Family Survival Fiction

Four months ago, Sara Zapata's best friend disappeared, kidnapped by the web of criminals who terrorize Juarez. Four hours ago, Sara received a death threat - and, with it, a clue to the place where her friend is locked away. Four weeks ago, Emiliano Zapata fell in love with Perla Rubi, who will never be his so long as he's poor. Four minutes ago, Emiliano got the chance to make more money than he ever dreamed - just by joining the web.

When soldiers arrive at his hometown in Cambodia, Arn is just a kid, dancing to rock 'n' roll, hustling for spare change, and selling ice cream with his brother. But after the soldiers march the entire population into the countryside, his life is changed forever. Arn is separated from his family and assigned to a labor camp. Working in the rice paddies under a blazing sun, he sees the other children, weak from hunger, malaria, or sheer exhaustion, dying before his eyes.

Knox was born into one of the City's wealthiest families. A Patron, he has everything a boy could possibly want - the latest tech, the coolest clothes, and a Proxy to take all his punishments. When Knox breaks a vase, Syd is beaten. When Knox plays a practical joke, Syd is forced to haul rocks. And when Knox crashes a car, killing one of his friends, Syd is branded and sentenced to death. Syd is a Proxy. His life is not his own. Then again, neither is Knox's. Knox and Syd have more in common than either would guess.

Kirk and his Granddad are out hiking in the mountains when Granddad injures his ankle. Since he can’t hike anymore, it’s up to Kirk to face the mountain and its unpredictable weather by himself to get back to the smokechasers’ tower and call for help.

School Library Journal calls this moving tale by Myron Uhlberg a "remarkable homage to New Orleans". A Storm Called Katrina follows Louis Daniel, a 10-year-old boy from New Orleans’ Ninth Ward who loves to play the horn just like his idol, Louis Armstrong. The morning after the devastating hurricane rips through his neighborhood, Louis - with his beloved cornet in tow - must brave the rising flood waters and seek shelter with his family at the Superdome.

X-Men meets Heroes when New York Times best-selling author Scott Westerfeld teams up with award-winning authors Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti in the final book of an explosive trilogy about a group of teens with amazing abilities. After the shocking conclusion to Swarm, the zeroes are scattered, on the run, and desperate. They're up against challenges from within and from the world around them, and one thing is certain - an epic showdown is guaranteed.

North Korea is known as the most repressive country on Earth, with a dictatorial leader, a starving population, and harsh punishment for rebellion. Perfect place for a family vacation, right? Yet that's exactly where Mia Andrews finds herself, on a tour with her aid-worker father and fractious older brother, Simon. Mia was adopted from South Korea as a baby, and the trip raises tough questions about who she really is. Then her dad is arrested for spying, just as forbidden photographs of North Korean slave-labor camps fall into Mia's hands.

What would you do if every spark of electricity suddenly vanished, as if somebody had flipped a switch on the entire planet? Cars won't start, the heat shuts off, there's no water in your faucet, and your radio, TV, and flashlight go dark. Everyone in Charlie's small town is baffled. But as time passes, lawlessness erupts and takes an ugly turn. When the market and pharmacy are torched by an anti-Semitic arsonist, Charlie realizes his mother will die without her medicine.

My story starts the day that my parents told me we must leave our adopted home forever. Because of the soldiers and the drought we barely had enough to eat and we could no longer stay to help the people in our village.

The hunter becomes the hunted...West Grayer is done killing. She defeated her Alternate, a twin raised by another family, and proved she’s worthy of a future. She’s ready to move on with her life. The Board has other plans. They want her to kill one last time, and offer her a deal worth killing for. But when West recognizes her target as a ghost from her past, she realizes she’s in over her head. The Board is lying, and West will have to uncover the truth of the past to secure her future.

Adam says he can’t remember where he was for the two months he went missing in a Florida swamp. That’s not true. He does remember. The truth: He was driving with his parents, and the car crashed when his father swerved to avoid colliding with a giant Sasquatch-like creature standing in the highway. Haunted by his parents’ disappearance and hounded for claiming to have seen Bigfoot, Adam sets off into the deadly wilderness on a hunt for answers as to what really happened that night.

When 16-year-old Amy returns home, she can't tell her family what's happened to her. She can't tell them where she's been since she and her best friend, her cousin Dee, were kidnapped six years ago - who stole them from their families or what's become of Dee. She has to stay silent because she's afraid of what might happen next, and she's desperate to protect her secrets at any cost. Amy tries to readjust to life at "home," but nothing she does feels right. She's a stranger in her own family, and the guilt that she's the one who returned is insurmountable.

Aran has never truly fit in with his selkie clan. He was born in his human form, without a pelt to transform him into a sleek, strong seal. Each day he waits, left behind while his selkie family explores the deep ocean. What if his pelt never comes? Does the Moon even see him? Is he putting his clan at risk? When his mother undertakes a journey to the far north to seek help, Aran is left in the care of a reclusive human woman on remote Spindle Island. Life on land is full of more wonders - and more dangers - than Aran could have ever imagined.

Weeks after arriving in Colorado to start a new farm, the Hollowell family is looking at disaster when 15-year-old Owen witnesses the theft of their mules. Learning that Hercules and Peaches will likely be sold to the mines, Owen sets out to track the rustler over the mountains. It’s all Ma can do to hold back little brother Till, who’s more than a handful. The outlaw’s trail leads to Telluride, the turbulent “City of Gold.” Owen gets help from a resourceful girl named Molly and dubious assistance from Till, who shows up on the train from Durango.

Millie (Meike) Mosbach and her brother, David, manage to escape to the States just before Kristallnacht, leaving their parents and little sister in Berlin. Millie attends Bryn Mawr on a special scholarship for non-Aryan German girls and graduates to a magazine job in Philadelphia. David enlists in the army and is eventually posted to the top-secret Camp Ritchie in Maryland, which trains German-speaking men for intelligence work. Now they are both back in their former hometown, haunted by ghosts and hoping against hope to find their family.

Shy takes the summer job to make some money. A few months on a luxury cruise liner - how bad can it be? Bikinis, free food, maybe even a girl or two...there’s always going to be a fresh crop of passengers, after all. He’ll rake in the tips and be able to help his mom with the bills. But then an earthquake more massive than any ever recorded hits California, and Shy’s life is changed forever. The earthquake is only the beginning. Twenty-four hours and a catastrophic chain of events later, Shy is lost at sea, fighting to survive - and stuck with her....

A congressman's daughter who has to be perfect. A star quarterback with a secret. A guy who's tired of being ignored. A clarinet player who's done trying to fit in. An orphaned rebel who wants to teach someone a lesson. A guy who wants people to see him, not his religion. They couldn't be more different, but before the morning's over, they'll all be trapped in a school that's been rocked by a bombing. When they hear that someone inside is the bomber, they'll also be looking to one another for answers.

Living through World War II working in a Paris bookstore with her young daughter, Vivi, and fighting for her life, Charlotte is no victim, she is a survivor. But can she survive the next chapter of her life? Alternating between wartime Paris and 1950s New York publishing, Ellen Feldman's Paris Never Leaves You is an extraordinary story of resilience, love, and impossible choices, exploring how survival never comes without a cost.

Cort's father is a local expert on hunting and swamp lore in lower Alabama who has been teaching his son everything he knows. But when a deadly Category 3 storm makes landfall, Cort must unexpectedly put all his skills - and bravery - to the test. One catastrophe seems to lead to another, leaving Cort and two neighbor girls to face the storm as best they can. Amid miles of storm-thrashed wetlands filled with dangerous, desperate wild animals, it's up to Cort to win - or lose - the fight for their lives.

Best friends Ray and Jose are not your typical teenagers. They've escaped foster care and juvenile detention centers to live on their own together in an abandoned stationhouse in New York City's Ten Mile River Park. Ray and Jose are as close as brothers. But then they meet Trini, the smart, beautiful, and confident girl from their local barber shop, and they both fall for her immediately. As tension creeps into their relationship, Ray must struggle to find an identity separate from Jose and try to envision a future for himself beyond Jose and Ten Mile River.