Young Readers Fiction

A heartwarming story of a stray dog and a US marine who met under the unlikeliest circumstances in Afghanistan - and who changed each other's lives forever.

Eleven-year-old Simon Barnes dreams of becoming a world-famous rapper that everyone calls Notorious D.O.G. But for now, he's just a Chicago fifth grader who's small for his age and afraid to use his voice. Simon prefers to lay low at school and at home, even though he's constantly spitting rhymes in his head. But when his new teacher assigns the class an oral presentation on something that affects their community, Simon must face his fears.

Bob Odenkirk began writing these poems with his children when they were little, compiling the poetry into a homemade book entitled Olde Time Rhymes. He wanted Nate and Erin to understand that actual people had written the books the family loved to read and to instill in them the feeling that they could be writers and illustrators themselves.

Sixth book in the Arthur series - Arthur's Cars, Trucks and Monster Machines.

Sixteen-year-old Maya Krishnan is fiercely protective of her friends, immigrant community, and single mother, but she knows better than to rock the boat in her conservative Florida suburb. Her classmate Juneau Zale is the polar opposite: she’s a wealthy white heartbreaker who won’t think twice before capsizing that boat. When Juneau invites Maya to join the Pugilists—a secret society of artists, vandals, and mischief-makers who fight for justice at their school—Maya descends into the world of change-making and resistance.

Hunted, shot, and without her memory, 18-year-old Ann Baker wakes in shallow water on a deserted Pacific Northwest island. She is soon approached by two young men claiming to be her friends. Something isn't right, but when gunshots sound, Ann is left with little choice but to allow Devon and Archer to help her escape. Soon she finds herself in their North Bend mountain compound, where the higher evolved humans claim to be mind-readers.

Nobel Peace Prize winner and New York Times best-selling author Malala Yousafzai introduces some of the people behind the statistics and news stories we read or hear every day about the millions of people displaced worldwide.

Safiya Mirza dreams of becoming a journalist. And one thing she’s learned as editor of her school newspaper is that a journalist’s job is to find the facts and not let personal biases affect the story. But all that changes the day she finds the body of a murdered boy. Jawad Ali was fourteen years old when he built a cosplay jetpack that a teacher mistook for a bomb. A jetpack that got him arrested, labeled a terrorist—and eventually killed. But he’s more than a dead body, and more than “Bomb Boy.” He was a person with a life worth remembering.

Abby Wambach has always pushed the limits of what is possible. Named by Time magazine as one of the most influential people of 2015, the iconic soccer player captured the nation's heart when she led her team to its recent World Cup championship. Admired for her fearlessness and passion, Abby is a vocal advocate for women's rights and equal opportunity, pushing to translate the success of her team to the real world.

Mateo Garcia and his younger sister, Sophie, have been taught to fear one word for as long as they can remember: deportation. Over the past few years, however, the fear that their undocumented immigrant parents could be sent back to Mexico has started to fade. Ma and Pa have been in the United States for so long, they have American-born children, and they're hard workers and good neighbors. When Mateo returns from school one day to find that his parents have been taken by ICE, he realizes that his family's worst nightmare has become a reality.

Shania never thinks much about being White. But after her beloved grandmother passes, she moves to the gentrifying town of Blue Rock and is thrust into Bard, the city's wealthiest private school. At Bard, race is both invisible and hypervisible, and Shania's new friends are split on what they see. There's Catherine, the school's queen bee, who unexpectedly takes Shania under her wing. Then there's Prescott, the golden boy who seems perfect...except for the disturbing rumors about an altercation he had with a Black student who left the school.

Seventeen-year-old Helena “Nell” Cusack came to New York this summer looking for a story—a real story. She dreams of one day writing hard-hitting articles for the New York Chronicle, but so far she's only managed to land a job as a lowly society reporter. That is, until Alice Austen strolls into her life, an audacious street photographer who encourages Nell to shake up polite society…and maybe also take a chance on love.

"The Reluctant Dragon" is an 1898 children's story by Kenneth Grahame, originally published as a chapter in his book Dream Days. It is Grahame's most famous short story, arguably better known than Dream Days itself or the related The Golden Age. It can be seen as a prototype to most modern stories in which the dragon is a sympathetic character rather than a threat.

A new entry in the superb, visually striking, and innovative series for young people. Children, parents, librarians, educators, and critics will all be delighted to have another engrossing retelling of one of Shakespeare's plays. A young woman's elopement with a dark-skinned foreigner. An evil manipulator, dead set on bloody revenge. A noble warrior, fatally consumed by jealousy. Shakespeare's play about the Moor who "loved not wisely but too well," comes to life in this intensely thrilling retelling.

Written by an outstanding scholar in simple, eloquent language, this wonderfully contemporary retelling will draw youngsters in with superb dialogue, and vivid description. The skillful blending of Shakespeare's own lines with modern language enhances children's involvement and comprehension. There's background on Shakespeare and the play; answers to FAQs such as "Isn't Juliet too young to be married?" and a "Who's Who" of the characters. Young Reader's Shakespeare is a powerful visual and reading experience.

On an island at the edge of a wide, wild sea, a girl and her grandmother gather gifts from the earth. Salmon from the stream, herring eggs from the ocean, and in the forest, a world of berries. Through the seasons, they sing to the land as the land sings to them. Brimming with joy and gratitude, in every step of their journey, they forge a deeper kinship with both the earth and the generations that came before, joining in the song that connects us all.

For Rebecca Chin, babysitting has always been fun. But one night, a thunderstorm knocks the power out while she’s watching baby Kyle, and creepy things begin to happen in the house. A locked window opens by itself, mossy handprints streak the wall, and the baby begins acting strange. When she finds out that no one else in town was affected by the storm, Rebecca begins to wonder if something supernatural is going on. Fellow sitters Tanya, Clio, and Maggie help Rebecca unravel the mystery, only to discover something unbelievable.

When Faiza, a Muslim migrant girl from northern Ghana, and Abena, a wealthy doctor’s daughter from the south, meet by chance in Accra’s largest market, where Faiza works as a porter or kaya girl, they strike up an unlikely and powerful friendship that transcends their social inequities and opens up new worlds to them both. Set against a backdrop of class disparity in Ghana, The Kaya Girl has shades of The Kite Runner in its unlikely friendship, and of Slumdog Millionaire as Faiza’s life takes unlikely turns that propel her thrillingly forward.

Ultramarathons. Bike sprints. Squats and deadlifts. Naps. Kitchen dance parties! All of it is in preparation for meeting Pequeno, the “Little One” growing in this strong mama’s belly. From first heartbeats and fluttery kicks to grinning grandparents and that first loud cry - pregnancy might just be the biggest workout yet! But there's nothing this mom and new baby can't tackle together as a team.

After bouncing around in foster homes for most of her childhood, 17-year-old Tessa Jacobs doesn’t believe she deserves love. But everything changes when she has a chance encounter with Skylar, a senior from a neighboring town who’s a true romantic. Their budding relationship quickly leads to the kind of passion you only see in the movies. As her heart begins to open, Tessa starts to believe she might be deserving of love after all. When tragedy strikes, Tessa wakes up alone in a hospital room with no memory of how she got there.