Difficult Family

Lewis "Shoe" Blake is used to the joys and difficulties of life on the Tuscarora Indian reservation in 1975: the joking, the Fireball games, the snow blowing through his roof. What he's not used to is white people being nice to him - people like George Haddonfield, whose family recently moved to town with the Air Force. As the boys connect through their mutual passion for music, especially the Beatles, Lewis has to lie more and more to hide the reality of his family's poverty from George.

It Had to Be You unveils the secrets behind the hot and sultry summer that a love triangle begins, why Serena really fled for boarding school, and how the legendary Gossip Girl column began.The prequel will undo some of the myths created in the eleven previous novels, so don't believe everything you've read thus far. After all, this is Gossip Girl.

As your self-absorbed parent grows older and becomes more dependent on you, hurtful relationships may resurface and become further strained. In the tradition of Children of the Self-Absorbed, author Nina Brown offers the first book for adult children of aging narcissistic or self-absorbed parents. You will learn practical, powerful strategies for navigating the intense negative feelings that your parents can incite as well as tips to protect your children from the criticism, blame, or hostility that may exist between you and their grandparent.

In divorce and co-parenting, not only do parents need to deal with their own emotions, they may be faced with a daily barrage of hostile calls, texts, social media blasts, and/or emails. How can you regain a sense of control and peace for your own sake and for the kids? For more than a decade, the BIFF method of responding to hostile and misinforming conversation has been used by thousands of people. This book can help you reduce conflict and regain your sanity by teaching what to write, and what to ignore.

When Brittany Ellis walks into chemistry class on the first day of senior year, she has no clue that her carefully created perfect life is about to unravel before her eyes. She's forced to be lab partners with Alex Fuentes, a gang member from the other side of town, and he is about to threaten everything she's worked so hard for her flawless reputation, her relationship with her boyfriend, and the secret that her home life is anything but perfect.

Join Ann Brashares' beloved sisterhood once again in a dazzling, fearless novel. It's a summer that will forever change the lives of Lena, Carmen, Bee, and Tibby, here and now, past and future, together and apart.

John Conlan is nicknamed “The Bathroom Bomber” after setting off firecrackers in the boys’ bathroom 23 times without getting caught. John and his best friend, Lorraine, can never please their parents, and school is a chore. To pass the time, they play pranks on unsuspecting people, and it's during one of these pranks that they meet the “Pigman”. In spite of themselves, John and Lorraine soon get caught up in Mr. Pignati’s zest for life. In fact, they become so involved that they begin to destroy the only corner of the world that has ever mattered to them. Can they stop before it’s too late?

Elsie Dinsmore is an endearing 8-year-old girl with several bewildering problems. She has never known her mother, who died when Elsie was a baby, and she longs for a close, loving relationship with her father. He, however, has sent her off to be raised at Roselands, his brother's Southern plantation, where her teacher, Miss Day, harshly criticizes her and her cousins tease her relentlessly.

A distinctive new voice: Rex Ogle's story of starting middle school on the free lunch program is timely, heartbreaking, and true. Free Lunch is the story of Rex Ogle's first semester in sixth grade. Rex and his baby brother often went hungry, wore secondhand clothes, and were short of school supplies, and Rex was on his school's free lunch program. Grounded in the immediacy of physical hunger and the humiliation of having to announce it every day in the school lunch line, Rex's is a compelling story of a more profound hunger - that of a child for his parents' love and care.

Alisa has spent the past five thousand years as a vampire, living alone and fighting for survival. In her loneliness, Alisa cannot resist bringing Teria, a descendant of her human family, into her life. But Alisa is surrounded by death and destruction, and just by knowing Alisa, Teri's life is at risk. Alisa's guilt grows when she becomes involved in a dangerous conspiracy. A top-secret group knows Alisa's secret and will stop at nothing to use her powers for their cause.

Being the crown princess of Genovia has never been easy for Mia. And if ruling a tiny country wasn't enough, she also has to deal with a broken heart after her true love Michael breaks up with her. So her parents send her to a therapist to at least get her out of bed. And just when she thinks things couldn't get any worse, she discovers a long buried secret that could affect her family forever.

After Mia reveals a document that proclaims Genovia a Democratic Monarchy, a bitter election ensues. Mia's father is running against a cousin who is using some questionable tactics. Meanwhile, Mia's novel - written under a pen name - is getting denied just as quickly as Princess Mia Thermopolis' college applications are getting accepted. What's a princess to do?

Hunter, Autumn, and Summer - three of Kristina Snow's five children - live in different homes, with different guardians and different last names. They share only a predisposition for addiction and a host of troubled feelings toward the mother who barely knows them, a mother who has been riding with the monster, crank, for 20 years.

After the sudden collapse of her family, Mim Malone is dragged from her home in Northern Ohio to the wastelands of Mississippi, where she lives in a medicated milieu with her dad and new stepmom. Before the dust has a chance to settle, she learns her mother is sick back in Cleveland. So she ditches her new life and hops aboard a northbound Greyhound bus to her real home and her real mother, meeting a quirky cast of fellow travelers along the way.

Eleven-year-old Delphine and her younger sisters Vonetta and Fern travel to Oakland to meet their mother, Cecil, who abandoned their family years earlier. But even when Cecil gets them to her house, she shows no interest and seems to view them as nothing but a nuisance.

Summer means beach time to Christy. But her best friend, Katie, has a different idea - let's be camp counselors! Christy warms to the plan until Katie announces at the last minute that she has to back out. Christy takes on the challenge and soon finds she is bewildered and overwhelmed by her fifth-grade girls, who have boundless energy for anything except what Christy wants them to do.

Emily’s been shipped off to Iowa to live with her uber-conservative cousins. Aria’s boyfriend is behind bars—because of her. Spencer’s afraid she was involved in Ali’s murder. But Hanna’s fate is far worse: She’s clinging to life in the hospital because she knew too much.

Davey has never felt so alone in her life. Her father is dead - shot in a holdup - and now her mother is moving the family to New Mexico to try to recover. Climbing in the Los Alamos canyon, Davey meets the mysterious Wolf, who can read Davey’s “sad eyes.” Wolf is the only person who seems to understand the rage and fear Davey feels. Slowly, with Wolf’s help, Davey realizes that she must get on with her life. But when will she be ready to leave the past behind and move toward the future? Will she ever stop hurting?

Isabel has one rule: no dating. It's easier. It's safer. It's better...for the other person. She's got issues. She's got secrets. She's got rheumatoid arthritis. But then she meets another sick kid. He's got a chronic illness Isabel's never heard of, something she can't even pronounce. He understands what it means to be sick. He understands her more than her healthy friends. He understands her more than her own father, who's a doctor.

Victor hates his life. He has no friends, gets beaten up at school, and his parents are always criticizing him. Tired of feeling miserable, Victor takes a bottle of his mother’s sleeping pills - only to wake up in the hospital. Bull is angry, and takes all of his rage out on Victor. That makes him feel better, at least a little. But it doesn’t stop Bull’s grandfather from getting drunk and hitting him. So Bull tries to defend himself with a loaded gun. When Victor and Bull end up as roommates in the same psych ward, there’s no way to escape each other or their problems. Which means things are going to get worse - much worse - before they get better.