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The eyes are often said to be the windows to the soul, but what if you could be on the inside looking out through those windows? And what if that person is a killer?

Slide by Jill Hathaway is named for the special “ability” that teenager Sylvia (Vee) possesses…when she is tired she can slide into someone else’s body if she touches something that they have touched. The trouble is that she cannot control it, so she spends much of her time trying not to touch things. This gets her wrongly labeled as OCD, narcoleptic, and just plain crazy. She hides the truth from her family (which is not difficult since her mother is dead, her father is a workaholic surgeon and her sister is a popular cheerleader who looks down on the rest of the school.) She also hides it from her best friend Rollins, who might be sympathetic but he has his own secrets to hide. But when Vee slides one night and finds herself standing over the dead body of her sister’s best friend with a bloody knife in her hand, she knows she has to gain control of her sliding and try to discover who the killer is.

Slide is a fast-paced mystery for those readers who like just a hint of the supernatural. Vee is a strong heroine who is remarkably well-grounded despite the trauma in her young life. Slide has received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly and is Hathaway’s first novel.

It's no secret that many of Hollywood's most successful blockbusters are adaptations of popular books. The recent Academy Award nominees refect this, especially when it comes to family films. Here are some of the children's titles that brought magic to the movies this year:

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick became the visually stunning film Hugo directed by Martin Scorsese.  This tale of an orphaned boy living in a Paris train station was the surprise winner of the Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished picture book in 2008.  Selznick’s creative style mixes pages of text with wordless pages that opens the reader’s imagination and invites them to create parts of the story for themselves.  Selznick’s newest title Wonderstruck is similarly illustrated.

The Adventures of Tintin is adapted from the classic graphic novel series of the same name written by Belgian writer/artist Herge.  Tintin is a young reporter who gets caught up in dangerous adventures as he completes his story assignments.  Modeled after the boy scout values, Tintin always knows what is right and acts in the most upstanding manner.  He is a role model for children (and perhaps adults everywhere.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II marks the end of the film journey into J.K. Rowling’s magical world.  The books are now over 14 years old and a whole new generation of readers are jumping on the Hogwarts express and following Harry as he learns to be a wizard and discovers both good and evil along the way.  The Harry Potter books have spawned movies, video games, board games, toys, websites, and even a theme park.  The audiobooks are magnificently narrated by the Grammy award-winning Jim Dale.  A fun fact—Jim Dale holds the Guinness World Record for creating 146 different character voices for the audiobook version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!