Relationships Friendships

For the past four years, Rick Walker has been shuffled between foster care and group homes. At 14, he’s a kid nobody wants or cares about. Now he’s headed for Blue Canyon Detention Center. For Rick, life is a maze full of dead ends. But when he is threatened at Blue Canyon and runs away, Rick finds himself in a real maze - the enormous rocky expanse of Canyonlands National Park in Utah. There, Rick meets a biologist who has devoted his life to reintroducing the condor to its natural habitat. As Rick joins him to protect the giant birds, the teenager will begin to see choices instead of dead ends.

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.

Rachel feels like she doesn't fit in - until she finds heavy metal and meets Fern, a kindred spirit. The two form their own band, but the metal scene turns out to be no different from the misogynist world they want to change. Violent encounters escalate, and the friends decide there's only one way forward....

It's May 1944, and Josiah Wedgewood and Marcus Perry - two young men of different races and backgrounds - are headed to Normandy's front lines. There they'll share the joys of friendship, the terrible truths of war, and what it's like to fear that each day will be their last.

Irene has always dreamed of owning a beauty salon in sunny Los Angeles where she will re-create the hairstyles of great women of literature. But she’s just been fired from her own mother’s salon for shampooing techniques that left patrons in tears. Now, forced to babysit while everyone else spends a glamorous summer at the beach, Irene wonders when real life will begin. Then she meets beautiful lifeguard Starla - and one of Starla’s admirers starts noticing Irene.

A tennis champion, straight-A student, and editor of the school paper, Cyrie Bergerac has learned to live with her (ahem) peculiar proboscis. And she's got an armory of witty retorts for every schnozz joke that comes her way. But despite her talents and charm, Cyrie is convinced that no guy - hot or otherwise - would deem her crushworthy.

Being a mom is hard, but it doesn't have to be lonely. Are you trying to do this mothering thing alone? So focused on the kids that you're hungry for friendships of your own? Have good friendships, but you want to enjoy them more? Jill Savage, mother of five, knows those challenges well, and she's here to help.

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.

In answer to the question of what happened following her New York Times best seller Kabul Beauty School, Deborah Rodriquez is back with a new memoir Irreverent, insightful, and blatantly honest, Deborah takes us along on her inspiring journey of self-discovery and renewal after she is forced to flee Afghanistan in 2007. She first lands in California, where she feels like a misfit teetering on the brink of sanity. Where was that fearless redhead who stared danger in the face back in Kabul?

Junior, a 300 pound musical and artistic prodigy, depends on his imagination for companionship. Buddy is used to depending on no one but himself. Homeless, he uses his wits to survive the streets. With the help of Mr. Poole, the school custodian, the two boys discover a sheltered universe of their own in the basement room. When their hiding place is discovered, and Junior loses the only place he feels safe, his imagination takes over. It will take all of Buddy’s resource to protect his friend as the realities of Junior’s world come crashing in around them both.

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

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Eddy Okubo, a Japanese American teenager, is more determined than ever to prove his loyalty and worth as an American soldier. Graham Salisbury poignantly pens the historically accurate but fictional account of the special mission given to 26 Japanese American soldiers in the midst of WWII and a young man’s struggle between heritage and patriotism.

For 15-year-old Shamiso, hope is nothing but a leap into darkness. Grief-stricken and confused after her father’s mysterious death in a car crash, Shamiso moves with her mother from England to Zimbabwe in order to pick up the pieces - returning to an extended family and a world she hardly remembers. For Tanyaradzwa, a classmate whose life has been turned upside down by a cancer diagnosis, hope is the only reason to keep fighting.

Lee has always seen visions: cats that his mother promises aren't really there, a homeless man who he's convinced is out to get him, and three men who give him ominous warnings in the woods. His mother and his sister Murphy try to keep him grounded in the real world. But when his mother dies in a car accident and her horrible husband tries to adopt them, Lee and Murphy flee to their grandmother's ranch, which they've only heard about in stories. But is there a reason why their mother never brought them there?

Camille couldn't be having a better summer - she kills it as Ophelia in her community theater's production of Hamlet, catches the eye of the cutest boy in the play, and nabs a spot in a prestigious theater program. But on the very night she learns she got into the program, she also finds out she's pregnant. She definitely can't tell her parents. And her best friend Bea doesn't agree with the decision Camille has made. Camille is forced to try to solve her problem alone - and the system is very much working against her.

Trinity Academy’s gold-plated secret society is about to be turned upside down. Seventeen-year-old Sam Evans plots revenge on her ex-bestie, Jessica, who happens to perch at the top of the Society’s social ladder - and helped put Sam’s dad in jail. Sam may no longer be cool enough to be invited to rush the Society, but she’s tech-savvy enough to know how to use it in her plan.

It's senior year, and Paige Hancock is finally living her best life. She has a fun summer job, great friends, and a super charming boyfriend who totally gets her. But senior year also means big decisions. Weighing "the rest of her life," Paige feels her anxiety begin to pervade every decision she makes. Everything is exactly how she always wanted it to be-how can she leave it all behind next year? In her head, she knows there is so much more to experience after high school. But in her heart, is it so terrible to want everything to stay the same forever?

The Tech sisters don't date in high school. Not because they're not asked. Not because they're not interested. Not even because no one can pronounce their long, Thai last name - hence the shortened, awkward moniker. But simply because they're not allowed. Until now. In a move that other Asian American girls know all too well, six months after the older Tech twins got to college, their parents asked, Why aren't you engaged yet? The sisters retaliated, vowing that they wont marry for 10 (maybe 20!) years, not until they've had all the dating practice that they didn't get in high school.

Popular Daphne Blake and über-nerd Velma Dinkley aren't friends. They aren't enemies either. They don't have any reason to speak to each other, and that's how they prefer it. They grew up together - been best friends since pre-K - but when they hit middle school, Daphne dropped Velma and never looked back. These days, Daphne's deep in the popular crowd, daughter of the richest family in town, while Velma's an outsider, hiding from the world behind her thick glasses. But then Daphne's best friend, Marcy - who happens to be Velma's cousin - goes missing.

Nate Foster has big dreams. His whole life, he’s wanted to star in a Broadway show. (Heck, he’d settle for seeing a Broadway show.) But how is Nate supposed to make his dreams come true when he’s stuck in Jankburg, Pennsylvania, where no one (except his best pal Libby) appreciates a good show tune? With Libby’s help, Nate plans a daring overnight escape to New York.