Social Pressure

The third volume in the Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul series gives more love, support, and inspiration for the series' loyal teen readers. More and more, life is a struggle for teens. Not just dealing with the tragedies that seem to plague them so often, but also handling the daily pressures that pervade their lives. This book, like the first two volumes in the series, will help them, and will serve as their guide and constant companion.

School baseball hero Kurt Kelton immediately befriends the new girl in town...and soon develops a crush on her. But Annie isn’t interested in crushes, or boys for that matter. She’s an amazing athlete. So amazing that Kurt invites her to try out for the boy’s school baseball team. Well, the boys are in for a rude awakening. Annie is good. So good that she’s better than all of them. So what’s a school to do when their best athlete is a girl? Easy. They make her captain.

So you think your mom is embarrassing? You won’t after you meet mine. She’s the co-host of a morning television show and her host chat has covered everything I’ve done from puking on my piano teacher’s shoes to gluing antlers on my head. But I’ve got the microphone now and I’m doing weekly commentaries on my school’s broadcast/podcast. Don’t get me wrong - mom’s awesome, and I’d never really want to freak her out. But if viewers get to hear about my private life, why can’t I dish about Mom’s new boyfriend, or how dorky she is as a school volunteer?

Augie Boretski knows how to get by. If you're a scrawny loser in the destitute city of Camden, New Jersey, you keep your head down, avoid the drug dealers and thugs, and try your best to be invisible. Augie used to be good at that, but suddenly his life is changing....

The Fish That Got Away! by award-winning author B. E. Bacon is a fun, best-selling book about a little boy named Jack. Jack is going fishing for the first time with his two older brothers. Jack has a dream of catching a big fish and he wants to prove to his older brothers that he can do it. Jack's brothers tease him in his early attempts but Jack is not discouraged and keeps trying.

When Lisa walks home from school with two new girls, they break an elderly couple's window. Lisa feels bad about the act of vandalism and takes steps to remedy the situation. Window Pains is a short story that was originally published in WINNER, a scholastic magazine endorsed by former Presidents and First Ladies. The aim of the periodical was to teach children preventative measures and instill positive behaviors that contribute to success in life.

Elijah Thomas knows one thing better than anyone around him: basketball. But when a sinister street gang, Blood Street Nation, wants him and his team members to wear the Nation’s colors in the next big tournament, Elijah’s love of the game is soon thrown into jeopardy. The boys gather their courage and take a stand against the gang, but at a terrible cost. Now Elijah must struggle to balance hope and fear, revenge and forgiveness, to save his neighborhood. For help, he turns to the most unlikely of friends: Banks, a gruff ex–military man, and his beautiful and ambitious daughter.

With the rest of the Pretty Committee scattered across the globe, Kristen is stuck in summer school at OCD, making good on her scholarship commitments. No sleepover horse camp, no Hawaiian spa, no Spanish vacation, not even a trip to Orlando. But when Kristen scores a job looking after hang-ten hottie Dune Baxter's 8-year-old sister, Ripple, Westchester suddenly doesn't seem so bad. It looks like Kristin is about to ride the wave of first love.

On a hot summer night in a midwestern town, a high school teenage prank goes horrifically awry. Alcohol, guns, and a dare. Within minutes, as events collide, innocents becomes victims - with tragic outcomes altering lives forever, a grisly and unfortunate scenario all too familiar from current real-life headlines. But victims can also become survivors, and as we come to know each character through his/her own distinctive voice and their interactions with one another, we see how, despite pain and guilt, they can reach out to one another, find a new equilibrium, and survive.

Luke was not eager to accompany his best friend, Hayden, and the cocky new kid, Russell, up to the cliff that night. The plan was to watch Russell jump off the cliff into the lake - his initiation for the Briar Academy fencing team. But instead, after an angry confrontation with Hayden, Russell falls to his death. Now Hayden is in jail and the pressure is on Luke to report what he saw. But what did he see?

This multiple-viewpoint novel explores several days in the life of a middle school clique that suddenly shuns one of its members. With poignant, painful detail the author takes us into the mind of each girl involved, brilliantly illuminating the problem of girl-on-girl meanness. A must-listen for middle school girls - and the parents who love them!

Sixteen-year-old Bernadette Terrell is a champion debater who loves books, contests, and winning. When she's named captain of her school's Classics Bowl team to compete on TV against an elite private school for the state title, she's thrilled. It's more than a chance to earn glory for her town, and scholarship money for her family - not to mention make non-fictional friends. She's been training for this her whole life. Winning is her destiny. Or is it?

Remember when it wasn't cool to be a geek? That's so yesterday! Retro Geeks chronicles the (mis)adventures of two self-proclaimed geek girls, Molly and Ally, as they attempt to land super-hot dates for their senior prom. The '80s-obsessed BFFs attempt a variety of date-finding schemes, including spying on the popular girls for the 411 on fitting in, in their quest for top-tier prom dates.

This fiery autobiographical novel captures a pivotal week or two in the life of 14-year-old Jack Gantos, as the author reveals the moment he began to slide off track as a kid who in just a few years would find himself locked up in a federal penitentiary for the crimes portrayed in the memoir Hole in My Life.

Priscilla comes back to school after a long absence, anticipating how wonderful it will be to see her friends again, to discover that things at school have changed in a dramatic way and not for the better! There is a new kid named Dexter who has managed to have such a profound influence over her friends that they are all looking and acting very differently. Cilla has to decide what she is willing to do and how much she is willing to give up to please her friends.

Felicity St. John has it all: loyal best friends, a hot guy, and artistic talent. And she’s right on track to win the Miss Scarlet pageant. Her perfect life is possible because of just one thing: her long, wavy, coppery red hair. Having red hair is all that matters in Scarletville. Redheads hold all the power - and everybody knows it. That’s why Felicity is scared down to her roots when she receives an anonymous note: I know your secret. Because Felicity is a big fake. Her hair color comes straight out of a bottle. And if anyone discovered the truth, she’d be a social outcast faster than she could say strawberry blond.

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.

Don't be fooled...Charm House isn't like any other charm school. Charm stands for Center for Human-Animal Reform and Manners. Every girl who boards there has an animal light inside her that is wild and needs to be tamed. New-girl Sadie just wants to stay out of trouble and blend in. When she learns she has the fiercest animal light of all, she is invited to join the group of it girls known as the Pack, led by Lindsey, the school's queen of the jungle. Soon Sadie is consumed by social drama and her secret feelings for an off-limits private-school boy.

"Sei du selbst und genieße den moment, auch wenn andere dich ablehnen." (Avocado die Schildkröte). Avocado ist keine normale Schildkröte. Sie wird von den anderen Schildkröten abgelehnt, weil sie zu freundlich ist. Eines Tages beschließen sie, dass Avocado nicht mehr in ihrer Schildkrötengruppe willkommen ist und wird fortgeschickt. Zuerst ist sie sehr traurig, aber dann trifft sie neue Freunde und beginnt zu verstehen, dass es nicht darauf ankommt, was Andere von ihr erwarten. Begleite Avocado auf der Suche nach ihrem wahren Ich.

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?