Social Pressure

Fourteen-year-old Maya cannot believe she has to spend the summer with her grandmother, helping out at the family cosmetics firm. But things get much more exciting when she meets a community of activists who are campaigning against the dumping of chemical waste. Getting closer to one boy in particular, Bear, Maya is dared into joining one of their protest missions, but doesn't know that her grandmother's business is the target. Someone has been lying about their environmentally friendly products, and as danger threatens, Maya must uncover the truth or betray her family forever.

It's Halloween: Candy-snatching time. For the past few years, twelve-year-old Jonas and his friends have competed to see how much candy they can snatch from unsuspecting trick-or-treaters. No one’s supposed to get hurt. So Jonas is taken by surprise when one of his smaller targets fights back against his candy-snatching attempt. He’s even more surprised when he starts to receive anonymous notes from someone who seems to know what happened that night.

Sadie thought joining the Pack would be the wildest thing to happen to her this year, but the school year is becoming even harder. On top of classes, Sadie has to navigate her growing feelings for her crush, taming her powers during cheer practice and troublemaking hyenas trying to take her crown. Then there is the massive secret she is keeping from her BFF Lindsey—that could destroy their friendship and The Pack as they know it. Will the shocking truth come out to bite them?

Maple Mehta-Cohen has been keeping a secret: she can’t read all that well. She has an impressive vocabulary and loves dictating stories into her recorder - especially the adventures of a daring sleuth who’s half Indian and half Jewish like Maple herself - but words on the page just don’t seem to make sense to her. Despite all Maple’s clever tricks to hide her troubles with reading, her teacher is on to her, and now Maple has to repeat fifth grade. Maple is devastated - what will her friends think? Will they forget about her?

Popular girl Bliss Merino is ready to have the perfect prom. But when she catches her boyfriend making out with her best friend in the back of the limo, she has only one thought: revenge.... Bad girl Jolene Nelson is the last person anyone expected to see at prom. Yet here she is, dressed in pink ruffles and feeling like a fool for believing that he would actually show up.... Meg Rose Zuckerman is ready to stop being a wallflower and start experiencing life firsthand. But when her date stands her up, she finds herself on the outside yet again....

Beyond soccer leagues, music camps, and drama lessons, today's youth are in an education arms race that begins in elementary school. In Hyper Education, Pawan Dhingra uncovers the growing world of high-achievement education and the after-school learning centers, spelling bees, and math competitions that it has spawned.

Pinkalicious loves the color pink, but all the girls at school like black. They tease her, saying that pink stinks and pink is for babies. But Pinkalicious doesn't think so - that is, until her friends stop playing with her. Now Pinkalicious has a case of the blues. But could she ever turn her back on her favorite color?

Things have changed in the Tibbs house, and Mya isn’t happy about it. She’s stuck in the middle between an exceptionally cute baby sister and an exceptionally smart older brother. And her tired parents seem to only notice the "exceptional" kids in the house. So when a class project lassoes Mya into starting her own school newspaper, she’s sure this will earn her the star status she wants from her parents. But the same project also gives Mya’s archenemy, Naomi Jackson, a chance to prove she is a better friend to the twins, Skye and Starr, than Mya is.

Sage Sassafras’ life is cursed! No, really. Since birth, Sage has been plagued by the Contrarium Curse that’s set her at odds with classmate Priscilla Petty. Every time something goes right for Priscilla, it goes terribly, horribly wrong for Sage. And things always go well for Priscilla. Sage blames the curse for all her middle school misery - from losing a friend to failing gym to gaining a reputation as the girl whose daddy’s in trouble.

Meg has been best friends with Beatrix forever. Everyone at school wants to be like confident, decisive Beatrix, and Meg has always felt the same. But this year, Meg wants to take a science course instead of dance class. She'd rather do what makes her happy‚ not what Beatrix wants. When a quirky girl named Hazel moves to town, Meg is partnered with her on a science project about bees. Meg learns a lot about being Queen Bee, in a hive and in middle school. As Beatrix is less than welcoming to Hazel, Meg feels her loyalty fraying.

Jürgen Resch ist als Bundesgeschäftsführer der Deutschen Umwelthilfe einer der bekanntesten und wirkungsvollsten Umweltaktivisten unserer Zeit. Doch seit Jahrzehnten macht er immer wieder die bittere Erfahrung: Der Staat kapituliert vor den Interessen großer Konzerne. Wider besseres Wissen bleiben Umwelt und Klima auf der Strecke.

Lillie Mae Liles thinks middle school will be a breeze, until movie-star lookalike Casey Culver moves to Triple Gap and steals Lillie’s best friend. Even Lillie’s brother has a crush on Casey bigger than the Mississippi River. Disgusted with all the attention Casey receives, Lillie teams up with the school bully to make Casey’s life miserable. But when Casey agrees to play baseball on the farm, Lillie discovers she and Casey have a lot in common, and Lillie finds herself with two best friends.

Sadie and her friends should be preparing for end of the year finals but they are about to go on a mission to save one of their own. She was taken from school and they know just where to find her. Things are all going according to plan. But suddenly there's a new girl at school—with the same powers as Sadie—who claws her way into The Pack. But this girl is fiercly confident and soon wants to lead them her own way.

Ever decided to do something that seemed like a good idea and, in the second before there's no turning back, think, "I musta been totally mental when I came up with this"? And then, "Oh, well, here goes". That's how angel-in-training Grace Lightbourne felt right before she asked the Big Kahuna if she could go straight to Earth on a mission as a guardian angel. The problem? She never was a great student, and now she won't even finish her last three years of school.

Midnight on Fireworks Island is Shawshank Redemption, Do The Right Thing and It's a Wonderful Life for middle grade kids. Midnight on Fireworks Island is a hilarious yet deep and compelling tale. It starts simple and funny but when you finish the last chapter your life has changed. This book is Shawshank Redemption in that it is a story of an unbreakable friendship that develops in a dangerous prison/correctional academy. The boys are sent to Rockweiler Correctional Academy, a facility for boys under 18 and too young for the traditional prison system.

Transitioning from childhood to adulthood is indeed a difficult and confusing time. The changes and demands of life can be overwhelming—not to mention the societal expectations that pressure young women to conform to strict ideals of beauty, success, and popularity.

Sicilee and Maya have been rivals since elementary school. Now in high school, they dislike each other more than ever. Sicilee is the center of the most popular group at Clifton Springs, and Maya is the heart of the hip, trendy set. And neither of them is likely to notice Waneeda, who prefers to eat candy and work as little as possible. None of these girls has a thing in common until Cody Lightfoot, the most drop-dead gorgeous boy imaginable, joins the student body, causing every girl’s head to turn.

>In the case of Savanna and Gracie, friendship isn’t based on reason, but on the notion that opposites attract. Savanna is a head-turning, attention-seeking, accessorized one of “Those Girls,” while Gracie’s love of old movies and commitment to protecting the environment put her into the “everyone else” category. It seems as if nothing could come between them until Savanna’s lies and dependence on Gracie as a false alibi start to take a toll on their relationship.

Paul is new to Gate, a school whose rich students make life miserable for anyone not like them. And Paul is definitely not like them. Then, one day something incredible happens. Charlie Good, a star student and athlete, invites Paul to join his elite inner circle. All Charlie wants is a few things in return - small things that Paul does willingly. And then, one day, Charlie wants something big - really big. Now Paul has to decide how far he'll go to be one of the gang.

Eleven-year-old Kylie’s friends seem so much more mature than she is. And with middle school just a summer away, she’s worried her friends might leave her behind, especially because she keeps embarrassing them. So Kylie applies her scientific brain to solve the problem and comes up with the Everybody Experiment.