Difficult Family Relationships

Kids have been picking on 14-year-old Harold ever since he can remember. They stare at him and call him "maggot" or "ghost boy" because he's an albino. Even his mother seems angry and withdrawn when he's around.One day the circus comes to town, and Harold runs away to join it. When Fossil Man and Princess Minikin accept him into their family, he feels that he has at long last come home.

As if her parents' divorce and sister's departure for college weren't bad enough, 14-year-old Ricky Bloom has just been diagnosed with a life-changing chronic illness. Her days consist of cursing everyone out, skipping school - which has become a nightmare - daydreaming about her crush, Julio, and trying to keep her parents from realizing just how bad things are. But she can't keep her ruse up forever.

Paul Adams is the shortest kid at his high school, and the school bullies relentlessly pick on him. He spends the entire day wishing school would end so he can escape to his favorite sport of rock climbing. Lily Small is athletic, attractive, and, despite her last name, is actually very tall. Another kid, who looks almost like a grown man, introduces himself with a long Polynesian name, but says everyone calls him "Big," and he seems to like the nickname! As they get to know each other, Paul, Big, and Small discover they have a lot in common as outsiders in their high school.

For Lucy, the Jersey Shore isn't just the perfect summer escape, it's home. As a local girl, she knows not to get attached to the tourists. They breeze in during Memorial Day weekend, crowding her costal town and stealing moonlit kisses, only to pack up their beach umbrellas and empty promises on Labor Day. Still, she can't help but crush on charming Connor Malloy. His family spends every summer next door, and she longs for their friendship to turn into something deeper. Then Superstorm Sandy sweeps up the coast, bringing Lucy and Connor together for a few intense hours.

When high school senior Jonas moves to Seattle, he is glad to meet Levi, a nice, soft-spoken guy and fellow basketball player. Suspense builds like a slow drumbeat as listeners start to smell a rat in Ryan Hartwell, a charismatic basketball coach and sexual predator. When Levi reluctantly tells Jonas that Hartwell abused him, Jonas has to decide whether he should risk his future career to report the coach.

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.

Stella was born to sing. Someday Broadway. But everything changes when a tragic accident renders her deaf; she cannot hear, much less sing. Trapped in a strange new world of total silence, she must face not only the loss of her friends, her hopes, and her voice but also the loss of her identity and her life's purpose. Who is she if she's not a singer? Hayden is a quiet loner, an outcast, and the only person Stella can communicate with; his profound stutter makes him speak so slowly, she is able to easily read his lips.

It's May 1944, and Josiah Wedgewood and Marcus Perry - two young men of different races and backgrounds - are headed to Normandy's front lines. There they'll share the joys of friendship, the terrible truths of war, and what it's like to fear that each day will be their last.

Faerie, a novel for young people, is the fierce yet gently unfolding story of a hyperimaginative girl who is on a collision course to womanhood. She likens herself to a half-human fairy creature who does not belong in the earthly world; but in the cold light of day, she is a psychiatric patient at a hospital where she is being treated for anorexia - her sickness driven by the irrational need to undo nature and thwart the passage of time.

Since emigrating from Bangladesh, 14-year-old Nadira and her family have been living in New York City on expired visas, hoping to realize their dream of becoming legal U.S. citizens. But after 9/11, everything changes. Suddenly being Muslim means you are dangerous - a suspected terrorist. When Nadira's father is arrested and detained at the U.S.-Canadian border, Nadira and her older sister, Aisha, are told to carry on as if everything is the same. The teachers at Flushing High don't ask any questions, but Aisha falls apart....

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.

Help young listeners understand the problems of poverty and hunger in Third World countries with this powerful, moving story by award-winning author Gary Paulsen. An orphan in a Mexican border town meets an American army sergeant - and hopes the sergeant will help him cross the border to a better life in the United States.

Why Boys Don’t Listen to Their Mothers reveals eye-opening principles and techniques designed to train adults on the best ways to manage, guide, and treat boys with behavioral problems. It does not disappoint as the content is filled with step-by-step instructions, stories, examples, and scenarios to help you get the results you’ve been searching for.

Adam is in Doha, Qatar, making a map of the Hijra, a historic migration from Mecca to Medina, and worried about where his next paycheck will come from. Zayneb is in Chicago, where school and extracurricular stresses are piling on top of a terrible frenemy situation, making her miserable. Then a marvel occurs: Adam and Zayneb get the chance to spend Thanksgiving week on the Umrah, a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, in Saudi Arabia.

Girls started vanishing in the fall, and now winter's come to lay a white sheet over the horror. Door County, it seems, is swallowing the young, right into its very dirt. From beneath the house on Water Street, I've watched the danger swell. The residents know me as the noises in the house at night, the creaking on the stairs. I'm the reflection behind them in the glass, the feeling of fear in the cellar. I'm tied, it seems, to this house, this street, this town.

You’d think being the new girl in a tiny town would equal one very boring senior year. But if you’re me - Annie Marck, alias Cleves - and you accidentally transform into teenage royalty by entering Lancaster High on the arm of the king himself? Life becomes the exact opposite of boring. Henry has it all: he’s the jock, the genius and the brooding bad boy all in one. Which sort of explains why he’s on his sixth girlfriend in two years. What it doesn’t explain is why two of them - two of us - are dead.

Jumping double-dutch is 12-year-old Tiffany’s favorite pastime. She’s the most talented jumper at her school, incorporating flips and stunts into her routine. Then suddenly, her demeanor changes and she stops jumping rope altogether. Her mother, who wasn’t thrilled about Tiffany’s obsession in the first place, easily accepts her excuse that she’s just not feeling well. Tiffany’s 16-year-old brother Levar, however, becomes suspicious there is more to the story when he catches her burning her clothes in a dumpster.

I was 13 when my dad caught me with Tommy Webber in the back of Tommy’s Buick, parked next to the old Chart House down in Montara at 11 o’clock on a Tuesday night. Tommy was 17 and the supposed friend of my brother, Darren. I didn’t love him. I’m not sure I even liked him. In a moment, Deanna Lambert’s teenage life is changed forever. Struggling to overcome the lasting repercussions and the stifling role of “school slut”, Deanna longs to escape a life defined by her past.

Best friends Carly, Daniella, Lainie, and Penny–aka the self-proclaimed #SummerSisters–have been coming to the New Jersey shore town of Ocean Park Heights ever since they could remember. And every year, the girls make a bucket list and dedicate their entire summer to completing every item on it, documenting their wacky escapades on FotoSlam for everyone to see. It's their tradition, and as long as the Summer Sisters had each other, the rocky jetty on the shore, and their bucket list, that would never change. Right? But then, tragedy strikes.