Difficult Adult Children

At 7:45 a.m. on the day before Thanksgiving break, a bomb goes off at Edison High. Nine people die instantly. Fifteen are critically injured. Twenty-two suffer less severe injuries. And one is blinded. Those who survive, struggle to cope with the loss and destruction. All must find new meaning for their lives as a result of something they may never understand. Lurlene McDaniel's signature expertise and finesse in dealing with issues of violence, death, and physical - as well as emotional - trauma in the lives of teens is immediate and heartrending.

One bright spring morning in the woods of France, a soldier, blinded by the war, is found by a little girl named Coco, and her older sister Marcelle. In return for their kindness, the soldier tells the sisters marvelous tales, each story connected to the keepsake he carries in his pocket: a perfect, tiny, silver donkey.

Dani was born with her heart on the wrong side of her body. In her 15 years of life, she’s had more doctor’s appointments, X-rays, and tests, and eaten more green hospital Jell-O than she cares to think about. Fourteen-year-old Amanda is a competitive gymnast, her body a small package of sleek muscles, in perfect health. The two girls don’t know each other, don’t go to the same school, don’t have any friends in common. But their lives are about to collide. Acclaimed author Jill Wolfson tackles this fascinating story with her trademark honesty and wit.

This emotionally charged title explores loss, love, renewal, and the ways in which these complex bonds within families and between friends are tested at life's most challenging moments. Elowyn Eden and Kassey Messechek are best friends. They share every aspect of their lives. But one thing Elowyn has not yet shared with Kassey is that she checked the organ donor box on her newly acquired driver's license. Kassey only learns of this in a startling and devastating way - when Elowyn's life-giving donor wishes are about to be honored.

Francis Joseph Cassavant is eighteen. He has just returned home from the Second World War, and he has no face. He does have a gun and a mission: to murder his childhood hero. Francis lost most of his face when he fell on a grenade in France. He received the Silver Star for bravery, but was it really an act of heroism? Now, having survived, he is looking for a man he once admired and respected, a man adored by many people, a man who also received a Silver Star for bravery. A man who destroyed Francis's life.

At a young age, Lil J. Skin started stealing pain pills from his mom whenever he started to feel stressed - but now he's graduated to the big leagues. After Lil J. partners with a pusher named Rico on a sweet deal, events take a shocking turn when the buyer - an undercover police officer - is shot and Lil J. winds up wounded and hiding in a crack house.

Sawyer Dodd is a star athlete, a straight-A student, and the envy of every other girl who wants to date Kevin Anderson. When Kevin dies in a tragic car crash, Sawyer is stunned. Then she opens her locker to find a note: "You're welcome".

Charlie Lawson's only summer excitement in small-town Wisconsin came from kicking butt in video games, where he's the undisputed Total Turbo champ. Now it's time to go back to middle school, where nine long months of boredom await. But then Charlie stumbles onto something big happening inside the abandoned warehouse across the street from his house. Specifically, someone big. He befriends Bruce, a 20-foot-tall teenage giant whom Charlie must keep a secret.

What do you do with your last day on Earth? There are 27 hours and 15 minutes left until a meteor strikes North America, and for Emerson and everyone else who didn't leave, the world will end. But Emerson's world already ended when she ran away from home last year. Since then she has lived on the streets, relying on her wits and her friend, Vince, to help her find places to sleep and food to eat.

When Jason Milwaukee's best friend Sunshine vanishes, Jason knows that something is terribly wrong, but solving her disappearance will require pushing through all the voices in his head and then getting the world to listen to him. His schizophrenia is stopping him from remembering the events leading up to her disappearance, and often he discounts his own memories, and his own impressions. But his deep knowledge that he would never hurt his friend, plus the faith of his parents and a few others in the town bring him to the point of solving the mystery.

Georgie Burgess has known only neglect and abuse during his seven and a half years of life. His alcoholic mother does little to prevent the bruises and scars inflicted on Georgie by her brutal boyfriend. With each blow, the little boy withdraws further into his dreams. When he wins a small rose bush in a lottery, it seems as if one of his dreams has finally come true. But after a particularly savage beating, he is taken from his mother and placed in a home for boys.

Spending Christmas vacation on a cruise with her two cousins from hell isn't Holly's idea of a good time. And when, in a moment of seasick-fueled desperation, she lurches into an open suite - she's greeted with an eyeful of pepper spray. The culprit? A gorgeous guy calling himself Nick. But when Holly goes to make her exit, she gets the shock of her life: a corridor crammed with screaming teenage fans. Because Nick just happens to be Dominic Wyatt, drummer for ReadySet - one of the hottest bands in America.

When Maisie gets into a terrible accident, her face is partially destroyed. She's lucky enough to get a face transplant - but how do you live your life when you can't even recognize yourself anymore? She was a runner, a girlfriend, a good student...a normal girl. Now all that has changed. As Maisie discovers how much her looks did - and didn't - shape her relationship to the world, she has to redefine her own identity and figure out what "lucky" really means.

Felton Reinstein has never been good with stress. Which is why he's seriously freaking out. Revealing his college choice on national TV? It's a heart attack waiting to happen. Deciding on a major for the next four years of his life? Ridiculous. He barely even knows who he is outside of football. And so...he embarks on The Epic Quest to Be Meaningful.

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.

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.

Carson Mastick is entering his senior year of high school and desperate to make his mark, on the reservation and off. A rock band - and winning the local Battle of the Bands, with its first prize of a trip to New York City - is his best shot. But things keep getting in the way. Small matters like the lack of an actual band, or the fact that his brother just got shot confronting the racist owner of a local restaurant.

Taylor Markham is now a senior at the Jellicoe School, and has been made leader of the boarders. She is responsible for keeping the upper hand in the territory wars with the townies, and the cadets who camp on the edge of the school's property over summer. She has to keep her students safe and the territories enforced and to deal with Jonah Griggs - the leader of the cadets and someone she'd rather forget. But what she needs to do, more than anything, is unravel the mystery of her past and find her mother.

Everyone knows that Chelsea Knot can't keep a secret.... Until now. Because the last secret she shared turned her into a social outcast - and nearly got someone killed. Now Chelsea has taken a vow of silence - to learn to keep her mouth shut, and to stop hurting anyone else. And if she thinks keeping secrets is hard, not speaking up when she's ignored, ridiculed and even attacked is worse. But there's strength in silence, and in the new friends who are, shockingly, coming her way - people she never noticed before; a boy she might even fall for. If only her new friends can forgive what she's done.