Friendship First

It’s been a year since eighteen-year-old River Lang’s best friend died in a car accident. And every day since, he’s had to pass by the depressing billboard that appeared as a result: a texting and driving PSA that reduces Dylan to a cautionary tale and River to the best friend of the dead kid at school. Dylan was so much more than a statistic, though, and River hates that everyone in town seems to have forgotten. When he’s caught improving (a.k.a. vandalizing) Dylan’s billboard, River is blackmailed into joining the Affinity Trials.

It’s not like she’s the only woman to ever have a baby. At 35. On her own. But Anne Lamott makes it all fresh in her now-classic account of how she and her son and numerous friends and neighbors and some strangers survived and thrived in that all-important first year. From finding out her baby is a boy (and getting used to the idea) to finding out her best friend and greatest supporter, Pam, will die of cancer (and not getting used to that idea), with a generous amount of wit and faith (but little piousness), Lamott narrates the great and small events making up a woman’s life.

Kaylee and Jenna have always been in the same class - until this year. Without Jenna by her side, Kaylee has a bad case of the first day blues. Will anything, or anyone, cheer her up?

It’s gloriously sunny in Cornwall as the school year starts at the little boarding school by the sea. Maggie, the newest teacher at Downey House, is determined to make her mark. She’s delighted by her new teaching job, but will it come at the expense of her relationship with her safe, dependable boyfriend Stan? Simone is excited and nervous: she’s won a scholarship to the prestigious boarding school and wants to make her parents proud. Forced to share a room with the glossy, posh girls of Downey House, she needs to find a friend, fast.

Gavin hates riding the bus. Max, the bus bully, is always picking on him. But when Max is gone for a few days, Gavin starts to worry. Does Gavin actually miss the bus bully?

Fiona's new school doesn't have an ice hockey team, just field hockey! She decides to try out for field hockey anyway, but the sports have different rules. Will Fiona be able to stay on the team if she doesn't learn the rules?

Welcome to Butterbean’s Café! In Nickelodeon’s new animated series, Butterbean and the rest of her fairy friends run a bakery, make delicious treats, and have magical adventures.

One conversation can change everything. Meg has her entire life set up perfectly: She and her best friend, Emily, plan to head to Cornell together in the fall, and she works at a voter registration call center in her Philadelphia suburb. But everything changes when one of those calls connects her to a stranger from small-town Ohio.

London, 1916. England is at war. Desperate to help in whatever way they can, Ivy and Louisa enlist as gardeners at Kew, the Royal Botanic Gardens, taking on the jobs of the men who have gone to fight. Under their care, the gardens begin to flourish and become a safe haven for those seeking solace - but not everyone wants women working at Kew. The pair begin to face challenges on the home front. When a tragedy overseas affects the people closest to them, can the women of Kew pull together to support themselves and their country through the darkest of times?

When artistic and sensitive Santi arrives at his new high school, everyone in the wildly talented marching band welcomes him with open arms. Everyone except for the prickly, proud musical prodigy Suwa, who doesn’t think Santi has what it takes to be in the band. But Santi and Suwa share painful pasts, and when they open up to each other, a tentative friendship begins. And soon, that friendship turns into something more.

Childhood friends Eve and Andrew are destined to be together—everyone says so, especially their friends and classmates who are all suddenly crush-obsessed. So when Eve and Andrew’s first eighth grade school dance rolls around and Eve, feeling the pressure, awkwardly asks Andrew to go with her, everyone assumes they are Officially Dating and Practically in Love. Overwhelmed, Eve and Andrew just…go with it. And it’s weird. Neither of them wants this dating thing to mess up their friendship, and they don’t really see each other that way.

After a difficult five years, at age forty-three, Nina Morgan Clarke’s time has finally arrived. With an ex-husband relocated across the country, her father bouncing back after the loss of his beloved wife, and her daughter, Xandra, thriving at boarding school, Nina is stepping into her dream job as a trifecta: a first-generation, Black female head of the storied Royal-Hawkins School. To mark the moment, Nina and her best friend, Marisol, take a long-overdue girls’ trip to celebrate the second half of Nina’s life—which is shaping up to be the best part of her life.

When Sam comes home one day to find two mystery pugs left on her porch, she's sure it's destiny. She's always wanted a dog of her own, even though her parents say that their catering business keeps the family too busy for a pet - let alone two! But Sam has to take in the sweet, abandoned pups...at least until their real owners turn up. Only she's not quite prepared for how hard it is to wrangle two frisky dogs, especially when she sneaks them into the parties her parents cater.

Jessica Darling is devastated when her best friend moves away from Pineville, New Jersey. With Hope gone, Jessica has no one she can really talk to. She doesn’t relate to the boy-and-shopping-obsessed girls at school, or her dad’s obsession with track meets, and her mom is too busy planning big sister Bethany’s lavish wedding. Jessica is lost more than ever, and her nonexistent love life is only making things worse.

Tomi was born in Hawaii. His grandfather and parents were born in Japan and came to America to escape poverty. World War II seems far away from Tomi and his friends, who are too busy playing ball on their eighth-grade team, the Rats. But then Pearl Harbor is attacked by the Japanese, and the United States declares war on Japan. Japanese men are rounded up, and Tomi’s father and grandfather are arrested. It’s a terrifying time to be Japanese in America. But one thing doesn’t change: the loyalty of Tomi’s buddies, the Rats.

When Andrew's lunch goes missing, he is left sad and hungry. With the help of his friend Dylan, the search for the lost lunch begins!

Life finally seems to be going right for Jessica Darling. She escaped the New Jersey suburbs and attends Columbia University in New York City. She’s more into her boyfriend, Marcus Flutie, than ever - even if he’s at a college across the country in California. And she’s making new friends who can’t quite compete with her beloved bestie, Hope, but at least come close. If Jessica thought high school was hard, college brings a whole new set of challenges.

Writing a Thanksgiving play for the third-grade class she coaches, Claudia is disappointed when some parents object to her less-than-traditional themes, and she must choose between letting the other kids down or fighting censorship.

Small changes for big results in your social life, presence, and relationships. Learn how to be captivating, memorable, and magnetic. Likability is one of the most important traits you’ll ever learn. It’s more important than your intelligence, looks, status, wealth, prestige, or education. Likability is the true currency of life. Do you seem to fade from people’s memory as soon as the conversation ends? Banish those feelings of rejection and dejection.

Welcome to Malory Towers, where there's more to life than lessons! In book 1 of Enid Blyton's best-loved boarding school series, Darrell Rivers is thrilled to start her first term at boarding school. She soon makes friends - and mischief! Another new girl, Gwendoline, is beginning to get on everyone's nerves. Will Darrell be able to keep her fiery temper under control?