Difficult Family

Charlie Bucktin, a bookish 13 year old, is startled one summer night by an urgent knock on his bedroom window. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in their small mining town, and he has come to ask for Charlie's help. Terribly afraid but desperate to impress, Charlie follows him into the night. Jasper takes him to his secret glade, where Charlie witnesses Jasper's horrible discovery. With his secret like a brick in his belly, Charlie is pushed and pulled by a town closing in on itself in fear and suspicion.

Since the day her mother died, Jem has known about the numbers. Numbers that pop into her head when she looks into someone’s eyes. They’re dates, the numbers. Dates predicting with brute accuracy each person’s death. Burdened by such grim knowledge, Jem avoids relationships. Until she meets Spider, another outsider, and takes a chance. Maybe they can find happiness together, if only in the brief time that remains before his expiration date.

Carlos Fuentes doesn't want any part of the life his older brother, Alex, has laid out for him in Boulder, Colorado. He wants to keep living on the edge, and carve his own path - just like Alex did. Unfortunately, his ties to a Mexican gang aren't easy to break, and he soon finds himself being set up by a drug lord. When Alex arranges for Carlos to live with his former professor and his family to keep him from being sent to jail, Carlos feels completely out of place.

In a world where magic is illegal, Cassel Sharpe has the most deadly ability of all: With one touch, he can transform any object - including a person - into something else entirely. And that makes him a wanted man. The Feds are willing to forgive all his past crimes if he’ll only leave his con-artist family behind and go straight. But why does going straight feel so crooked? For one thing, it means being on the opposite side of the law from Lila, the girl he loves.

Eden had her best friend Katie—she didn’t need anyone else. But then there was Truman. Katie’s older brother, the artist. The recluse. The boy with the innocent smile and the dangerous eyes. Eden had never really known Truman—not until the night of Katie’s accident. That was the night they’d finally let each other into their orbits—only to have the sky come crashing down on them.

Theo is better now. She’s eating again, dating guys who are almost appropriate, and well on her way to becoming an elite ballet dancer. But when her oldest friend, Donovan, returns home after spending four long years with his kidnapper, Theo starts reliving memories about his abduction - and his abductor. Donovan isn’t talking about what happened, and even though Theo knows she didn’t do anything wrong, telling the truth would put everything she’s been living for at risk. But keeping quiet might be worse.

Jack is on the verge of leaving for college, but before he does, he wants to track down his estranged brother, Alex, and find some closure in the wake of their father's death. Meanwhile, Hallie has just found out some upsetting news about a friend in Oregon, and she has a small window to go see him before it's too late. Jack and Hallie are practically strangers. They shared a class together years ago and haven't seen each other since, though they have more in common than they'd ever imagine.

Twelve-year-old Grace and her mother have always been their own family, traveling from place to place like gypsies. But Grace wants to finally have a home all their own. Just when she thinks she's found it, her mother says it's time to move again. Grace summons the courage to tell her mother how she really feels and will always regret that her last words to her were angry ones. After her mother's sudden death, Grace is forced to live with a grandmother she's never met.

As if being stuffed into last year's dress pants at his cousin's wake weren't uncomfortable enough, 13-year-old Jimmy has just learned from his mother that he has to say a few words at the funeral the next day. As Jimmy attempts to navigate the odd social norms of the wake, he draws on humor, heartfelt concern, and angst while racking his brain and his memory for a decent and meaningful memory to share. But it's not until faced with a microphone that the realization finally hits him: It's not the words that are spoken that matter the most, but those that are truly heard.

Venetia King is the hottest girl at school. Too bad Lemar is the second shortest guy in his year. Everyone calls him Liccle Bit, and his two best friends, McKay and Jonah, never tire of telling him he has no chance with girls. Things aren't much better at home. His mum is permanently hassled, his sister a frustrated single mum and his dad moved out years ago. Liccle Bit wishes he could do something - anything! - to make life better. A new phone would be a start....

Shane has been doing college all wrong. Her life has been dorm, dining hall, class, repeat. Time's a ticking, and she needs a change - there's nothing like moving to a new country to really mix things up. Shane signs up for a semester abroad in London. She's going to right all her college mistakes: make friends, pursue boys, and find adventure! Easier said than done. She is soon faced with the complicated realities of living outside her bubble, and when self-doubt sneaks in, her new life starts to fall apart.

This is the sequel to Freckles - the moving story of a young girl whose kindness and wholesome philosophy brightens the lives of everyone she meets.

Lena has lived her whole life near the beach, walking for miles up and down the shore and breathing the salty air, swimming in the cold water, and watching the surfers rule the waves. The problem is, she's spent her whole life just watching. As her 16th birthday approaches, Lena vows she will no longer watch from the sand: she will learn to surf. But her father, a former surfer himself, refuses to allow her to take lessons. After a near drowning in his past, he can't bear to let Lena take up the risky sport. Yet something lures Lena to the water - an ancient, powerful magic.

Cash Carter is the young, world famous lead actor of the hit television show Wiz Kids. When four fans jokingly invite him on a cross-country road trip, they are shocked that he actually takes them up on it. Chased by paparazzi and hounded by reporters, this unlikely crew takes off on a journey of a lifetime - but along the way they discover that the star they love has deep secrets he's been keeping. What they come to learn about the life of the mysterious person they thought they knew will teach them about the power of empathy and the unbreakable bond of true friendship.

Sammie McCoy is a girl with a plan: graduate at the top of her class and get out of her small town as soon as possible. Nothing will stand in her way - not even the rare genetic disorder the doctors say will slowly steal her memories and then her health. So the memory book is born: a journal written to Sammie's future self, so she can remember everything, from where she stashed her study guides to just how great it feels to have a best friend again.

Zoe, Jake, Mia, Gregor, and Whitney meet at freshman orientation. At the end of that first day, they make a promise to reunite after graduation. So much can happen in those in-between years....

Time has stopped. It's been June 23, 2020, for nearly a year as far as anyone can tell. Frantic adults demand teenagers focus on finding practical solutions to the worldwide crisis. Not everyone is on board though. Javelin-throwing prodigy Truda Becker is pretty sure her "Solution Time" class won't solve the world's problems, but she does have a few ideas what might. Truda lives in a house with a switch that no one ever touches, a switch her father protects every day by nailing it into hundreds of progressively larger boxes.

When Danny discovers a taped-up box in his father's closet filled with old letters and a file on a powerful Silicon Valley family, he realizes there's much more to his family's past than he ever imagined. Danny has been an artist for as long as he can remember, and it seems his path is set, with a scholarship to RISD and his family's blessing to pursue the career he's always dreamed of. Still, contemplating a future without his best friend, Harry Wong, by his side makes Danny feel a panic he can barely put into words.

Sixteen-year-old Sayers Wayte has everything. Popularity, good looks, perfect grades—there's nothing Sayers' family money can't buy. Until he's kidnapped by a man who tells him the privileged life he's been living is based on a lie. Trapped in a windowless room, without knowing why he's been taken or how long the man plans to keep him shut away, Sayers faces a terrifying new reality. To survive, he must forget the world he once knew, and play the part his abductor has created for him.

Hotshot pilot Vesper dreams of becoming a captain, but when she loses her spot to a wisecracking boy from the wrong side of the asteroid belt, she begins to question everything she thought she knew. Trapped on the toxic planet Deva, Cormak will take any chance he can to join the Academy—even if he has to steal someone's identity to get there. Arran was always an outcast on icy Chetire and is looking for a place to belong. He just never thought it would be in the arms of the hottest guy in the galaxy.