credit right away, since it works on any MP3 purchase - then you can shop on the web or from your phone or Kindle Fire and it will be used automatically. The exception would be if you have the MP3 Album for $3 credit on your account. These credits don't combine well (when I tried to buy my album, it ate up all my existing credit, rather than only $3, and I had to get customer service to help straighten it out). So, use that credit first, then apply this credit to your account.

Edit to add: I found the best way to ensure that your credits are being used the way you want: send your MP3 choice to yourself as a gift. On the first page you'll see the Amazon price (ignoring any promos or credits) and you enter your email address. On the next page (the confirmation page), you'll see the exact price you pay and any promos that are being used for the purchase. By doing this, you can make sure that aren't using $8 of credit for what should be a $3 album (which is what happened to me the first time). In order to use my $3 album credit, it looks like you need to make sure you don't have any coinstar credits first.

Today's Deals

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is What Happened to Sophie Wilder ($1.99), by Christopher Beha.

Book Description
Charlie Blakeman is living in New York, on Washington Square, struggling to write his second novel and floundering, when his college love, Sophie Wilder, returns to his life. Sophie, too, is struggling, though Charlie isn’t sure why. They’ve spoken only rarely since falling out a decade before. Now Sophie begins to tell Charlie the story of her life since then, particularly the days she spent taking care of a dying man with his own terrible past and the difficult decision he presented her with. When Sophie once again abruptly disappears, Charlie sets out to discover what happened to Sophie Wilder.

The Telling ($1.60 / £0.99 UK), by Jo Baker , is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $8.90).

Book Description
Her mother recently deceased, Rachel sets off alone for her family’s isolated country house in order to pack up and sell off the remnants of her estate. She tells herself the process will only take a few weeks, but from the moment she steps through the front door, Rachel feels that the house contains more than she had expected. Along with the memories of her mother, there is something else in the house, a presence trying to make itself felt. As Rachel struggles to put her mother’s affairs in order, she grows ever more convinced that the house holds a message for her. Can the ghosts of the past be nudging their way into the present, or is Rachel really beginning to lose her mind?

Miss New India ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Bharati Mukherjee, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Anjali Bose’s prospects don’t look great. Born into a traditional lower-middle‑class family, she lives in a backwater town with only an arranged marriage on the horizon. But her ambition, charm, and fluency in language do not go unnoticed by her charismatic and influential expat teacher Peter Champion. And champion her he does, both to powerful people who can help her along the way and to Anjali herself, stirring in her a desire to take charge of her own destiny.

So she sets off to Bangalore, India’s fastest‑growing metropolis, and soon falls in with an audacious and ambitious crowd of young people, who have learned how to sound American by watching shows like Seinfeld in order to get jobs in call centers, where they quickly out‑earn their parents. And it is in this high‑tech city where Anjali — suddenly free of the confines of class, caste, and gender — is able to confront her past and reinvent herself. Of course, the seductive pull of life in the New India does not come without a dark side . . .

Young Mr. Obama: Chicago and the Making of a Black President ($9.99 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Edward McClelland, is the Nook Daily Find: Election 2012.

Book Description
Barack Obama's inspirational politics and personal mythology have overshadowed his fascinating history. Young Mr. Obama gives us the missing chapter: the portrait of the politician as a young leader, often too ambitious for his own good, but still equipped with a rare ability to inspire change. The route to the White House began on the streets of Chicago's South Side.

Edward McClelland, a veteran Chicago journalist, tells the real story of the first black president's political education in the capital of the African American political community. Obama's touch wasn't always golden, and the unflappable and charismatic campaigner we know today nearly derailed his political career with a disastrous run for Congress in 2000. Obama learned from his mistakes, and rebuilt his public persona. Young Mr. Obama is a masterpiece of political reporting, peeling away the audacity, the T-shirts, and the inspiring speeches to craft a compelling and surpassingly readable account of how local politics shaped a national leader.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Fracture ($1.99), by Megan Miranda.

Book Description
Eleven minutes passed before Delaney Maxwell was pulled from the icy waters of a Maine lake by her best friend Decker Phillips. By then her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead. And yet she somehow defied medical precedent to come back seemingly fine - despite the scans that showed significant brain damage. Everyone wants Delaney to be all right, but she knows she's far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can't control or explain, Delaney finds herself drawn to the dying. Is her altered brain now predicting death, or causing it?

Then Delaney meets Troy Varga, who recently emerged from a coma with similar abilities. At first she's reassured to find someone who understands the strangeness of her new existence, but Delaney soon discovers that Troy's motives aren't quite what she thought. Is their gift a miracle, a freak of nature-or something much more frightening?

For fans of best-sellers like Before I Fall and If I Stay, this is a fascinating and heart-rending story about love and friendship and the fine line between life and death.

Age Level: 12 and up

Today's Deals

It's the start of a new month and Amazon has updated their 100 Kindle Books for $3.99 or less. Not as many cookbooks this time, although there is How to Grill: The Complete Illustrated Book of Barbecue Techniques, A Barbecue Bible! Cookbook for $2.99 and I see one that has been on my "paperback replacement wishlist" for a while: All New Square Foot Gardening ($2.99), by Mel Bartholomew. Neither is in Topaz format, either, for those that prefer Mobi or KF8 formats. No doubt several of them will end up dropping a few cents more by month end, but I also usually see at least one book disappear from the list on the first or second day, either due to the publisher not wanting their book to be steeply discounted or a certain number of sale copies being allocated.

The start of a new month also means there will be a flurry of new books today, so it may take me a while to get them all posted.

While they last, Google still has their last day's 25 cent apps up and Amazon had price matched several of them, including Spy Mouse, when I last checked.

Now free in the Kindle store in addition to B&N.

• Vegetarian 101 (K/N)
• Baking Basics and Beyond (K/N)
• Magazine - The Point (K/N)
• Out and Proud in Chicago (K/N)

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Pour Your Heart Into It ($1.99), by Howard Schultz.

Book Description
The success of Starbucks Coffee Company is one of the most amazing business stories in decades. What started as a single store on Seattle’s waterfront has grown into a company with over sixteen hundred stores worldwide and a new one opening every single business day. Just as remarkable as this incredible growth is the fact that Starbucks has managed to maintain its renowned commitment to product excellence and employee satisfaction.

In Pour Your Heart Into It, CEO Howard Schultz illustrates the principles that have shaped the Starbucks phenomenon, sharing the wisdom he has gained from his quest to make great coffee part of the American experience. Marketers, managers, and aspiring entrepreneurs will discover how to turn passion into profit in this definitive chronicle of the company that “has changed everything . . . from our tastes to our language to the face of Main Street.” (Fortune)

Brighton Belle ($1.60 / £0.99 UK), a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery by Sara Sheridan, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $4.79).

Book Description
1951. Brighton. With the excitement of the war over and the Nazis brought to justice at Nuremberg, Mirabelle Bevan (retired Secret Service) thinks her skills are no longer required. After the death of her lover she moves to the seaside to put the past behind her and takes a job as a secretary at a debt collection agency run by the charismatic Big Ben McGuigan. But when confronted by the case of Romana Laszlo, a pregnant Hungarian refugee, Mirabelle discovers that her specialist knowledge is vital. With enthusiastic assistance from the pretty insurance clerk down the corridor, Vesta Churchill, Mirabelle follows a mysterious trail of gold sovereigns, betting scams and corpses to a dark corner of Austerity Britain where the forces of evil remain alive and well.

Room ($9.99 $2.99 Kindle, B&N), by Emma Donoghue, is the Nook Daily Find. ETA: Now price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, ROOM is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 ($9.99 Kindle, $2.99 B&N), by Hunter S. Thompson, is the Nook Daily Find: Election 2012.

Book Description
Forty years after its original publication, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 remains a cornerstone of American political journalism and one of the bestselling campaign books of all time. Hunter S. Thompson’s searing account of the battle for the 1972 presidency—from the Democratic primaries to the eventual showdown between George McGovern and Richard Nixon—is infused with the characteristic wit, intensity, and emotional engagement that made Thompson “the flamboyant apostle and avatar of gonzo journalism” (The New York Times). Hilarious, terrifying, insightful, and compulsively readable, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 is an epic political adventure that captures the feel of the American democratic process better than any other book ever written.

In recognition of National Bullying Prevention month, today's Kindle Young Readers Daily Deal features two empowering books for girls for only $1.99 each.

Stand Up for Yourself and Your Friends: Dealing with Bullies and Bossiness and Finding a Better Way, by Patti Kelley Criswell and Angela Martini (Illustrator)

This book teaches girls how to spot bullying and how to stand up and speak out against it. Quizzes, quotes from other girls, and "what do you do?" scenarios present advice in an age-appropriate, digestible way. The message in this book is that there is no one right way to deal with bullying. Instead, there are lots of options for girls to try, from ignoring a bully and trying a few clever comebacks to reporting bullying to a trusted adult. Readers learn how to stand up for others and be a good friend, too. The book ends with a pledge girls can sign, plus tear-out tips for girls to share with their parents.

Grade Level: 3 and up

Smart Girl's Guide to Sticky Situations, by American Girl Editors and Bonnie Timmons (Illustrator)

Girls will learn to take charge and feel confident in a variety of tough situations, from being threatened by a bully to getting caught in an earthquake to falling down the stairs at school. Problem-solving strategies and tips from experts empower girls, and warm writing and humorous illustrations keep the book's tone light.

Grade Level: 4 and up