Young Readers Fiction

Welcome to Whisperwood, a sprawling theme park nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, where thrilling rides and picture-perfect scenery bring cult-classic fairy tales to life. Or at least they did until eighteen months ago, when the family matriarch, Virginia Strauss, suddenly shut Whisperwood’s gates and the beloved park was left to wither away along with the family’s dwindling fortune.

Jin is a Stone Lion—one of the guardians of the Old City Gate who is charged to watch over humans and protect the Sacred Sphere. But to Jin, those boring duties feel like a waste of time. What isn’t a waste of time? Perfecting his zuqiu kick, scoring a Golden Goal, and becoming the most legendary player of all the spirit world. But when Jin’s perfect kick accidentally knocks the Sacred Sphere out through the gate, he has no choice but to run after it, tumbling out of the realm he calls home and into the human world as the gate closes behind him.

When Tai Choi leaves her home in the Zhejiang province of China, she believes she’ll be visiting her grandmother. But in truth, despite her mother’s opposition, her father has sold her to pay his gambling debts. Alone and afraid, Tai Choi is put on a ship headed for San Francisco, known among the Chinese as Gold Mountain. When she arrives, she is forced to go by the new name listed on her paper documents: Tien Fu Wu. Her new life as a servant at a gambling den is hard. And if she is to survive, Tien Fu must persevere, and learn who to trust.

In the summer of 1934, Joe Garbe arrives in Chicago with one goal: Earn enough money to get out of debt and save the family farm. Joe’s cousin sets him up with a hotel job, then proposes a sketchy scheme to make a lot more money fast. While running his con, Joe finds himself splitting time between Eddie, a handsome flirt on a delivery truck, and Raymond, a carefree rich kid who shows Joe the eye-opening queer life around every corner of the big city. Joe’s exposure to the surface of criminal Chicago pulls him into something darker than he could have imagined.

Laura has just three weeks to go before her Jewish "coming of age" ceremony, called a Bat Mitzvah, when she is assigned a special project. She is to read the diary of Sara Gittler, a young girl her own age who was imprisoned by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust. Sara never had the chance to celebrate her coming of age, so Laura is to learn about Sara's life and then share her Bat Mitzvah with her "twin" by speaking of her at the ceremony.

J and K are the most creative fifth graders at Dean Ashley Public School (DAPS). J loves to draw and his wordless stories are J-ENIUS! K loves to write and his stories are K-LASSIC!! Both J and K are determined to win the DAPS annual creative storytelling contest or at least get in the top five. And when they find out that they are both entering The Contest, it's the beginning of one of the most intense rivalries the world has ever seen.

One guards a secret that governs your life, Painful and sharp like the cut of a knife. Two of your number are not who they seem. Two steal away as the dawn robs a dream. One will abandon the cause near the end. One has judged right between villain and friend. Five will be gone ere the struggle is done, ’Til one friend remains, to stand with The One.

Jack has a lot of sex - and he's not ashamed of it. While he's sometimes ostracized and gossip constantly rages about his sex life, Jack always believes that "it could be worse". But then, the worse unexpectedly strikes: When Jack starts writing a teen sex-advice column for an online site, he begins to receive creepy and threatening love letters that attempt to force Jack to curb his sexuality and personality. Now, it's up to Jack and his best friends to uncover the stalker - before their love becomes dangerous.

When Caitlyn Breen enters the tiny Mitchell School in rural Mitchell, Vermont, she is a complete outsider: the seventh grade has just 10 other kids, and they've known each other since kindergarten. Her classmates are in for a shock of their own: Paulie Fink - the class clown, oddball, troublemaker, and evil genius - is gone this year.

Jack and his friends, Amelia and Xander, are in Zanzibar diving for lost treasure to support Jack's mother's coral protection project. Going further than usual on their last day, their dive boat is lured into a trap and captured by Somali pirates. Determined that his mother shouldn't pay a ransom for their release, Jack won't give up his attempts to escape. Transferred to a militia training camp for boy soldiers, the trio's only hope is the resourceful Somali boy called Mo who befriends them.

Poppy Woodlock believes in magic, but so far, she hasn’t found any. It’s been two weeks since her parents moved their family to Oregon to undertake their biggest project yet: revitalizing the once-grand Lark-Hayes Manor. Her older brother instantly found his place, but after being thrown into middle school midyear, Poppy is feeling…invisible. So she retreats to where she’s always felt most at home: books and magic. And if the fantastic and supernatural exist, certainly they can be found in this mysterious old estate. A late-night prowl leads Poppy to a desperate water nymph.

For more than twenty years, the modern classic The Invisible String has helped hundreds of thousands of children and adults understand that they are connected to the ones they love, no matter how far apart they are. Now, the author of that bestselling phenomenon uses the same effective bonding technique to explain the very best news of all: All of our strings to one another are interconnected in The Invisible Web. "It breathes as we breathe, pulsating all over our Earth, the single heartbeat of life and love. And do you know what that makes us all? One Very Big Family!"

Gymnast Caroline Kepler has three state balance beam titles, a new trick even most elites can’t do, and undeniable chronic back pain. While she might never be an Olympian, she has dreams of leveling up to elite, making Nationals, and competing in college. But when one epic face-plant changes all that and Caroline’s back pain goes from chronic to career-ending, her dreams are shattered and her life is flipped upside down. Enter Alex Zavala, a three-sport athlete who’s both incredibly cute and incredibly off-limits.

With perfect comic pacing, Greg Pizzoli introduces us to one funny crocodile who has one big fear: swallowing a watermelon seed. What will he do when his greatest fear is realized? Will vines sprout out his ears? Will his skin turn pink? This crocodile has a wild imagination that kids will love.

Marigold "Goldie" Vance lives and works at the Crossed Palms Resort Hotel in Florida with a whole slew of characters: her dad, Art, the manager of the joint; Cheryl Lebeaux, the concierge and Goldie's best friend; and Walter Tooey, the hired hotel detective. Her mom, Sylvie, works nearby at the Mermaid Club. While life at the Crossed Palms is always busy, the resort is currently overrun with Hollywood-types filming the hottest new creature feature, and tensions are at an all-time high.

Are you ready to get swept away into a world of fantastic adventure and new discoveries? The Funny Things I Heard at the Bus Stop series of short stories for kids is the perfect book for bedtime reading, a quick after-school adventure, or any time that you want to get taken to a magical, funtabulous, amazing world of imagination that is perfect for kids aged three to one hundred and three!

In this young learners’ adaptation of his adult memoir Dear America, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and undocumented immigrant Jose Antonio Vargas tells his story, in light of the 12 million undocumented immigrants currently in the US.

Mariano Rivera never dreamed of becoming a professional athlete. He didn't grow up collecting baseball cards, playing Little League, or cheering on his home team at the World Series. He had never heard of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, or Mickey Mantle. But one day, that all changed...

Heidi is one of the best-selling books ever written and is among the best-known works of Swiss literature. This version is a delightful abridgment of the classic tale.

“Where Mangoes Fall” unfolds the captivating journey of Ama, a young girl growing up in Paraguay, the heart of South America. Ama believes in Paraguayan myths and legends. Still, when the local card reader tells her that three people will die if she searches for her friend’s missing baby, Ama has to make difficult decisions about truth and loyalty, which is even harder when she discovers secrets about her life.