Difficult Adult Children

Close your eyes and feel your enemy's weakness. Mind over body. Mind over body. Mind over body. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Now survive. Welcome to the Murder Complex. You cannot see us. You cannot feel us. But we are here. And we control your every move.

From the moment she hears the roar of Nikolas's motorcycle, she's hooked. This new guy in town seems to understand exactly how she feels and thinks, exactly what she needs. He's someone willing to let her be what she was born to be...the wild one.

Shawn McDaniel's life is not what it may seem to anyone looking at him. He is glued to his wheelchair, unable to voluntarily move a muscle - he can't even move his eyes. For all Shawn's father knows, his son may be suffering. Shawn may want a release. And as long as he is unable to communicate his true feelings to his father, Shawn's life is in danger. To the world, Shawn's senses seem dead. Within these pages, however, we meet a side of him that no one else has seen - a spirit that is rich beyond imagining.

In the violent country of Ludania, the language you speak determines what class you are, and there are harsh punishments if you forget your place - looking a member of a higher class in the eye can result in immediate execution. Seventeen-year-old Charlaina (Charlie for short) can understand all languages, a dangerous ability she's been hiding her whole life. Her only place of release is the drug-filled underground club scene, where people go to shake off the oppressive rules of the world they live in.

The phenomenon that's been sweeping the country seems to be here to stay. Not only are the teenagers who have come back from their graves still here, but newlydeads are being unearthed all the time. While scientists look for answers and politicians take their stands, the undead population of Oakvale have banded together in a group they're calling the Sons of Romero, hoping to find solidarity in segregation.

What does it mean when the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence is your father and also your slave master? Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston are Thomas Jefferson’s children, but their mother is a slave, so they must keep their father’s identity secret. They get special treatment - better work, better shoes, even violin lessons - but they are still slaves. Their father has promised to set them all free when each turns 21. Some of them are light-skinned enough that they will be able to enter white society - and thereby turn their backs on home forever.

Ovid’s got a lot on his mind, and he pours it all into the pages of a notebook. Inspired by his namesake, he wryly records his classmates’ dramas as modern-day Roman mythology. There’s Sophie and Caleb, the Psyche and Cupid of cyber-couples; poetic Paula, who pursues filmmaker Franny like Apollo chasing Daphne; and graphic-novelist Duwayne, a Proserpina shuttling between divorced parents. Meanwhile, Ovid hides his own Olympian struggles and a disturbing secret.

New kid Jake Garrett seems to have it all figured out. He's a star athlete, he hosts the best parties, and every girl in school wants to date him. But who is Jake Garrett, really? And why has he gone to all the trouble to reinvent himself?

Gordon Korman's brilliant and intense writing and cutting edge dialogue quickly draw listeners into the adolescent struggle of popularity and acceptance.

Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: A girl named Leila. She crashes into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most. There's Hudson, a small-town mechanic who is willing to throw away his dreams for true love. And Bree, a runaway who seizes every Tuesday - and a few stolen goods along the way. Elliot believes in happy endings…until his own life goes off-script. And Sonia worries that when she lost her boyfriend, she also lost the ability to love.

The last time Lex was happy, it was before. When she had a family that was whole. A boyfriend she loved. Friends who didn't look at her like she might break down at any moment. Now she's just the girl whose brother killed himself. And it feels like that's all she'll ever be. As Lex starts to put her life back together, she tries to block out what happened the night Tyler died. But there's a secret she hasn't told anyone--a text Tyler sent that could have changed everything.

Life will never be the same for Red Porter. He's a kid growing up around black car grease, white fence paint, and the backward attitudes of the folks who live in his hometown, Rocky Gap, Virginia. Red's daddy, his idol, has just died, leaving Red and Mama with some hard decisions and a whole lot of doubt. Should they sell the Porter family business, a gas station, repair shop, and convenience store rolled into one, where the slogan - "Porter's: We Fix it Right!" - has been shouting the family's pride for as long as anyone can remember?

Sonny Ardmore is an excellent liar. She lies about her dad being in prison. She lies about her mom kicking her out. And she lies about sneaking into her best friend's house every night because she has nowhere else to go. Amy Rush might be the only person Sonny shares everything with - secrets, clothes, even a nemesis named Ryder Cross.

Mma lives and works in Johannesburg, far from the village 13-year-old Naledi and her younger brother, Tiro, call home. When their baby sister suddenly becomes very sick, Naledi and Tiro know that they need to bring their mother back in order to save their sister’s life. Bravely, secretly, they set off on the long journey to the big city to find Mma. It isn’t until they finally reach Jo’burg that they see up close what life is like for black citizens across South Africa — and begin to really question the unfair and dangerous laws of apartheid.

Best-selling author Georgia Bragg delights young people with her quirky characters and unique subject matter. How They Croaked provides all the gory details of the awful ends of 19 awfully famous people. It details Ludwig Van Beethoven’s expansive finale, Henry VII’s explosive end, Albert Einstein’s great brain escape, and Marie Curie’s glowing demise.

Ethan was abducted from his front yard when he was just seven years old. Now, at 16, he has returned to his family. It’s a miracle… at first. Then the tensions start to build. His reintroduction to his old life isn’t going smoothly, and his family is tearing apart all over again. If only Ethan could remember something, anything, about his life before, he’d be able to put the pieces back together....

Ruby Oliver is 15 and has a shrink. She knows it’s unusual, but give her a break—she’s had a rough 10 days.

Jessie Bollier often played his fife to earn a few pennies down by the New Orleans docks. One afternoon a sailor asked him to pipe a tune, and that evening Jessie was kidnapped and dumped aboard The Moonlight, a slave ship, where a hateful duty awaited him. He was to play music so the slaves could "dance" to keep their muscles strong, their bodies profitable. Jessie was sickened by the thought of taking part in the business of trading rum and tobacco for blacks and then selling the ones who survived the frightful sea voyage from Africa.

Join Merry Hanson, a very modern 16-year-old living in Pennsylvania's Amish country, as she faces the true-to-life struggles and heartfelt triumphs of growing up to be the best she can be in God's eyes. Can Merry count on her friends to understand as she at last attempts to come to grips with a years-old tragedy?

To 10-year-old Jamie, his family has fallen apart because of the loss of someone he barely remembers: his sister Rose, who died five years ago in a terrorist bombing. To his father, life is impossible to make sense of when he lives in a world that could so cruelly take away a 10-year-old girl. To Rose's surviving 15-year-old twin, Jas, every day she lives in Rose's ever-present shadow, forever feeling the loss like a limb, but unable to be seen for herself alone.

Out walking alone one rainy night, Lucy becomes convinced that someone - or something - is following her. Spooked, she ducks into a cemetery to try and lose her stalker. Panicking in the darkness, she slips and stumbles into an open grave - only to discover she is not alone in there…. Lucy manages to escape, but she doesn't get away unscathed. She begins having terrifying visions and dreams - and she still can't shake the feeling of an unseen presence, always watching, waiting…. Who was the girl in the grave? And what has she done to Lucy?