Social Life

Nearly a half century into being a feminist and legal pioneer, something funny happened to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The octogenarian won the Internet. Across America, people who weren't even born when Ginsburg made her name are tattooing themselves with her face, setting her famously searing dissents to music, and making viral videos in tribute.

The winner of numerous awards for children’s fiction, Dan Gutman presents the third tale from his delightfully silly My Weird School series. Second-grader A.J. thinks Mrs. Roopy, the librarian, might be the strangest teacher at his school. The students believe she keeps appearing fully dressed as characters from books, like Johnny Appleseed and Little Miss Muffet. But every time a new character surfaces, Mrs. Roopy insists she was home sick that day!

From the beginning Jonathan is spooked by the deserted island where his family is camping - and his premonitions come true. After Jonathan's mother breaks her ankle, Jonathan and his younger sister, Abby, are left alone. Then a devastating earthquake hits. The bridge is destroyed, the trailer is smashed, and there's no food or water. Suddenly Jonathan and Abby are fighting for their lives...

Mackenzie Blue is a star! Or she will be...as soon as she gets the part of an aspiring singer on a new TV pilot! But juggling auditions and the rest of her life turns out to be harder than Zee thought. Zee's friends are helping her hold everything together. But Zee doesn't like having to bail on plans--and her friends--to run to another audition. Is being a star worth it?

Peace has been restored to the Overworld after an epic griefer battle. Lily, Simon, and Michael are glad to have a break from fighting, and even from their attempts to escape the game and return to their normal lives. But then two new players are zapped onto the server, and no one's sure who's responsible for trapping them. With Mr. Anarchy and the other griefers in prison, anyone could be a suspect, and tempers flare as the townspeople's suspicions turn inward.

Greg Heffley and his family and friends are back in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 8, the latest installment in the #1 best-selling series by Jeff Kinney and one of the most anticipated books of 2013. A global phenomenon, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series has more than 85 million books around the world.

Is there a hidden part of you that no one else sees? Do you have a vivid inner world of thoughts and emotions that your peers and loved ones can't seem to access? Have you ever been told you're too quiet, shy, boring, or awkward? Are your habits and comfort zones questioned by a society that doesn't seem to get you? If so, you might be an introvert. On behalf of those who have long been misunderstood, rejected, or ignored, fellow introvert Jenn Granneman writes a compassionate vindication.

Sophie Foster is struggling. Grieving. Scrambling. But she knows one thing: She will not be defeated. The Neverseen have had their victories - but the battle is far from over. It’s time to change tactics. Make sacrifices. Reexamine everything. Maybe even time for Sophie to trust her enemies. All paths lead to Nightfall - an ominous door to an even more ominous place - and Sophie and her friends strike a dangerous bargain to get there. But nothing can prepare them for what they discover.

After trapping Mr. Anarchy, the evil master griefer who's been tormenting them, Lily, Simon, and Michael can finally concentrate on trying to escape the Overworld and getting to know their new friends on the server. So when one of their friends invites them along on a treasure hunt, they couldn't be more thrilled! But when the gang's absence from Lisimi Village gives Mr. Anarchy a chance to escape, their hunt for treasure is cut short and Lily, Simon, and Michael must make a hard decision.

The war between the tribes is finally over, and now the dragonets of the prophecy have a plan for lasting peace: Jade Mountain Academy, a school that will gather dragonets from all the tribes and teach them to live together, perhaps even as friends. Moonwatcher isn't sure how she feels about school, however.

Melody finally gets to fly on an airplane, and even the airline’s somewhat clumsy handling of her wheelchair can’t dampen her excitement to be in London. There, Melody meets kids from all over the world who are rallying for greater accessibility and more thoughtful planning on how to make the world more equal for every kid, no matter the unusual challenges they face. As Melody’s time to speak approaches, she hopes she can find a way to make every word count and make an impact.

In Mixed Messages, fourth in the middle-grade Mackenzie Blue series, Zee and her friends from Brookdale Academy launch Bluetopia, a fab social media site--which is perfect, because Zee’s band, The Beans, is about to have its biggest show ever. Everyone is talking about it on Bluetopia. At least it would be perfect if a glitch in the Bluetopia system didn’t threaten to ruin the show--and Zee’s life!

Sheila Tubman sometimes wonders who she really is: the outgoing, witty, and capable Sheila the Great, or the secret Sheila, who's afraid of the dark, spiders, swimming, and dogs? When her family spends the summer in Tarrytown, Sheila has to face some of her worst fears. Not only does a dog come with the rented house, but her parents expect Sheila to take swimming lessons!

In Being Mortal, best-selling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending. Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit.

Thirty years after its publication, The Death and Life of Great American Cities was described by The New York Times as "perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning....[It] can also be seen in a much larger context. It is first of all a work of literature; the descriptions of street life as a kind of ballet and the bitingly satiric account of traditional planning theory can still be read for pleasure even by those who long ago absorbed and appropriated the book's arguments."

With Unbroken: The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong, Dr. McDonald overturns the misconceptions about trauma with the latest evidence from neuroscience and psychology—and shares tested practices and tools to help you work with your body’s coping mechanisms to accelerate healing.

Emotional intelligence affects every aspect of the way we live, from romantic to professional relationships, from our inner resilience to our social success. It is arguably the single most important skill for surviving the twenty-first century. But what does it really mean? One decade ago, Alain de Botton founded The School of Life, an institute dedicated to understanding and improving our emotional intelligence. Now he presents the gathered wisdom of those ten years in a wide-ranging and innovative compendium of emotional intelligence that forms an introduction to The School of Life.

Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for a school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a semitrailer. His father, Abed, gets word of the crash and rushes to the site. The scene is chaos—the children have been taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank; some are missing, others cannot be identified. Abed sets off on an odyssey to learn Milad’s fate. It is every parent’s worst nightmare, but for Abed it is compounded by the maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must navigate because he is Palestinian.

SpongeBob SquarePants learns to hang ten in this rad surfing-themed story! SpongeBob eagerly accepts Sandy's invitation to go surfing at Goo Lagoon—until he realizes he doesn't know how to surf! What will he do? It's Patrick to the rescue as he shows SpongeBob how to ride the waves, right in their backyard. When he meets Sandy the next day, SpongeBob nervously makes his way out into the water and tries to break his surfboard so he wouldn't have to surf. But then he gets caught up in a huge wave, and he has no choice but to wipe out—or does he?

The pressure's really piling up on Greg Heffley. The only thing he's good at is playing video games, but his mother wants him to broaden his horizons by doing something - anything! - else. When Greg finds an old video camera in his basement, he thinks he may have discovered just the thing to prove he's got big-time talent. With the help of his best friend, Rowley, Greg hatches a plan to make a scary movie and become rich and famous in the process. But is doubling down on moviemaking a smart plan? Or is it just a recipe for doubling Greg's troubles?