Image Self Esteem

The world's teenagers have never been so challenged as they are today. The constant demands of parents, school, work, peers, social media, athletics, music, etc., has created a generation who, while tremendously capable, are also tremendously stressed. Today's teens are expected to not only do it all but to do it now.

Seventeen-year-old River doesn't know what to do with himself when Penny, the girl he adores, breaks up with him. He lives in LA, where nobody walks anywhere, and Penny was his ride; he never bothered getting a license. He's stuck. He's desperate. Okay...he's got to learn to drive. But first he does the unthinkable - he starts walking.

In order to save her family's farm, Roshen, 16, must leave her rural home to work in a factory in the south of China. There she finds arduous and degrading conditions and contempt for her minority (Uyghur) background. Sustained by her bond with other Uyghur girls, Roshen is resolved to endure all to help her family and ultimately her people. A workplace survival story, this gritty, poignant account focuses on a courageous teen and illuminates the value - and cost - of freedom.

Paul DuPree is working at a soup kitchen in Harlem the summer his father dies, just trying to get by. But Elijah, the soup man, won't stop talking about the social contract and asking Paul questions about heavy-duty things. Paul has never thought about this stuff. He'd rather hang out with Keisha, an unwed teen mom whose basketball skills rival his own. Then Sly, a notorious Harlem big shot, shows up. Paul is both intrigued and intimidated by Sly and his conspiracy theories, and for once he starts contemplating how you really get ahead in life.

Award-winning author and former schoolteacher Jonathan Friesen has a knack for crafting exciting stories teenagers want to read. Rush features 18-year-old Jake King, an adrenaline junkie who jumps at the chance to join an elite group of firefighters who rappel into wildfires. Known as the Immortals, these heroes have a habit of dying young. But Jake’s sort-of girlfriend thinks there’s more to the Immortals’ high death rate than bad luck.

Welcome to the world of the fabulously wealthy in London, 1909, where dresses and houses are overwhelmingly opulent, social class means everything, and women are taught to be nothing more than wives and mothers. Into this world comes 17-year-old Victoria Darling, who wants only to be an artist - a nearly impossible dream for a girl. After Vicky poses nude for her illicit art class, she is expelled from her French finishing school. Shamed and scandalized, her parents try to marry her off to the wealthy Edmund Carrick-Humphrey. But Vicky has other things on her mind....

Thirteen-year-old Olivia Hughes has always considered herself a lucky girl. She knows what she wants to do with her life - be an actress. And she’s already on her way. She just landed a national ad campaign that should get her noticed. But then her luck runs out. A little pimple turns into a full-blown case of acne, with serious side effects for her career, her relationships, and her self-esteem. Now all she wants to do is hide, but she can’t. She goes from being the girl at school who everyone wants to be...to Zitface, a girl who is teased, dumped, and even fired.

Carley would rather have been anywhere but here: a town deep in Minnesota’s farm country, with nothing plentiful except poverty. Still, staying with his Uncle David and his family was better than reform school - which was where Carley was heading. Something was eating away at him, making him do crazy things. No one could understand why - least of all Carley himself. But then David took Carley to his blacksmith forge. And under the grim nights and days of the Minnesota fall, under the glow of hot steel, and the most exhausting work he had ever known, Carley began to see a way to shape his life.

Mo hates her new school and her new town. She has no friends and home life is awful. So when a nice-looking guy friends her on Facebook, she’s happy to accept. Darko’s messages keep her going while life just gets worse. Then he invites her to meet him. And Mo decides to take a risk....

Margaret "Cuckoo" Clarke recently had a brief stay in a mental institution following an emotional breakdown, but she's turning over a new leaf with her "Operation Happiness". She's determined to beat down the bad vibes of the Haters, the Terror Teachers, and all of the trials and tribulations of high school by writing and drawing in her diary. And when life gets really tough, she works through her own moments of uncertainty through imaginary conversations with her favorite literary characters.

Dancing with the Paris Opera ballet is 14-year-old Marie van Goethem's greatest joy. And yet she must honor her father's dying request to keep their poverty-stricken family together. She certainly can't count on the help of her drunken mother or selfish older sister. When famous artist Edgar Degas asks Marie to model for a sculpture, she welcomes the income - although she's hesitant to pose nude.

Piper Perish inhales air and exhales art. The sooner she and her best friends can get out of Houston and get to New York City, the better. Art school has been Piper's dream her whole life, and now that senior year is halfway over, she's never felt more ready. But in the final months before graduation, things are weird with her friends and stressful with three different guys, and Piper's sister's tyrannical mental state seems to thwart every attempt at happiness for the close-knit Perish family.

Third Sister in the Tao family, Ailin has watched her two older sisters go through the painful process of having their feet bound. In China in 1911, all the women of good families follow this ancient tradition. Ailin rebels and refuses to follow this torturous tradition. But as she enters adolescence, Ailin finds that her family is no longer willing to support her. With a bold conviction and an indomitable spirit, Ailin is determined to forge her own destiny. Her story is a tribute to all those women whose courage created new options for the generations who came after them.

Teenager Moss Trawnleyis in desperate need of work, and so he decides to headout west as a member of Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps to help protect Montana's wildlife from devastating erosion and wildfires. Despite the grueling work, Moss has time to play baseball, make lifelong friends, and rediscover what he almost lost in the Great Depression: himself. Bringing an important era of U.S. history to life, this rivetingcoming-of-age story will appeal to any teen who has dreamed of adventure and survival in the great outdoors.

Insatiable is an astonishingly moving story of four teenage girls whose shame, fear and confusion compel them to binge, purge and refuse to eat in misguided attempts to feel safe and in control of their lives.

It's time to put your past in its place. The past is part of your story. Whether it’s good or bad, the past shapes you into who you are. But it’s easy to get hung up on things that happened yesterday, or last week, or last year. And when you can’t get over the past, you can’t move on to the future. Over It shows you how to pick yourself up, move on, and let God deal with it. With a potent combination of empathy, honesty, Scripture, and wit, Over It will lead you through true recovery. If you’ve ever been the butt of a joke, well, get over it!

At the age of 15, a girl who has spent most of her life moving around the country with her father and brother remembers her real name, Sherica, and is moved to search the Internet to learn the truth about her mother and her own past.

Nothing is beyond Kristi Carmichael's disdain - her hippie high school, her friend Jacob, her workaholic mom. Yet Kristi has a vulnerable side. She can hear the thoughts of her fellow students calling her fat and gross. She's hot for Gusty Peterson, one of the most popular guys in school, but of course, she's sure he thinks she is disgusting. And she's still mad at her father, who walked out on them two years ago. Soon, a school project brings her together with Gusty, her father comes home and drops a bombshell, and a friend comes out of the closet.

In this high-altitude adventure tale, a fictional student is moved to Sin City, Las Vegas. Forty minutes away from her new hometown is rock climbing mecca, Red Rock Canyon. There, a mix of eccentric characters meets every weekend to do battle with the vertical sandstone cliffs. Thrown into their mix, our student begins applying the brilliantly simple lessons she learns from her mentors and uncovers a way to get what she wants out of life...and love what she gets.

Pinned follows Ivan Korske and Bobby Zane, two high school seniors, as they embark on the most important winter of their lives in a quest for the New Jersey state high school wrestling championship.