Social Skills For Teens

Seventh-grader Martin McLean has always been surrounded by people who can express themselves. His mother is an artist, his colorful Tio Billy works in theater, and his best friends Carmen and Pickle are outgoing and don't care what other people think. But Martin can only find the right words when he's answering a problem at a Mathletes competition - until his tio introduces him to the world of drag.

The handsome son of wealthy parents, Connor has everything anyone could want...except his family's love and affection. Jailed for years after killing his mother's child-molesting boyfriend, Tony is confused about his sexuality. Manic-depressive Vanessa cuts herself. All three stories intertwine in a brutally honest story about pain and resilience.

As Persephone's mom encourages her to do, she often "goes along to get along" instead of doing what she really wants. But when she meets Mount Olympus Academy bad-boy Hades, she finally feels she has found someone with whom she can be herself. He's the first person who actually listens to her, and she finds herself liking him, despite the fact the other goddessgirls think he's bad news. But if he makes her feel so special - and she's so comfortable hanging around him - can he really be all that bad?

Donald J. Sobol’s pint-sized amateur detective has been a hit with young readers for over three decades. For 25 cents a day—plus expenses—Encyclopedia Brown will solve any case, big or small for the kids in his neighborhood. He also secretly works with his police chief father to crack the toughest investigations and keep the streets of Idaville safe. Here are 10 more beguiling mysteries that will have listeners scratching their heads.

Laurel was mesmerized, staring at the pale things with wide eyes. They were terrifyingly beautiful - too beautiful for words. Laurel turned to the mirror again, her eyes on the hovering petals that floated beside her head. They looked almost like wings. In this extraordinary tale of magic and intrigue, romance and danger, everything you thought you knew about faeries will be changed forever.

Audiobook three shines the spotlight on Ripley, the smallest, youngest, most animal-loving member of the cabin. When Ripley comes across an abandoned egg, she’s determined to take care of it until the parent comes back. Unfortunately, her plan is quickly foiled by egg poachers, who steal the egg for their own collection.

In the tradition of Out of My Mind, Wonder, and Mockingbird, this is an intensely moving middle grade novel about being an outsider, coping with loss, and discovering the true meaning of family. Willow Chance is a 12-year-old genius, obsessed with nature and diagnosing medical conditions, who finds it comforting to count by sevens. It has never been easy for her to connect with anyone other than her adoptive parents, but that hasn’t kept her from leading a quietly happy life...until now.

Edwina "Eddie" Beckey and Sally Hobart are best friends. They love to jump rope, camp, and eat chocolate doughnuts with sprinkles. Eddie wears different colored rubber bands on her wrist. She nevers takes them off until the one day she finds an important reason to pass them on to Sally.

In the final book of the Wizard for Hire trilogy, Ozzy and his friend (and Rin’s daughter), Sigi, are in danger. They are still being hunted by Ray, the power-mad villain who will stop at nothing to find the formula to the mind-controlling discipline serum - one that Ozzy’s parents created and injected into him. Knowing the dangers that lie ahead, Rin introduces Ozzy to four more friends who also claim magical, wizard-like abilities. Again, Ozzy has no reason to believe that magic exists or that Rin’s eccentric friends can help.

Before Amberly came to the palace, she was a four in love with a one. Before Maxon met the girl of his dreams, he was the boy of someone else's.

Miranda's disbelief turns to fear in a split second when a meteor knocks the Moon closer to the Earth. How should her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun?

Lily left a red notebook full of challenges on her favorite bookstore shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept its dares. Dash, in a bad mood during the holidays, happens to be the first guy to pick up the notebook and rise to its challenges. What follows is a whirlwind romance as Dash and Lily trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass back and forth at locations all across New York City. But can their in-person selves possibly connect as well as their notebook versions?

Rin is sure that something is wrong with her…something really bad. Something that is keeping her from feeling at home in the Forest homestead where she’s lived all her life. Something that is keeping her from trusting herself with anyone at all. When her brother Razo returns from the city for a visit, she accompanies him to the palace, hoping that she can find peace away from home. But war has come to Bayern again, and Rin is compelled to join the queen and her closest allies as they venture into the Forest.

Rigg’s journey comes to an epic and explosive conclusion as everything that has been building up finally comes to pass, and Rigg is forced to put his powers to the test in order to save his world and end the war once and for all.

Sticky is a beat-around-the-head foster kid with nowhere to call home but the street and an outer shell so tough that no one will take him in. He started out life so far behind the pack that the finish line seems nearly unreachable. He's a white boy living and playing in a world where he doesn't seem to belong. But Sticky can ball. And basketball might just be his ticket out, if he can only realize that he doesn't have to be the person everyone else expects him to be.

The free-spirited Anne Shirley has a beautiful way of looking at the world and touching our hearts. In this, the third volume of the Anne of Green Gables series, the irrepressible Anne dreams of the woman she hopes to be when she decides to leave Green Gables and her beloved Prince Edward Island for college. She is eager for new adventure.

This innovative, heartfelt debut novel tells the story of a girl who's literally allergic to the outside world. When a new family moves in next door, she begins a complicated romance that challenges everything she's ever known.

Matthew Turner doesn't have faith in anything. Not in family - his is a shambles after his younger brother was bullied into suicide. Not in so-called friends who turn their backs when things get tough. Not in some all-powerful creator who lets too much bad stuff happen. And certainly not in some "It Gets Better" psychobabble. No matter what his girlfriend Hayden says about faith and forgiveness, there's no way Matt's letting go of blame.

After staking out, obtaining, and then being forced to give up her first boyfriend, Josh, all Cammie Morgan wants is a peaceful semester. But that's easier said than done when you're a CIA legacy and go to the premier school in the world...for spies. Cammie may have a genius I.Q., but there are still a lot of things she doesn't know. Like, will her ex-boyfriend even remember she exists? And how much trouble is she really in after what happened last semester? And most of all, why is her mother acting so strangely?

The summer that Patty Bergen turns twelve is a summer that will haunt her forever. When her small hometown in Arkansas becomes the site of a camp housing German prisoners during World War II, Patty learns what it means to open her heart. Even though she’s Jewish, she begins to see a prison escapee, Anton, not as a Nazi, but as a lonely, frightened young man. As their gentle friendship blossoms, Patty experiences a kind of love she never felt from her abusive father or her distant mother.