Growing Relationship

Judd Travers is physically on the mend from the truck accident that nearly took his life in Shiloh Season. But is he healing inside too? Can Marty Preston, his family, and the community trust that Judd will not return to his evil ways? Marty's parents tell him that every person deserves a second chance. Most people in the surrounding community, however, are quick to assume the opposite and find ways to place Judd at the center of any trouble - even murder.

Harrison Scott Key was born in Memphis, but he grew up in Mississippi, among pious, Bible-reading women and men who either shot things or got women pregnant. At the center of his world was his larger-than-life father - a hunter, a fighter, and a football coach. Harrison, with his love of books and excessive interest in hugging, couldn't have been less like Pop, and when it became clear that he was not able to kill anything very well or otherwise make his father happy, he resolved to become everything his father was not.

Who are the children of foster care? What, as a country, do we owe them? Cris Beam, a foster mother herself, spent five years immersed in the world of foster care looking into these questions and tracing firsthand stories. The result is To the End of June, an unforgettable portrait that takes us deep inside the lives of foster children in their search for a stable, loving family. Beam shows us the intricacies of growing up in the system - the back-and-forth with agencies, the rootless shuffling between homes, the emotionally charged tug between foster and birth parents.

Run run run. That's what twelve-year-old Annie loves to do. When she's barefoot and running, she can hear her heart beating...Thump-THUMP, thump-THUMP. It's a rhythm that makes sense in a year when everything's shifting: Her mother is pregnant, her grandfather is forgetful, and her best friend, Max, is always moody. Everything is changing, just like the apple Annie's been assigned to draw a hundred times.

Swordsman, soldier, poet...and possessor of the biggest nose in all of France! Cyrano de Bergerac was all this and more, for behind his grotesque face beat the heart of a lover. And, being Cyrano, who could he fall in love with but the most beautiful woman in Paris?From this conflict of nose versus heart springs one of the most uproarious, tender, funny, painful, and action-packed stories of all time - a tale that has its roots in truth, for Cyrano de Bergerac really existed.

Something very strange starts happening in Nightshade the summer that the eldest Giordano sister, Rose, gets a job working at Dr. Franken's research laboratory. People are starting to see double. Doppelgngers of Nightshade residents are popping up all over town. Daisy, Rose, and Poppy think it's a coincidence, until the rumors start that their father, who disappeared several years ago, has been spotted in town.

In a world where love is often seen as a magical, predestined event or a grand gesture, many find themselves facing unrealistic expectations and shallow connections. Hess challenges these notions by introducing the concept of “quiet love”—a simple, observant, and action-based approach to nurturing relationships. Hess explains how love is not just a feeling or attraction but a series of selfless actions that improve the life of someone you care about.

After leaking a story about the family business, impetuous high school freshman Carina Jurgensen is cut off by her billionaire father. Always resourceful, she fibs her way into a job as a party planner for New York's annual Silver Snowflake Ball. But when Carina finds out that the party committee expects favors and freebies from her dad's A-list connections, a choice must be made: Does she get real about her downgraded status, or pretend she's still the ultimate heiress?

Abbey Curran was born with cerebral palsy, but early on she resolved never to let it limit her. Abbey made history when she became the first contestant with a disability to win a major beauty pageant. After earning the title of Miss Iowa, she went on to compete in Miss USA.

Not only is Turner Buckminster the son of the new minister in a small Maine town, he is shunned for playing baseball differently than the local boys. Then he befriends smart and lively Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from Malaga Island, a poor community founded by former slaves. Lizzie shows Turner a new world along the Maine coast from digging clams to rowing a boat next to a whale. When the powerful town elders, including Turner’s father, decide to drive the people off the island to set up a tourist business, Turner stands alone against them.

She's looking good, but Allison Avery can't believe it. Growing up with beautiful, blond sisters, Allison has always been the dark-haired, "interesting-looking" Avery. So when the devil shows up and offers to make her gorgeous, Allison jumps at the chance to finally get noticed. But there's one tiny catch, and it's not her soul: The devil wants her cell phone.

Enough is the recollections of a man struggling to understand his Love/Hate/Oye Vey relationship with his addict mother, and why he can't seem to remember where she's buried. After a lifetime of abuse and neglect, a man chooses to spend the last two weeks of his mother's life in a hospital with her—mostly to comfort her fears and to make sure she is never coming back.

A story-driven, integrative, and practical book to help families heal from the effects of a loved one’s addiction and move forward into a healthy future.

Having a pet dragon is very fun! He can sit, roll over, and play.... He can candle a birthday cake, lit a campfire, or do so many other cool things.... Having a pet dragon is the greatest thing you can ever dream of.... Until he has a little sister...that’s when things will turn upside down! One dragon living in your house is tough, but now there are two! Your dragon doesn’t like his little sister. Not even one tiny bit.... He doesn’t want to share his toys. He’d taunt and tease his little sister. He’d be jealous and afraid that you love the little sister more.

This powerful and haunting memoir details the years Paula McLain and her two sisters spent as foster children after being abandoned by both parents in California in the early 1970s. As wards of the State, the sisters spent the next 14 years moving from foster home to foster home. The dislocations, confusions, and odd pleasures of an unrooted life form the basis of one of the most compelling memoirs in recent years - a book in the tradition of Jo Ann Beard's The Boys of My Youth and Mary Karr's The Liars' Club.

Lucky, age 10, can't wait another day. The meanness gland in her heart and the crevices full of questions in her brain make running away from Hard Pan, California (population 43), the rock-bottom only choice she has.

Two very different cultures collide in this hilarious audiobook about a young sports fanatic named Benny who is forced to leave his home in Ireland and move with his family to Tunisia. He wonders how he will survive in such an unfamiliar place. Then he teams up with wild and resourceful Omar, and a madcap friendship between the two boys leads to trouble, escapades, a unique way of communication, and, ultimately, a heartbreaking challenge.

Boston, 1891. Sophia Tims comes from a family of explorers and cartologers who, for generations, have been traveling and mapping the New World - a world changed by the Great Disruption of 1799, when all the continents were flung into different time periods. Eight years ago, her parents left her with her uncle Shadrack, the foremost cartologer in Boston, and went on an urgent mission. They never returned. Life with her brilliant, absent-minded, adored uncle has taught Sophia to take care of herself.

Jeremy Fink has big plans for this summer with his best friend Lizzy, a notorious troublemaker (and no, he does not have a secret crush on her). He has everything he needs within a few blocks of his home, so he never has to leave his little neighborhood. And this summer, he officially becomes a teenager.

A peaceful summer night is shattered by gunfire as an unseen assailant tries to murder police officer John Busby. Though horribly wounded, Busby survives. But the perpetrator remains at large, meaning neither Busby, nor his wife, nor their three children are safe. In separate chapters John and his daughter, Cylin, who was nine at the time, recount the story of that year. John writes graphically, and movingly, of his wounds, his pain, his multiple surgeries, and his rage.