Difficult Adult Children

Kids have been picking on 14-year-old Harold ever since he can remember. They stare at him and call him "maggot" or "ghost boy" because he's an albino. Even his mother seems angry and withdrawn when he's around.One day the circus comes to town, and Harold runs away to join it. When Fossil Man and Princess Minikin accept him into their family, he feels that he has at long last come home.

In this powerful middle-grade novel from the acclaimed author of Things You Can't Say, a young girl navigates the social growing pains of middle school and struggles to find her place while her older brother fights to overcome opioid addiction. When Emma starts sixth grade, things finally begin to change. She may still be in the shadow of her older brother, Austin, the popular high school quarterback, but she's made artsy new friends who get her way more than her bookish best friend, Becca. But things are changing for Austin, too.

Against the backdrop of the high-stakes and intensely competitive equestrian sport of show jumping, Finny, a fifteen-year-old girl in California, adopts an emaciated, untrained horse without her parents' knowledge. Soon after adopting Sky, Finny meets Joe, a sixteen-year-old, who has run away from his cruel uncle in Montana.

The year is 1812. A white trapper is murdered. And a young Chippewa Indian stands accused. Captured and shackled in leg irons and chains, Indian John awaits his trial in a settler's loft. In a world of crude frontier justice where evidence is often overlooked in favor of vengeance, he struggles to make sense of the white man's court. His young lawyer faces the wrath of a settlement hungry to see the Indian hang. And 13-year-old Rebecca Carver, terrified by the captive Indian right in her home, must decide for herself what - and who - is right. At stake is a life.

For the kids of the Neighborhood Watch, the final weeks of middle school are interminable. In the fall they will get to attend the Hero Academy, studying to become Just Cause superheroes. Their plans get derailed when police officers gun down an unarmed black man. Annalisa, aka La Capitána, gets video of them trying to cover up the killing.

Nyle’s life with her grandmother on their Vermont sheep farm advances rhythmically through the seasons until the night of the accident at the Cookshire nuclear power plant. Without warning, Nyle’s modest world fills with protective masks, evacuations, contaminated food, disruptions, and mistrust. Things become even more complicated when Ezra Trent and his mother, refugees from the heart of the accident, take temporary shelter in the back bedroom of Nyle’s house.

Kyle Saint-Claire is everything Jonny Fehey wishes to be: A star on the soccer field, a straight-A student, and king of Millburn High's social ladder. Jonny unhappily accepts his position on a lesser rung, until fate steps in and Jonny scores the go-ahead goal in the county soccer championships...and it looks like he will finally make it into the popular crowd. But at the victory party, a classmate is raped and Jonny's world begins to unravel.

A championship surfer, Jack Lopez accurately depicts the art of surfing in this tale described as The Outsiders for a new age.

In the Break tells the story of 15-year-old Jamie and Juan, best friends who live and breathe surfing. They don’t have a care in the world when they’re out on the water. But when an argument between Jamie and his abusive step-father comes to blows, Jamie turns to the one person who can help. Together the two (plus Jamie’s sister Amber) head for Mexico - surfboards stowed in the back.

Award-winning author and former schoolteacher Jonathan Friesen has a knack for crafting exciting stories teenagers want to read. Rush features 18-year-old Jake King, an adrenaline junkie who jumps at the chance to join an elite group of firefighters who rappel into wildfires. Known as the Immortals, these heroes have a habit of dying young. But Jake’s sort-of girlfriend thinks there’s more to the Immortals’ high death rate than bad luck.

Thirteen-year-old Olivia Hughes has always considered herself a lucky girl. She knows what she wants to do with her life - be an actress. And she’s already on her way. She just landed a national ad campaign that should get her noticed. But then her luck runs out. A little pimple turns into a full-blown case of acne, with serious side effects for her career, her relationships, and her self-esteem. Now all she wants to do is hide, but she can’t. She goes from being the girl at school who everyone wants to be...to Zitface, a girl who is teased, dumped, and even fired.

Susanna Shakespeare finds the small town of Stratford-upon-Avon much too quiet and provincial. She yearns to travel to London to see her father's world of players and poets, and to follow a secret dream of her own. Once Susanna arrives in London, nothing is quite as she expected it to be - least of all her relationship with her famous father. But propelled by her love for Thomas Cole, a Catholic chorister, and her desire to sing, Susanna discovers that it is only with the support of those who love her that she has the strength to succeed.

Continuing the story begun in Under the Blood-Red Sun, House of the Red Fish returns to Honolulu one year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Thirteen-year-old Japanese American Tomi Nakaji must struggle to support his family after the arrest of his father and grandfather.

David Dahlgren, a high-school senior, finds solace in running with the track team; he's a fast runner, and he enjoys the camaraderie. But team events become a source of tension when he develops a crush on one of his teammates, Sean. Scared to admit his feelings, David does everything he can to suppress them: he dates a girl, keeps his distance from his best friend who has become openly gay, and snaps a rubber band on his wrist every time he has "inappropriate" urges.

Uptight elfin historian Brangwain Spurge is on a mission: survive being catapulted across the mountains into goblin territory, deliver a priceless peace offering to their mysterious dark lord, and spy on the goblin kingdom - from which no elf has returned alive in more than 100 years. Brangwain's host, the goblin archivist Werfel, is delighted to show Brangwain around. They should be the best of friends, but a series of extraordinary double crosses, blunders, and cultural misunderstandings throws these two bumbling scholars into the middle of an international crisis.

Amelia Peabody lives in a small town where nothing changes. And that's just fine by her. After losing her big sister, Clara, a few years ago, Amelia can't handle any more change. But when she starts eighth grade, she accidentally receives a letter that Clara had written to herself. In it, there's a list of things she'd wanted to do before the end of middle school and never finished, like get on the softball team and throw an awesome birthday party on the lake.

Fifteen-year-old Shreve Cannon doesn't mind juvie. He's got a good business dealing contraband candy, and three meals a day are more than his drunk mother managed to provide. In juvie, the rules never change and everyone is the same. In juvie, Shreve has life figured out. Then the new fish shows up. Jack's a quiet kid. Small. Cries himself to sleep too. He's no standard-issue titty-baby, though. There's his hands - more specifically his fingers, all 12 of 'em. And when he gets angry, something weird happens.

It's Saturday night in Santa Barbara and it seems like everyone is headed to the same destination. The reason is simple: To celebrate the end of school. But for eleven different people the motives are bit more complicated - to be noticed, to hook up, to make friends, to numb the pain, to get over an ex, to say goodbye. As each character takes a turn and tells his/her story, the eleven individuals intersect, reconnect, and combine in ways that none of them ever saw coming.

High school freshman Jessica Walsh is a Virago - a woman warrior who must protect her hometown from danger. And in Nightshade, California, trouble is always lurking. At the town’s Battle of the Bands, Jess’ boyfriend, Dominic, and his band, Side Effects May Vary, are up against Hamlin, a band so popular,their fans follow them everywhere. Soon,the competing musicians are doing risky, illegal, and even fatal things - and claiming that they heard strange music that compelled them to do it. Can Jess and her friends track down the tuneful tyrant before it’s too late?

Let’s face it: Talking about race can be difficult. It’s a slippery subject, rife with as many perspectives as there are people in the world. But laughter gets us talking. It has the power to break down barriers and draw us closer together. In Open Mic, acclaimed author and speaker Mitali Perkins invites us to listen in as 10 authors for young adults - some familiar, some new - step up to the mic and share their stories about what it’s like growing up between cultures.

After three months in the suicide prevention wing of St. George's, Audrey Bales is finally coming home. Enrolled at a new school, she plans to reinvent herself with a new look, new friends, and a second chance to be just like everyone else. But the kids who drove her over the edge aren't through with her yet. And one of her new friends has an agenda all his own.