Difficult Adult Children

First came the storms. Then came the Fever. And the Wall. After a string of devastating hurricanes and a severe outbreak of Delta Fever, the Gulf Coast has been quarantined. Years later, residents of the Outer States are under the assumption that life in the Delta is all but extinct...but in reality, a new primitive society has been born. Fen de la Guerre is living with the O-positive blood tribe in the Delta when they are ambushed. Left with her tribe leader's newborn, Fen is determined to get the baby to a better life over the wall before her blood becomes tainted.

In the blink of an eye, everyone disappears. Gone. Except for the young. There are teens, but not one single adult. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no Internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what's happened. Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents - unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers - that grow stronger by the day. It's a terrifying new world.

As soon as Seneca Frazier sees the post on the Case Not Closed website about Helena Kelly, she's hooked. Helena's high-profile disappearance five years earlier is the one that originally got Seneca addicted to true crime. It's the reason she's a member of the site in the first place. So when Maddy Wright, her best friend from the CNC site, invites Seneca to spend spring break in Connecticut looking into the cold case, she immediately packs her bag.

Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has purely obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can't turn off. Second-guessing every move, thought, and word makes daily life a struggle, and it doesn't help that her lifelong friends will turn toxic at the first sign of a wrong outfit, wrong lunch, or wrong crush.

Teens control the fate of America in the fourth and final book in the New York Times best-selling Unwind dystology by Neal Shusterman. Proactive Citizenry, the company that created Cam from the parts of unwound teens, has a plan: to mass produce rewound teens like Cam for military purposes. And below the surface of that horror lies another shocking level of intrigue: Proactive Citizenry has been suppressing technology that could make unwinding completely unnecessary.

Award-winning educator and author Alan Lawrence Sitomer’s engaging young adult novels have been named among the ALA’s Best Books of the Year. This first tale in his planned Nerd Girls series follows 13-year-old self-proclaimed “dorkasaurus” Maureen and her fellow social outcasts Alice and Barbara. When Maureen discovers that the Pretty, Popular, Perfect girls are planning a mean trick on Alice, she decides it’s finally time to take a stand. Signing up to compete against the ThreePees in a talent show, Maureen plans her revenge.

When 17-year-old Iranian American Kamran Smith learns that his brother has been labeled a terrorist, he knows something isn't right. In a race against time, it is up to Kamran to prove his brother's innocence, even as the country has turned against him and his family. With the help of a ragtag team of underground intelligence professionals, Kamran must piece together the clues and the codes that will save his brother's life - and save his country from possibly the largest terrorist attack since 9/11.

Michael usually concerns himself with basketball and hanging out with his friends, but every once in a while, his parents drag him to meetings and rallies with their anti-immigrant group. And it all makes sense to Michael. Until Mina, a beautiful girl from the other side of the protest lines, shows up at his school and turns out to be funny, smart - and a Muslim refugee from Afghanistan. Suddenly his parents' politics seem much more complicated.

Kristina Georgia Snow is the perfect daughter: gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble. But on a trip to visit her absentee father, she meets a boy who introduces her to crank. At first she finds it freeing, but soon Kristina's personality disappears inside the drug. What began as a wild, ecstatic ride turns into a struggle through hell for her mind, her soul, and her life.

Fifteen-year-old Benny Imura lives in a world infested with zombies where, when a kid turns 15, he must get a job to continue receiving food rations. Benny has no interest in the family business of zombie killing, but figures he doesn’t have much of a choice. He’s tried out a bunch of other jobs, and hasn’t found anything he likes. But as Benny starts training with his brother, he learns things about being human that he never expected.

The story in which a 16-year-old is chosen by her government to undergo The Testing, which decides if she gets to go to The University. The University is for the country’s best and brightest teens and puts the rebuilding and future leadership of the United Commowealth in their hands. During The Testing, extreme psychological and physical trials pit them against one another to determine which teens have what it takes to become a leader.

Some children just haven't read the parenting books. The harder you try, the worse it gets. There's a hidden contract at the heart of parenting. It's the idea that if parents just get it right, their children can be made to do what they want. Manuals explain how to make it very clear to your...

Ambitious New York City teenager Craig Gilner is determined to succeed at life-which means getting into the right high school to get into the right college to get the right job. But once Craig aces his way into Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School, the pressure becomes unbearable. He stops eating and sleeping until, one night, he nearly kills himself.

A seven-year-old girl has been bludgeoned to death and buried in a pile of leaves. Although the police have no leads, they are pressured to close the case as soon as possible. So they call in a master interrogator to question 12-year-old Jason, the victim's friend and the last person to see her alive. Although Jason is innocent, he is shy, insecure, and wants to give answers that will satisfy everyone.

Thanks to Connor, Lev, and Risa—and their high-profile revolt at Happy Jack Harvest Camp—people can no longer turn a blind eye to unwinding. Ridding society of troublesome teens while simultaneously providing much-needed tissues for transplant might be convenient, but its morality has finally been brought into question. However, unwinding has become big business, and there are powerful political and corporate interests that want to see it not only continue, but also expand.

Sixteen-year-old Lexi Stevens has never been kissed - never even been asked on a date. So when she humiliates herself in front of her crush and her brother's best friend offers to be her fake boyfriend for the week to make him jealous, she doesn't know if it's the stupidest idea ever or a dream come true. Noah Taylor gets kicked out of his house by his abusive stepdad. When his new "girlfriend" discovers him sleeping in his car and offers to let him sleep in her closet, he starts to wonder if he's found someone he can confide in after all.

It's been over a year since all the adults disappeared. Gone. In the time since every person over the age of 14 disappeared from the town of Perdido Beach, California, countless battles have been fought: battles against hunger and lies and plague, and epic battles of good against evil. And now, the gaiaphage has been reborn as Diana's malicious mutant daughter, Gaia. Gaia is endlessly hungry for destruction.

Connor and Lev are on the run after the destruction of the Graveyard, the last safe haven for AWOL Unwinds. But for the first time, they’re not just running away from something. This time, they’re running toward answers, in the form of a woman Proactive Citizenry has tried to erase from history itself. If they can find her, and learn why the shadowy figures behind unwinding are so afraid of her, they may discover the key to bringing down unwinding forever.

Audie Award, Middle Grade, 2016. Lost and alone in the forbidden Black Forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and suddenly finds himself entwined in a puzzling quest involving a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica. Decades later Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California each become sinterwoven when the very same harmonica lands in their lives, binding them by an invisible thread of destiny. All the children face daunting challenges: rescuing a father, protecting a brother, holding a family together.

No matter how old your child is, you’ll always be their parent. Discover how you can sustain your relationship even when you’re no longer under the same roof.