Difficult Adult Children

What did you hear? Kimberly Landis-Lilley and Teddy Lin are over. Yes, the Kim and Teddy broke up. At least that's what Phil Spooner thinks he overheard and then told Jess Howard, Kim's best friend. Something about Teddy not liking Kim's Instas? Or was it that Teddy is moving to Italy and didn't want to do long distance? Or that Kim slid into someone else's DMs? Jess told her boyfriend, Elvis, that he needs to be on Kim's side. Especially if he wants to keep her as his girlfriend. But Elvis is also Teddy's best friend. Now, Kim's run out of school for the day. Jess is furious.

How can I hold myself together, when everything around me is falling apart? Neena's always been a good girl - great grades, parent-approved friends and absolutely no boyfriends. But ever since her brother Akash left her, she's been slowly falling apart - and uncovering a new version of herself who is altogether more dangerous. As her wild behaviour spirals more and more out of control, Neena's grip on her sanity begins to weaken too.

Child genius Becky Bexley helps to organise a lot of fun at the university she studies at, including a humorous game in front of an audience for charity. She also turns out to have a talent for stand-up comedy, surprising perhaps, since she's only about eleven. Alcohol comes up for discussion one day as students talk about embarrassing things they did while drunk and the harmful effects of alcohol on the body, while Becky mostly listens in.

When Chloe falls asleep in study hall, it is the middle of May. When she wakes up, snow is on the ground and she can't remember the last six months of her life. Before, she'd been a mediocre student. Now she's on track for valedictorian and is being recruited by Ivy League schools. Before, she never had a chance with super jock Blake. Now he's her boyfriend. Before, she and Maggie were inseparable. Now her best friend won't speak to her. What happened to Chloe? Remembering the truth could be more dangerous than she knows…

Ever since Dusty's mom died, life has been rough. Dusty's dad is remote and angry, and a car accident has permanently injured Dusty's back. No matter how much support her classmates in high school offer, nothing can bring back the happy family life she remembers.

Josh Flagsmith is a brave, epileptic pirate boy. Born with visionary powers, Josh is chosen as the Pirate Guardian, and entrusted with the onyx Stone of Truth, which he uses to control his epilepsy. But when a cruel colonist dictator seizes power and throws Josh’s parents in prison, Josh has to escape and sail to the island of Amaryllis to seek aid from the Pirate Council. Helped by his friends, Sandy and Megs, and the dictator’s cunning stepdaughter, Lavinia, Josh must find a way to rescue his parents and overthrow the evil dictator.

Everyone says 14-year-old Billie is nothing but trouble. A fighter. A danger to her family and friends. But her care worker sees someone different. Her classmate Rob is big, strong; he can take care of himself and his brother. But his violent stepdad sees someone to humiliate. And Chris is struggling at school; he just doesn't want to be there. But his dad sees a useless no-hoper. Billie, Rob and Chris each have a story to tell. But there are two sides to every story, and the question is... who do you believe?

For a quarter century in more than ninety countries, Habitat for Humanity has built homes with and for the people who are most in need of them, aided by more than a million volunteers - two of the most devoted of whom are former president Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn.

Sixteen-year-old Samar - aka Sam - is an Indian American teenager whose mom has kept her away from her old-fashioned family. It’s never bothered Sam, who is busy with school, friends, and a demanding boyfriend. But things change after 9/11. A guy in a turban shows up at Sam’s house - and turns out to be her uncle.

To get away from his chaotic, often violent parents, 17-year-old Jesse has moved into an apartment with his brother. They are both taking community college courses in Fresno. But to pay for them, they must take whatever jobs they can find, even backbreaking field work. The path to a good education isn't going to be an easy one for these two young Mexican-Americans. As Jesse absorbs information in his classes, he learns harsher lessons from the people around him.

In an attempt to lose weight, Izzie tries everything: one diet after another, a punishing exercise program and every bit of conflicting advice everyone can give her. Her constant worrying about her weight causes her to lose her confidence, and she stops appreciating the things in her life that are special - her supportive friends, the fact that she has been selected for a TV teen panel and a cute boy at the TV studio who seems to appreciate her just the way she is.

High school sophomore Adam Zeigler, who lost his father to a sudden accident two years ago, thinks the best way to live life is behind the spotlight. As a member of the theater crew, he believes he's achieved it all when he wins the coveted job of spotlight operator. But that was before a young actress, Summer, appeared in his view. Instantly smitten, Adam is determined to win her over. But to do so, he'll have to defy his best friend and break the golden rule of his school: techies and actors don't mix.

Meg Rosoff counts the Michael L. Printz Award, the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, and a Carnegie Medal among her impressive accolades. Praised as a cheeky and subversive fantasy fable by Horn Book, There Is No Dog explores the question "What if God were a teenage boy?" Bob created the heavens and all the creatures on land and sea, but every time he falls in love, natural disasters on Earth follow. So imagine his dismay when he falls harder than ever for an irresistible girl named Lucy.

Ro thinks her family is totally unlike anyone else's; Jodie is afraid of herself. So they spend a long time stepping carefully around the truth, hiding secrets that they know are too terrible to reveal. These shadows from the past just won't go away and in a hostile society Ro and Jodie end up with only each other - and that grab bag of feelings that go to make up a friend: love, hate, guilt, and forgiveness.

In the remarkable, bizarre, and heart-wrenching summer before Cullen Witter’s senior year of high school, he is forced to examine everything he thinks he understands about his small and painfully dull Arkansas town. His cousin overdoses; his town becomes absurdly obsessed with the alleged reappearance of an extinct woodpecker; and most troubling of all, his sensitive, gifted fifteen-year-old brother, Gabriel, suddenly and inexplicably disappears.

"What's Happened to Me?": Sarah finds herself in a strange place, and she can recall only one thing - her name. A young man, Heath de Charon, explains to Sarah that he found her unconscious on the grounds of his family's estate and has been caring for her. "When the Clock Chimes": Drake Iverson lands a summer job on Sandstone Mountain. There are no computers; he has to do all the work by hand in a large leather-bound book. He doesn't mind, as long as he can be near Gina, who is pretty and kind. "The Mysteries of Chance": Dylan Sorenson offers his help to a girl who seems to be in distress.

Celia Door enters her freshman year of high school with giant boots, dark eyeliner, and a thirst for revenge against Sandy Firestone, the girl who did something unspeakable to Celia last year. But then Celia meets Drake, the cool new kid from New York City who entrusts her with his deepest, darkest secret. When Celia's quest for justice threatens her relationship with Drake, she's forced to decide which is sweeter: revenge or friendship.

It’s April 1913, and survivors of the RMS Titanic have gathered to remember those who didn’t make it onto the lifeboats. Debutante Elizabeth Farr, who had been in first class, lost her father. Steerage passenger Katie Hanrahan nearly lost her life. Still, neither of them wants to be at the remembrance service. All they really want to do is forget. A year after that awful night, Elizabeth still feels the chill of the frigid arctic air, and Katie can’t sleep because of nightmares of being trapped belowdecks, waiting for death.

From the best-selling author of What the Birds See comes a brilliantly told suspense novel. As life slips away, Gabriel looks back over his brief 20 years that have been clouded by frustration and humiliation. A small town and distant parents ensure that he is never allowed to forget the horrific mistake he made as a child. He has only two friends, his dog Surrender, and the unruly wild boy Finnigan, with whom he made a boyhood pact.

In this poignant, perceptive, witty novel, Gary D. Schmidt brings authenticity and emotion to multiple plot strands, weaving in themes of grief, loss, redemption, achievement, and love. Following the death of her closest friend in summer 1968, Meryl Lee Kowalski goes off to St. Elene's Preparatory Academy for Girls, where she struggles to navigate the venerable boarding school's traditions and a social structure heavily weighted toward students from wealthy backgrounds.