Growing Relationship

K. A. Nuzum - best-selling author of A Small White Scar, delivers clear, crisp prose that's reminiscent of John Steinbeck. The Leanin' Dog tells the bittersweet tale of a girl with agoraphobia, a dog with claustrophobia, and the friendship that saves them both. Dessa really needs a friend. A friend with whom she can confide and share all the joys of Christmas. But with hope almost gone, Dessa hears a scratching sound that changes her life forever.

Author of the award-winning Miss Bridie Chose a Shovel, Leslie Connor has also won great acclaim for ,i>Waiting for Normal. Addie's life has always been all or nothing. And now that Dwight and mommers are divorced, Addie's stuck in a tiny trailer on a Schenectady corner with a mom who's rarely there. Finding friendship at the gas station across the street, Addie clings to the ever-dimming possibility that one day she'll have a normal, happy home.

Continuing the story begun in Under the Blood-Red Sun, House of the Red Fish returns to Honolulu one year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Thirteen-year-old Japanese American Tomi Nakaji must struggle to support his family after the arrest of his father and grandfather.

Kathryn Erskine won the National Book Award for her mesmerizing novel Mockingbird. In The Absolute Value of Mike, a young man grows up during an unlikely adventure. Despite his best efforts, Mike has a hard time communicating with his calculus-loving father - and having a math learning disability certainly doesn’t help. But when Mike is sent to Pennsylvania to work on an engineering project, the young man learns valuable lessons from the colorful characters he meets.

Tennyson: Don’t get me started on the Bruiser. He was voted “Most Likely to Get the Death Penalty” by the entire school. He’s the kid no one knows, no one talks to, and everyone hears disturbing rumors about. So why is my sister, Brontë, dating him? One of these days she’s going to take in the wrong stray dog, and it’s not going to end well.BronteMy brother has no right to talk about Brewster that way — no right to threaten him. There’s a reason why Brewster can’t have friends — why he can’t care about too many people.

Three Mormon high school friends, perky Nikki, studious Alicia, and football player Sam, make a pact of the Pygmalion style—they decide to help the “untapped” students at their school. Their plan is to transform three classmates and take them to the prom. But the experiment doesn’t go exactly as planned. They slowly begin to realize that there is more to most people than meets the eye.

Yes, there really is a Normal, Illinois. Charles Harrisong should know; he was born there. But life is difficult for Charles because his family isn't normal. They're poor, for one thing. They stand out, which is the worst thing. After an ugly incident at school, Charles and family leave Normal and begin an adventure that takes them to a houseboat that just might be their new home. And Charles begins a personal journey within his own heart; one that will ultimately deliver him both from and to himself.

All the troubles in sixth-grader Claudia Harper’s life seem to start with her fourth-grade friend Dunford Wylie Booth V.

Could the book club break up? When Jess is offered an anonymous scholarship to a prestigious boarding school, she's not sure that leaving home - and her friends - is what she wants to do. Meanwhile Megan's grandmother comes for a long visit and turns everything in the Wong household upside down; Emma crusades against her middle school's new uniforms; and Cassidy finds out there's a big change ahead for her family.

A family history project for school is giving the Beacon Street Girls a lot to think about -- especially Avery. She's got three families: her mother and brothers at home, her father in Colorado, and the birth mother she never really knew. But family is an uncomfortable subject for Maeve. Her parents have just separated, and she doesn't want to talk about it to anyone, not even her best friends in the world, the BSG.

Kids have been picking on 14-year-old Harold ever since he can remember. They stare at him and call him "maggot" or "ghost boy" because he's an albino. Even his mother seems angry and withdrawn when he's around.One day the circus comes to town, and Harold runs away to join it. When Fossil Man and Princess Minikin accept him into their family, he feels that he has at long last come home.

Murderers, mob bosses, and convicts . . . these guys are not your average neighbors. Unless you live on Alcatraz. It's 1935 and 12-year-old Moose Flanagan and his family have just moved to the infamous island that's home to criminals like notorious escapee Roy Gardner, Machine Gun Kelly, and of course, Al Capone. Now Moose has to try to fit in at his new school, avoid getting caught up in one of the warden's daughter's countless plots, and keep an eye on his sister Natalie, who's not like other kids.

Los Angeles is all about the sweet life: hot clubs, cute guys, designer... everything. Nineteen-year-old Jane Roberts can't wait to start living it up. She may be in L.A. for an internship, but Jane plans to play as hard as she works, and has enlisted her BFF Scarlett to join in the fun. When Jane and Scarlett are approached by a producer who wants them to be on his new series, a "reality version of Sex and the City," they can hardly believe their luck. Their own show? Yes, please!

Can the Beacon Street Girls' magic act bring the house down at Abigail Adams Junior High's talent show? Maeve, Avery, Katani, Isabel, and Charlotte face their toughest challenges yet - keeping the Movie House from going out of business and helping Isabel deal with too many demands from the Queens of Mean. Plus, Maeve's relationship with Dillon is shaky, and Marty has a crush on a pink poodle owned by the fascinating Ms. Razzberry Pink. The BSG feel like they're dealing with a juggling act, not a magic act. Can they pull everything off and save the theater?

Ever since Dusty's mom died, life has been rough. Dusty's dad is remote and angry, and a car accident has permanently injured Dusty's back. No matter how much support her classmates in high school offer, nothing can bring back the happy family life she remembers.

Seventeen-year-old Caymen Meyers learned early that the rich are not to be trusted. And after years of studying them from behind the cash register of her mom's porcelain-doll shop, she has seen nothing to prove otherwise. Enter Xander Spence-he's tall, handsome, and oozing rich. Despite his charming ways and the fact that he seems to be one of the first people who actually gets her, she's smart enough to know that his interest won't last.

Reed Brennan came to superposh Easton Academy to make a brand new life for herself. At first it seemed as though her dream had come true---she was living in the ultraexclusive Billings Hall, hanging out with the all-powerful Billings Girls, and dating the very hot Thomas Pearson. But Thomas turned out to be different from what she thought...and then he turned up dead.

In the dead of night, a truck arrives in Slaughterville, a small town curiously named after its windowless slaughterhouse. Seven mysterious kids with suitcases step out of the vehicle and into an abandoned home on a dead-end street, looking over their shoulders to make sure they aren't noticed. But Ravani Foster covertly witnesses their arrival from his bedroom window. Timid and lonely, Ravani is eager to learn everything he can about his new neighbors: What secrets are they hiding? And most mysterious of all...where are the adults?

Since emigrating from Bangladesh, 14-year-old Nadira and her family have been living in New York City on expired visas, hoping to realize their dream of becoming legal U.S. citizens. But after 9/11, everything changes. Suddenly being Muslim means you are dangerous - a suspected terrorist. When Nadira's father is arrested and detained at the U.S.-Canadian border, Nadira and her older sister, Aisha, are told to carry on as if everything is the same. The teachers at Flushing High don't ask any questions, but Aisha falls apart....

For years, 16-year-old Hattie's been shuttled between relatives. Tired of being Hattie Here-and-There, she courageously leaves Iowa to prove up on her late uncle's homestead claim near Vida, Montana. With a stubborn stick-to-itiveness, Hattie faces frost, drought, and blizzards. Despite many hardships, Hattie forges ahead, sharing her adventures with her friends, especially Charlie, fighting in France, through letters and articles for her hometown paper.