Teen Age

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 Even his mother seems angry and withdrawn when he's around.One day the circus comes to town, and Harold runs away to join it.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.

For Kalvin Barnes, the only thing that comes close to the rush of playing the knockout game is watching videos of the knockout game. Kalvin's crew always takes videos of their KOs, but Kalvin wants more - something better. He thinks if someone could really see the game for what it was, could appreciate it, could capture the essence of it - that would be a video for all time. The world would have to notice. That's where Erica comes in.

Where I Want to Be tells the poignant story of 18-year-old Jane and her 16-year-old sister, Lily. When Lily finds her first love and grows more distant, Jane - already struggling with mental illness - feels a sharp sense of sibling rivalry. But when Jane is hit by a car and killed, Lily must learn to move on.

Fifteen-year-old Adam Cooper is anxcious to join the excitement and action of the Revolutionary War. On the morning of April 19, 1775, he stands beside his Massachusetts farmer father to face the redcoats marching out of Boston. But suddenly, his father falls on the village green, and Adam’s hands are shaking as he shoots at columns of marching men. With realistic drama and riveting suspense, Howard Fast brings the glory and the agony of the colonial battlefield vividly to life.

When a magnitude 7.8 earthquake hits California, Ruby is trapped in a laundromat with Charlie, a boy she had her first conversation with only moments before. She can't see anything beyond the rubble that she's trapped beneath, but shes sure someone will come save them soon. As the hours and days tick by, Ruby and Charlie struggle to stay hopeful and stay alive. Ruby has only Charlies voice and her memories to find the hope to keep holding on.

With his girlfriend, Robin, away in Canada, 18-year-old Lucas Baker's only plans for the summer are to mellow out with his friends, smoke weed, drop a tab or two, and head out in his microbus for a three-day happening called the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. But life veers dramatically off track when he suddenly finds himself in danger of being drafted and sent to fight in Vietnam.

You cant trust life to give you decent parents, or beautiful eyes, a fine French accent or an outstanding flair for fashion. No, life does what it wants. Its sneaky as a thief. Maisie's first day of High school should be exciting, but all she wants is to escape. Her world is lonely and chaotic, with an abusive mother and a father whos rarely there to help. So when Maisie, who finds refuge in her art, meets the spirited Rachel and her mother, a painter, she catches a glimpse of a very different world - one full of life, creativity, and love - and latches on.

Seventeen-year-old Ellen Sung just wants to be like everyone else at her all-White school. But hers is the only Korean American family in town, and her classmates in Arkin, Minnesota, will never let her forget that she’s different. At the start of senior year, Ellen finds herself falling for Tomper Sandel, a football player who is popular and blond and undeniably cute...and to her surprise, he falls for her, too.

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.

Ethel Klyczek’s development stalled in middle school, making her self-conscious and insecure. Aiming for prom perfection, Ethel plans to go from As to Cs, and she doesn’t mean her grades. Ethel’s parents are dead-set against her self-improvement plan. Without their sanction, Ethel will have to do a lot more than sling fried chicken if she’s to get a new set of twins in time for prom....

Emerson Dance is one of the most prestigious dance companies in the country. And I got kicked off the team right before nationals because my curves don’t “fit.” Not their idea of a perfect dancer's body and definitely not their costume. I’m going to enter the competition on my own and show them that every body is a dancer’s body. It will mean practicing in the gym with the bodybuilders, but I can shove my nerves—and my attraction to Carter McCormac—aside long enough to win.

But it isn’t a dream. Two strangers take Stella from her bedroom in the middle of the night and haul her off to Three Rivers, a wilderness therapy program for troubled teens.

Richard K. Arbuster III is 14, and he’s beginning his freshman year at Indiana University. At least, he thinks he is, until his grandfather’s ultimatum: join the Alpha Alpha Omega fraternity or return to the dreaded and detested Bratsworth Academy. Richard has no desire to join a frat. He would rather spend his time reading and studying. But he has no choice and sets out to become the youngest frat bro ever.

Twenty years ago, 18-year-old Francis Quick was convicted of murdering her best friend, Cora King, and sentenced to death. Now the highly debated Accelerated Death Penalty Act has passed, giving Frankie 30 final days to live. Surprising everyone, one of the King family members sets out to challenge the woefully inadequate evidence and potential innocence of Frankie Quick.

Growing up in a lighthouse on a remote island, Orca Monroe has lived isolated from the world . . . until one day when she finds a cell phone washed up on the beach. Orca has her first conversation with Jack Stevenson, a young man whose older brother, Adam, has gone missing after crashing his seaplane off the coast. Orca becomes Jack's lifeline and his reason to hope that Adam is still alive. One stormy night, Orca finds Adam Stevenson collapsed on her doorstep. As she nurses him back to health, she finds herself spellbound by his inquiring mind and rugged good looks.

Fifteen-year-old Evia Birtwhistle can’t seem to catch a break. At home, she must deal with her free-spirited mom, and at school she’s the target of ridicule for stating basic truths: like that girls have body hair! When her BFF Frankie—who has facial hair due to her PCOS—becomes the target of school bullies, Evia decides that enough is enough and creates the ‘Hairy Girls’ Club.’ Leading a feminist movement at school is not easy. Boys often look at Evia like she’s a total weirdo, and the self-proclaimed ‘smoothalicious’ girls start their own campaign in retaliation.

Moving beyond the quasi-fraternal bond of the unforgettable George and Lenny from Of Mice and Men, Hurt You explores the actual sibling bond of Georgia and Leonardo da Vinci Daewoo Kim, who has an unnamed neurological disability that resembles autism. The themes of race, disability, and class spin themselves out in a suburban high school where the Kim family has moved in order to access better services for Leonardo.

It’s the night of senior prom, and eighteen-year-old Julia has made a pact with her friends. (Yes, that kind of pact.) They have secured a secluded cabin in the woods, one night without parental supervision, and plenty of condoms. But as soon as they leave the dance, the pact begins to unravel. Alex’s grandmother is undergoing emergency surgery, and he and his date rush to the hospital. Zoe’s trying to figure out how she feels about getting off the waitlist at Yale―and how to tell her girlfriend.

Jack is on the verge of leaving for college, but before he does, he wants to track down his estranged brother, Alex, and find some closure in the wake of their father's death. Meanwhile, Hallie has just found out some upsetting news about a friend in Oregon, and she has a small window to go see him before it's too late. Jack and Hallie are practically strangers. They shared a class together years ago and haven't seen each other since, though they have more in common than they'd ever imagine.

Monique is a preacher’s daughter who detests the impossible rules of her religion. Everyone expects her to wait until marriage, so she has no one to turn to when she discovers that she physically can’t have sex. After two years of trying and failing, her boyfriend breaks up with her. To win him back, Monique teams up with straight-laced church girl Sasha—who is surprisingly knowledgeable about Monique’s condition—as well as Reggie, the misunderstood bad boy who always makes a ruckus at church, and together they embark upon a top-secret search for the cure.