Teens Growing

Mara Dyer believes life can't get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there. It can. She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed. There is. She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love. She's wrong.

When a fortuneteller’s tent appears in the market square of the city of Baltese, orphan Peter Augustus Duchene knows the questions that he needs to ask: Does his sister still live? And if so, how can he find her? The fortuneteller’s mysterious answer (An elephant! An elephant will lead him there!) sets off a chain of events so remarkable, so impossible, that Peter can hardly dare to believe it. But it is - all of it - true.

Two new Appalachian stories from the author of the award winning Listening for the Crack of Dawn; an ideal introduction to contemporary storytelling for adults. Both stories are based upon real people. In the first, a disastrous birthday enables a child to learn more than an adult possibly could. In the second, two unusual people live their conviction that people are more important than things.

In a village in ancient Norway lives a boy named Odd, and he's had some very bad luck: His father perished in a Viking expedition; a tree fell on and shattered his leg; the endless freezing winter is making villagers dangerously grumpy. Out in the forest Odd encounters a bear, a fox, and an eagle - three creatures with a strange story to tell. Now Odd is forced on a stranger journey than he had imagined, a journey to save Asgard, city of the gods, from the Frost Giants who have invaded it.

For most girls, sleepaway camp is great fun. But for Amy Becker, it's a nightmare. Amy, whose home life is in turmoil, is sent to Camp Takawanda for Girls for the first time as a teenager. Although Amy swears she hates her German-immigrant mother, who is unduly harsh with Amy's autistic younger brother, Amy is less than thrilled about going to camp. At Takawanda she is subjected to a humiliating "initiation" and relentless bullying by the ringleader of the senior campers.

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?

Eleven-year-old Leo is an "armchair adventurer." This, according to Dad, means he'd choose adventures in books or video games over real-life experiences. And while Leo hates the label, he can’t argue with it. Unlike his little sister Lizzie, Leo is not a risk-taker.

James and Alex have barely anything in common anymore - least of all their experiences in high school, where James is a popular senior and Alex is suddenly an outcast. But at home, there is Henry, the precocious 10-year-old across the street, who eagerly befriends them both. And when Alex takes up running, there is James’s friend Nathen, who unites the brothers in moving and unexpected ways.

Thirteen is when a Beaumont’s savvy hits - and with one brother who causes hurricanes and another who creates electricity, Mibs Beaumont is eager to see what she gets. But just before the big day, Poppa is in a terrible accident. And now, all Mibs wants is a savvy that will save him. In fact, Mibs is so sure she’ll get a powerful savvy that she sneaks a ride to the hospital on a rickety bus with her sibling and the preacher’s kids in tow. After this extraordinary adventure - full of talking tattoos and a kidnapping - not a soul on board will ever be the same.

At 15, Tex is spirited as a wild mustang and good-natured as a pup. He and his 17-year-old brother Mason have been on their own since Pop left for the summer rodeo tour. Come October, the money has run out and still no Pop. None of this bothers Tex much - until Mason sells Tex's horse to pay the bills. After that things turn sour between the brothers. Tex is constantly getting into trouble, but he resents Mace acting like a parent. Friends like Johnny and his gorgeous sister Jamie help Tex forget his problems.

When Willa's upside-down magic rains, it pours. Clouds form under ceilings. Classrooms get flooded. Umbrellas must always be nearby, just in case Willa has an outburst. Willa hates being the source of such sogginess. Even worse, the more she rains, the worse she feels.... and the worse she feels, the more she rains. All the storminess is threatening to drown her good grades and flood all her friendships. Is there any way to use magic to make the clouds disappear? Or is the storm of the century on its way?

Cassel comes from a family of curse workers people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they'e all criminals. Many become mobsters and con artists. But not Cassel. He hasn't got magic, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail - he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago

It’s 1936, in Flint Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud’s got a few things going for him. 1. He has his own suitcase full of special things. 2. He’s the author of Bud Caldwell’s Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. 3. His momma never told him who his father was, but she left a clue: flyers advertising Herman E. Calloway and his famous band, the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!! Bud’s got an idea that those flyers will lead him to his father.

Everyone knows Alice slept with two guys at one party. When Healy High star quarterback Brandon Fitzsimmons dies in a car crash, it was because he was sexting with Alice. Ask anybody. Rumor has it Alice Franklin is a slut. It's written all over the "slut stall" in the girls' bathroom: "Alice had sex in exchange for math test answers" and "Alice got an abortion last semester." After Brandon dies, the rumors start to spiral out of control.

What begins with a sense that Michael's deceased grandfather might be inhabiting his body soon escalates to "slipping" into to the river of the dead. When Michael slips, he relives moments of his grandfather's life and tries to help him find peace. But each time he ventures into the river it's harder to come out again. Michael will have to depend on an unlikely group of friends to keep him from slipping... permanently. A penetrating twist on the classic ghost story, full of humor and insight about family relationships.

As the Civil War swirls closer to her home in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, 13-year-old India Moody is tutored by a young scholar who sparks her interest in biology, chemistry, and college. But when India's father goes missing, she searches for him on the ghastly Antietam battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland.

Two boys and an old man survive a harrowing waterfall accident to find themselves stranded in the remote Mackenzie Mountains of northern Canada. Fifteen-year-olds Gabe and Raymond have the same birthday, but come from vastly different cultures. Gabe was raised by his grandparents in the Texas hill country, and Raymond is from a native village in the Northwest Territories. The old man is Johnny Raven, Raymond’s great uncle. Luckily for the boys, he’s a traditional Dihnay Indian who knows the old ways of winter survival.

Blown helplessly off course by a sudden gale, 14-year-old Andy Galloway is washed ashore on Admiralty Island, an immense wilderness known as the "Fortress of the Bears". As he struggles to survive, Andy discovers an unlikely ally in a large dog running with a pack of wolves. The dog leads Andy to food: but also to the strange cave of a mysterious, and almost certainly dangerous, hermit.

Since emigrating from Bangladesh, 14-year-old Nadira and her family have been living in New York City on expired visas, hoping to realize their dream of becoming legal U.S. citizens. But after 9/11, everything changes. Suddenly being Muslim means you are dangerous - a suspected terrorist. When Nadira's father is arrested and detained at the U.S.-Canadian border, Nadira and her older sister, Aisha, are told to carry on as if everything is the same. The teachers at Flushing High don't ask any questions, but Aisha falls apart....

Remy always knows the perfect time to give a boyfriend "The Speech" telling him it's over - after the initial romantic whirl, but before the reality of an actual relationship hits. Her friends tease that her boyfriend tally is nearing the triple digit mark, but she's a girl who knows just how to avoid any messy emotional entanglement. After all, she's had the example of her five-times-married mother to show her what not to do.So what, then, is it about Dexter that makes it so hard for her to follow her own rules?