Foster Teens

This spellbinding and grand adventure tale is populated by a cast of eccentric characters who spring to vibrant life with Kerin McCue's dazzling narration.

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.

Acclaimed author Cynthia Lord received the Newbery Honor for her debut novel Rules, which School Library Journal. called “a lovely, warm read.” In Touch Blue, Lord pens a moving tale about the meaning of home. Tess is heartbroken when she learns the state of Maine is about to shut down her small island’s schoolhouse, forcing her family to move to the mainland.

Kek comes from Africa. In America, he sees snow for the first time, and feels its sting. He’s never walked on ice, and he falls. He wonders if the people in this new place will be like the winter - cold and unkind. In Africa, Kek lived with his mother, father, and brother. But only he and his mother have survived, and now she’s missing. Kek is on his own. Slowly, he makes friends: A girl who is in foster care, an old woman who owns a rundown farm, and a cow whose name means “family” in his native language.

Laura Amy Schlitz delivers this Horn Book Fanfare and Laura Amy Schlitz delivers this Horn Book Fanfare and Cybils Award-winning best-seller that whisks 11-year-old Maud Flynn from a cold New England orphanage and into the stately mansion of three wealthy spinsters. After the Hawthorne sisters adopt her in 1909, they tell her she's their secret child. She must remain indoors at all times and must never stand in front of windows. Maud doesn't mind their restrictions. But she does wonder what could possibly require such secrecy.

Growing up in foster care, Muir has lived in many houses. And if she's learned one thing, it is to Pack. Light. Carry only what fits in a suitcase. Toothbrush? Yes. Socks? Yes. Emotional attachment to friends? Foster families? A boyfriend? Nope! There's no room for any additional baggage. Muir has just one year left before she ages out of the system. One year before she's free. One year to avoid anything - or anyone - that could get in her way. Then she meets Francine. And Kira. And Sean. And everything changes.

The year is 1926. Dave's beloved father is dead and his stepmother doesn't want him. Only the HHB will take him in. "Hebrew Home for Boys" better known as the "Hell Hold for Brats". But Dave is tough and a troublemaker. He can take care of himself. If he doesn't like the Home, he'll run away and find a better place. Only it's not that simple.

In Victorian England, orphan Mary Quinn lives on the edge. Sentenced as a thief at the age of 12, she’s rescued from the gallows by a woman posing as a prison warden. In her new home, Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls, Mary acquires a singular education, fine manners, and a surprising opportunity. The school is a cover for the Agency — an elite, top secret corps of female investigators with a reputation for results — and at 17, Mary’s about to join their ranks.

The marshals are looking for the perfect girl to join a mother, father, and son on the run from the nation's most notorious criminals. After all, the bad guys are searching for a family with one kid, not two, and adding a streetwise girl who knows a little something about hiding things may be just what the marshals need. Nicki swears she can keep the Trevor family safe, but to do so she'll have to dodge hit men, cyberbullies, and the specter of standardized testing, all while maintaining her marshal-mandated B-minus average.

Tom Lee’s life changes forever the day he meets a talking tiger named Mr. Hu and discovers that he has magical powers and great responsibilities that he never imagined. Tom joins Mr. Hu’s ragtag band of creatures in their fight to keep an ancient talisman out of the hands of the worst possible enemy. This action-packed fantasy reveals a hidden world within our own where animals take human form, where friendship is the final weapon in the battle between good and evil, and where a young boy is responsible for saving the world he knows—and the one he is just discovering.

A dangerous secret. A deadly skill. Nya is an orphan struggling for survival in a city crippled by war. She is also a Taker - with her touch, she can heal injuries, pulling pain from another person into her own body. But unlike her sister, Tali, and the other Takers who become Healers, Nya's skill is flawed: she can't push that pain into pynvium, the enchanted metal used to store it. All she can do is shift it into another person, a dangerous skill that she must keep hidden. If discovered, she could be used as a human weapon.

Anne is growing up and leaving the Island to spend four years of her life at Redmond College. She meets a wonderful new friend in Philippa Gordon, offspring to an old and exclusive "bluenose" family. Phil's family ties, combined with her beauty and charm, open the gates of all the social cliques and clubs at Redmond. And where Phil went, Anne went. Thus, Anne found her social pathway at Redmond made very easy while other freshettes were doomed to remain on the fringe of things.

Sixteen when a baby is brought to her to raise, Sybel has grown up on Eld Mountain. Her only playmates are the creatures of a fantastic menagerie called there by wizardry. Sybel has cared nothing for humans, until the baby awakens emotions previously unknown to her. And when Coren--the man who brought this child--returns, Sybel's world is again turned upside down.

Sixteen years ago the Kingdom of Winter was conquered and its citizens enslaved, leaving them without magic or a monarch. Now the Winterians' only hope for freedom is the eight survivors who managed to escape, and who have been waiting for the opportunity to steal back Winter's magic and rebuild the kingdom ever since. Orphaned as an infant during Winter's defeat, Meira has lived her whole life as a refugee, raised by the Winterians' general, Sir.

Elise and Franklin have always been best friends. Elise has always lived in the big house with her loving Uncle and Aunt, because Elise's parents died when she was too young to remember them. There's always been a barn behind the house with eight locked doors on the second floor. When Elise and Franklin start middle school, things feel all wrong. Bullying. Not fitting in. Franklin suddenly seems babyish. Then, soon after her 12th birthday, Elise receives a mysterious key left for her by her father. A key that unlocks one of the eight doors upstairs in the bar...

In this colonial adventure tale, set on the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border in 1768, Everett Shinn is enlisted in a search for two runaway indentured servants. Eager for adventure and to become a hero by capturing the runaways himself, 12-year-old Peter York, Shinn’s adopted son, volunteers to join the search. Peter assumes that the runaways are swarthy ruffians. When he discovers, however, that they are mistreated children seeking freedom in Pennsylvania, Peter’s purpose turns from capturing them to helping them escape. Will Shinn, a devout Quaker of few words, foil Peter’s plans, or will the young man receive help from an unexpected source?

Abandoned but not helpless, Destiny is a fighter. With her oversized hoodie and unwashed body, Destiny puts up walls to keep people out. Her teacher becomes alarmed when she discovers Destiny begging for food at a restaurant. Social Services steps in and takes Destiny to live with grandparents she didn’t know she had. But Destiny discovers that blood isn’t always thicker than water. Destiny moves to a caring foster home where she begins to feel accepted. Her world is ripped apart again when she is suddenly removed from the home and people who love her.

Michaela DePrince was known as girl no. 27 at the orphanage where she was abandoned at a young age and tormented as a "devil child" for a skin condition that makes her skin appear spotted. But it was at the orphanage that Michaela would find a picture of a beautiful ballerina en pointe that would help change the course of her life. At the age of four, Michaela was adopted by an American family who encouraged her love of dancing and enrolled her in classes.

Primrose Squarp simply knows her parents did not perish at sea during a terrible storm, despite what the other residents of Coal Harbour believe. For all practical purposes, Primrose is an orphan, and there's no great clamoring of prospective adopters. After realizing the impracticality of continuing to pay Miss Perfidy (a mothball-scented elderly lady) an hourly wage to baby-sit her, the town council places her with Uncle Jack.

The entire world has changed, and Noah has changed with it. A year after the Shift, the plans he'd laid, caches he'd hidden, and infrastructure he'd put in place have saved millions, but the world's death toll has still been astronomical. Now he continues his struggle to protect the people he cares about and to atone for his past weakness. Journeying with his elite group, the Merriweathers, Noah has been patrolling the Eastern United States.