Child Friendship

Odder spends her days off the coast of central California, practicing her underwater acrobatics and spinning the quirky stories for which she’s known. She’s a fearless daredevil, curious to a fault. But when Odder comes face-to-face with a hungry great white shark, her life takes a dramatic turn, one that will challenge everything she believes about herself—and about the humans who hope to save her.

In this gripping new addition to the best-selling I Survived series, a young Jewish boy joins the resistance "partisan" fighters outside the Warsaw ghetto. Does he have what it takes to survive the Nazis - and fight back?

Fiona's new school doesn't have an ice hockey team, just field hockey! She decides to try out for field hockey anyway, but the sports have different rules. Will Fiona be able to stay on the team if she doesn't learn the rules?

Visiting her father on the west coast, Dawn is tempted to stay with him when she enjoys the beach, Disneyland, and a wealth of healthy restaurants, but the homesick baby-sitter fears leaving her mother and all of her friends.

Reaching the end of their flight in The Knife of Never Letting Go, Todd and Viola did not find healing and hope in Haven. They found instead their worst enemy, Mayor Prentiss, waiting to welcome them to New Prentisstown. There they are forced into separate lives: Todd to prison, and Viola to a house of healing where her wounds are treated. Soon Viola is swept into the ruthless activities of the Answer, while Todd faces impossible choices when forced to join the mayor’s oppressive new regime.

For nearly a century, Victorian London relied on "climbing boys" - orphans owned by chimney sweeps - to clean flues and protect homes from fire. The work was hard, thankless and brutally dangerous. Eleven-year-old Nan Sparrow is quite possibly the best climber who ever lived. With her wits and will, she's managed to beat the deadly odds time and again. But when Nan gets stuck in a deadly chimney fire, she fears her time has come. Instead, she wakes to find herself in an abandoned attic - and not alone. Huddled in the corner is a mysterious creature - a golem - made from ash and coal.

Colors collide when Simon, who makes his life as a black and white photographer, moves in next door to Pinky Lovett, who is obsessed with color. Pinky tries to force him to convert to her ways, but they end up finding common ground and becoming friends.

For Bixby Alexander Tam (nicknamed Bat), life is pretty great. He’s the caretaker of the best baby skunk in the world - even Janie, his older sister, is warming up to Thor. When Janie gets a part in the school play and can’t watch Bat after school, it means some pretty big changes. Someone else has to take care of the skunk kit in the afternoons, Janie is having sleepovers with her new friends, and Bat wants everything to go back to normal. He just has to make it to the night of Janie’s performance.

For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires.

It's 50 years before the settlement of the city of Ember and the world is in crisis. War looms on the horizon as 11-year-old Nickie and her aunt travel to the small town of Yonwood, North Carolina. There, one of the town's respected citizens has had a terrible vision of fire and destruction. Her garbled words are taken as prophetic instruction on how to avoid the coming disaster. If only they can be interpreted correctly.

Kyana Turner has just found out the family secret—she’s a witch! This means lessons every Saturday at Park Row Magick Academy, the magic school hidden in the back of her local beauty shop. Learning spells, charms, and potion recipes, and getting a wand made to match her hair's curl pattern, Kyana feels like she's a part of something really special. The hardest part will be keeping her magic a secret from non-Magick folks, including her BFF, Nae.

Claudia has always been the most outrageous girl in her class...until Ashley Wyeth comes along. Ashley's really different - she dresses in hippie clothes, wears six earrings and work boots, and is the most fantastic artist Claudia has ever met. Ashley says Claudia has artistic talent, too, but thinks Claudia should spend more time on her "calling" and stop wasting time on the Baby-Sitters Club. The baby-sitters are sick of Ashley Wyeth, and they feel like Claudia is a traitor. Claudia has to decide: either the BSC or the new girl - one of them's got to go!

Stacey's parents are getting a divorce. Stacey is sad and angry, and she has a big decision to make - stay in New York with her father, or move back to Stoneybrook with her mother.

Rosemary Thorpe has always been a bit different. She has the uncanny and unfortunate ability to foresee people’s deaths, which tends to land her in hot water. Well, not actual hot water—where it lands her is a place between worlds called Fern’s School for Wayward Fae, where Rosemary learns that her powers come from being part fae. At Fern's School, Rosemary meets others who are part fae—including Trym, her banshee roommate whose screams can kill, and Essie, a djinn who grants wishes. But just as Rosemary settles in, a student vanishes in thin air.

Ghost. Lu. Patina. Sunny. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team - a team that could qualify them for the Junior Olympics if they can get their acts together. They all have a lot to lose, but they also have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves.

Scarlett McCain is a shoot-first ask-questions-later kind of outlaw. She scrapes by on bank heists, her wits - and never looking back. She’s on the run from her latest crime when she comes across Albert Browne. He is the sole survivor of a horrific accident, and against her better judgement, Scarlett agrees to guide him to safety.

Stephanie Harrington had always expected to be a forest ranger on her homeworld of Meyerdahl until her parents relocated to the frontier planet of Sphinx in the far distant Star Kingdom of Manticore. It should have been the perfect new home - a virgin wilderness full of new species of every sort, just waiting to be discovered. But Sphinx is a far more dangerous place than ultra-civilized Meyerdahl, and Stephanie's explorations come to a sudden halt when her parents lay down the law: no trips into the bush without adult supervision!

When 12-year-old Cooper Vega moves for the third time in five years, he receives a state-of-the-art smartphone to help him stay in touch with old friends. He's had phones before, but this one is buggy and unpredictable. When a boy named Roderick Northrop communicates with him through the phone, Cooper realizes that his phone isn't buggy at all; the thing is haunted!

Bixby Alexander Tam (nicknamed Bat) has been the caretaker for Thor, the best skunk kit in the world...but the last day of third grade is quickly approaching, and Thor is almost ready to be released into the wild. The end of school also means that Bat has to say good-bye to his favorite teacher, and he worries about the summer care of Babycakes, their adorable class pet. Not only that, but his best friend is leaving for a long vacation in Canada. Summer promises good things, too, like working with his mom at the vet clinic and hanging out with his sister, Janie.

Listen and relive exciting tales from Highlights, now on audio! Learn about all the animals who head to the pool on a hot summer’s day and kids selling at market in Egypt, along with other stories about friends.