Difficult Adult Children

Adam's muscular dystrophy has stolen his mobility, his friends, and in less than a year, it will take his life. Virtual reality games are Adam's only escape from his wheelchair. In his alternate world, he can defeat anyone. Running, jumping, scoring touchdowns: Adam is always the hero. Then, an artificial intelligence program hacks into Adam's game. Created by Adam's computer-genius father, Sigma has gone rogue, threatening to kill Adam - and the entire human race. Their one chance to stop Sigma is using the technology Adam's dad developed to digitally preserve the mind of his son.

The story in which a 16-year-old is chosen by her government to undergo The Testing, which decides if she gets to go to The University. The University is for the country’s best and brightest teens and puts the rebuilding and future leadership of the United Commowealth in their hands. During The Testing, extreme psychological and physical trials pit them against one another to determine which teens have what it takes to become a leader.

"A beast. Not quite wolf or bear, gorilla or dog but a horrible new creature who walks upright – a creature with fangs and claws and hair springing from every pore. I am a monster. You think I’m talking fairy tales? No way. The place is New York City. The time is now. It’s no deformity, no disease. And I’ll stay this way forever – ruined – unless I can break the spell...."

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?

Sang Sorenson struggles with her growing feelings when the Academy boys take her in and draw her closer into their world. They work together to uncover the true secrets happening at Ashley Waters High School, where Principal Hendricks will stop at nothing to take them all down. Adding to their complications, Nathan's father shows up, and he's just as ruthless and violent as ever, beating up on Nathan. Sang offers Nathan refuge in her home, but Marie is fed up with the boys.

In her small town, dubbed “Dullsville”, 16-year-old Raven—a vampire-crazed goth-girl—is an outcast. But not for long. The intriguing and rumored-to-be haunted mansion on top of Benson Hill has stood vacant and boarded-up for years. That is, until its mysteriously strange new occupants move in. Who are these creepy people—especially the handsome, dark, and elusive Alexander Sterling? Or rather, what are they? Could the town prattle actually ring true? Are they vampires?

It’s 1936, in Flint Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud’s got a few things going for him. 1. He has his own suitcase full of special things. 2. He’s the author of Bud Caldwell’s Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. 3. His momma never told him who his father was, but she left a clue: flyers advertising Herman E. Calloway and his famous band, the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!! Bud’s got an idea that those flyers will lead him to his father.

To everyone who knows him, West Ashby has always been that guy: the cocky, popular, way-too-handsome-for-his-own-good football god who led Lawton High to the state championships. But while West may be big man on campus on the outside, on the inside he's battling the grief that comes with watching his father slowly die of cancer.

Tennyson: Don’t get me started on the Bruiser. He was voted “Most Likely to Get the Death Penalty” by the entire school. He’s the kid no one knows, no one talks to, and everyone hears disturbing rumors about. So why is my sister, Brontë, dating him? One of these days she’s going to take in the wrong stray dog, and it’s not going to end well.BronteMy brother has no right to talk about Brewster that way — no right to threaten him. There’s a reason why Brewster can’t have friends — why he can’t care about too many people.

Fed up with her wild behavior, 16-year-old Lex’s parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape. But Uncle Mort’s true occupation is much dirtier than shoveling manure. He’s a Grim Reaper. And he’s going to teach Lex the family business. She quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next.

Mercy lives in modern-day Pietermaritzburg, South Africa with her eccentric foster aunts - two elderly sisters so poor, they can only afford one lightbulb. A nasty housing developer is eying their house. And that same house suddenly starts falling apart - just as Aunt Flora starts falling apart. She's forgetting words, names, and even how to behave in public. Mercy tries to keep her head down at school so nobody notices her. But when a classmate frames her for stealing the school's raffle money, Mercy's teachers decide to take a closer look at her home life.

It's 1863, and dinosaurs roam the streets of New York as the Civil War rages between raptor-mounted armies down South. Magdalys Roca and her friends from the Colored Orphan Asylum are on a field trip when the Draft Riots break out, and a number of their fellow orphans are kidnapped by an evil magistrate, Richard Riker. Magdalys and her friends flee to Brooklyn and settle in the Dactyl Hill neighborhood. Together with the Vigilance Committee, they train to fly on dactylback, discover new friends and amazing dinosaurs, and plot to take down Riker.

Best friends Julia and Ashleigh are looking for some romance, but Ashleigh's ways make Julia a little uncomfortable. While crashing a fall dance, they are befriended by two boys, one of whom being the mysterious male that Julia had seen at the mall. Unfortunately, Ashleigh has laid claim to her mysterious boy first. Julia is totally confused about high school love.

Carly Chambers leads an unusual life. She moves frequently and has to run mysterious packages to her father’s clients. Now living in Oceanside, New Jersey, Carly finds excitement by sneaking out at night to the town’s bustling boardwalk. More and more Carly finds herself hoping to spend time with Nick, one of the few kids who doesn’t outright ignore her. But then her life is thrown into further disarray when she realizes she’s being followed, and Carly suspects that the menacing stranger shadowing her has something to do with her father’s business....

ALA notable author Iain Lawrence pens a moving tale with a Dickensian atmosphere about a young man's life aboard a cruel 19th-century prison ship. 14-year-old Tom Tin is forced to scavenge on the grimy streets of London after his father is sent to debtor's prison. Tom's survival is threatened by the sinister lowlifes that inhabit his hopeless world. But when he is unjustly arrested for murder, he finds a place that is even worse than the dark city streets.

What begins with a sense that Michael's deceased grandfather might be inhabiting his body soon escalates to "slipping" into to the river of the dead. When Michael slips, he relives moments of his grandfather's life and tries to help him find peace. But each time he ventures into the river it's harder to come out again. Michael will have to depend on an unlikely group of friends to keep him from slipping... permanently. A penetrating twist on the classic ghost story, full of humor and insight about family relationships.

Oregon teenager and tennis champ Jeff McKenzie can’t wait for summer vacation. But when he decides to take his Bronco for a joyride on the Hamptons’ farm land, he gets into real hot water. As punishment Jeff is ordered to work on the farm for the first few weeks of summer. Getting up early and working with Mexican immigrants just doesn’t appeal to him. The only thing he looks forward to is seeing the Hamptons’ eldest daughter Alexa, who he is quickly falling for. Gradually he comes to appreciate the hardworking people....

Continuing the story begun in Under the Blood-Red Sun, House of the Red Fish returns to Honolulu one year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Thirteen-year-old Japanese American Tomi Nakaji must struggle to support his family after the arrest of his father and grandfather.

A special needs teacher who lived in 24 different places during her childhood, debut novelist Sarah Dooley taps her expertise and channels her experiences for this powerful tale. Livvie Owen is autistic. She doesn’t feel things the same way her parents and sister do, and she’s confused why her family has to keep moving from one home to another. There is only one place where Livvie ever felt truly happy. She wants to return there now, but there’s a problem. Livvie burned that house to the ground.

For most girls, sleepaway camp is great fun. But for Amy Becker, it's a nightmare. Amy, whose home life is in turmoil, is sent to Camp Takawanda for Girls for the first time as a teenager. Although Amy swears she hates her German-immigrant mother, who is unduly harsh with Amy's autistic younger brother, Amy is less than thrilled about going to camp. At Takawanda she is subjected to a humiliating "initiation" and relentless bullying by the ringleader of the senior campers.