Difficult Family

Successful people confront well. They know that setting healthy boundaries improves relationships and can solve important problems. They have discovered that uncomfortable situations can be avoided or resolved through direct conversation. But most of us don't know how to have difficult conversations, and we see confrontation as scary or adversarial. Authors Henry Cloud and John Townsend take the principles from their award-winning and best-selling book, Boundaries, and apply them to a variety of the most common difficult situations and relationships.

When 13-year-old Mia finally reveals a closely-guarded secret, it soon echoes throughout her school. She was born with synesthesia, a neurological cross-wiring that lets her see sounds, taste shapes, and smell colors. To Mia, the letter A glows with faded sunflower-yellow, screeching chalk sizzles with jagged red sparks, and her cat's voice puffs with orange-mango haze. How can Mia "the alien" find acceptance and self-worth?

Nine-year-old David has recently lost his mother to a freak accident, his salesman father is constantly on the road, and he is letting his anger out on his grandmother. Sarcastic and bossy 13-year-old Primrose lives with her childlike, fortuneteller mother, and a framed picture is the only evidence of the father she never knew. Despite their differences, David and Primrose forge a tight yet tumultuous friendship.

A veces, cuando más ganas tenía de ser invisible, era cuando más gente me veía, y en cambio, cuando deseaba que todos me vieran, era cuando a mi cuerpo le daba por desaparecer.

When Sally's family moves to Miami Beach for the winter of 1947, she is excited and nervous at the same time. What will school be like in Florida? Will she make any friends? Will she fit in so far away from home?

Keir Sarafian may not know much, but he knows himself. And the one thing he knows about himself is that he is a good guy. A guy who's a devoted son and brother, a loyal friend, and a reliable teammate. And, maybe most important of all, Keir is a guy who understands that when a girl says no, she means it. But that is not what Gigi Boudakian, childhood friend and Keir's lifelong love, says at all. What Gigi says seems impossible to Keir - something inexcusable - the worst thing he can imagine, the very opposite of everything he wants to be.

High-school senior Tyler Miller used to be the kind of guy who faded into the background. But ever since he got busted for spraying graffiti on the school, and spent the summer doing outdoor work to pay for it, he stands out like you wouldn't believe. His new physique attracts the attention of queen bee Bethany Milbury, who just happens to be Tyler's secret crush. And that sets off a string of events and changes that have Tyler questioning his place in the school, in his family, and in the world.

I was 13 when my dad caught me with Tommy Webber in the back of Tommy’s Buick, parked next to the old Chart House down in Montara at 11 o’clock on a Tuesday night. Tommy was 17 and the supposed friend of my brother, Darren. I didn’t love him. I’m not sure I even liked him. In a moment, Deanna Lambert’s teenage life is changed forever. Struggling to overcome the lasting repercussions and the stifling role of “school slut”, Deanna longs to escape a life defined by her past.

Welcome to the Field Party. Where you bring the party to the field, where you dance all night, where anything goes. From number-one New York Times and USA TODAY best-selling author Abbi Glines comes the next book in this series about a small southern town filled with cute boys in pickup trucks, Friday night football games, and crazy parties that stir up some major drama.

British author Sally Nicholls presents her powerful and heart-stirring debut about Sam, an 11-year-old boy diagnosed with leukemia. Sam bravely faces the possibility that he will die, and doesn't want anybody's pity as he seeks answers to some very difficult questions about life and death. Young adults and their parents will find this poignant representation of terminal illness both profound and uplifting.

I've just had a lousy year, and this is the story of that lousy year. The beginning of it, that is. Just the beginning, actually. Twelve-year-old Lizzy Bekell is autistic. She lives with her mother and attends a special school. Her nickname is Dizzy, which aptly describes the dreamy abstraction that overcomes her when she is faced with situations she finds unpleasant or uncomfortable. She is often teased and bullied. Everything changes, however, when she meets Margaret, a troubled and lonely girl with a mysterious past.

I’d always think of it as the summer that I loved a girl... Seventeen-year-old Lang Penner and his mother are spending the summer in the caretaker’s cottage at Roundelay, the sprawling East Hampton estate of legendary rocker Ben Nevada. Lang passes the time walking on the beach and hoping for a glimpse of his idol. When they finally meet, Nevada is very different from the man Lang imagined. He finds himself confiding in the retired star about his homosexuality.

Ocean Sun has always felt an enormous pressure to succeed. After struggling with depression during her senior year of high school, Ocean moves to New York City, where she has been accepted at a prestigious university. But Ocean feels so emotionally raw and unmoored (and uncertain about what is real and what is not) that she decides to defer and live off her savings until she can get herself together.

As kids, Mark and his cousin, Talia, spent many happy summers together at the family cottage in Ontario, Canada, but a fight between their parents put an end to the annual event. Living on opposite coasts - Mark in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Talia in Victoria, British Columbia - they haven’t seen each other in years. When their grandfather dies unexpectedly, Mark and Talia find themselves reunited at the cottage again, cleaning it out while the family decides what to do with it.

It's May 1944, and Josiah Wedgewood and Marcus Perry - two young men of different races and backgrounds - are headed to Normandy's front lines. There they'll share the joys of friendship, the terrible truths of war, and what it's like to fear that each day will be their last.

This book is for you―not your parents. Step-by-step, using approaches that are relatively easy but bring big results, you’ll be guided in how to improve the important and super-challenging relationship between you and your parents. This doesn’t mean you’re going to become best friends, but you will learn the skills needed to change how you see one another and how you interact. And ultimately, you will gain control over your own life.

Tomi was born in Hawaii. His grandfather and parents were born in Japan and came to America to escape poverty. World War II seems far away from Tomi and his friends, who are too busy playing ball on their eighth-grade team, the Rats. But then Pearl Harbor is attacked by the Japanese, and the United States declares war on Japan. Japanese men are rounded up, and Tomi’s father and grandfather are arrested. It’s a terrifying time to be Japanese in America. But one thing doesn’t change: the loyalty of Tomi’s buddies, the Rats.

When an English assignment forces "snobby" Ashbury students Lydia, Emily, and Cassie to exchange letters with "low-life" Brookfield guys, Lydia and Emily are surprised to find their Brookfield pen pals so kind and civilized. But after Cassie's cross-town correspondent threatens her, the friends plan a series of madcap missions designed to teach this malevolent male a lesson he won't forget.

When Sophie has to visit her mother at her sanctuary for bonobos, she's not thrilled to be there. Then Otto, an infant bonobo, comes into her life, and for the first time, she feels responsible for another creature. But peace does not last long for Sophie and Otto. When an armed revolution breaks out in the country, the sanctuary is attacked, and the two of them must escape unprepared into the jungle. Caught in the crosshairs of a lethal conflict, they must struggle to keep safe.

When Alyssa must spend the summer with her aunt, uncle, and bratty cousin Emily in Willow Falls she thinks it’s a good time to start over. She’ll be turning 13 after all. What Alyssa doesn’t know is that this charmed town has something big in store for her on her 13th birthday.