Difficult Teens

"Boys, let us get up a club." Six restless young men raided the linens at a friend's mansion, pulled pillowcases over their heads, hopped on horses, and cavorted through the streets of Pulaski, Tennessee. The six friends named their club the Ku Klux Klan, and, all too quickly, their club grew into the self-proclaimed Invisible Empire with secret dens spread across the South. This is the story of how a secret terrorist group took root in America's democracy.

In a dark future America where violence, terror, and grief touch everyone, young refugees Mahlia and Mouse have managed to leave behind the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities by escaping into the jungle outskirts. But when they discover a wounded half-man - a bioengineered war beast named Tool - who is being hunted by a vengeful band of soldiers, their fragile existence quickly collapses.

'The Wide, Wide Sea' is a Chaos Walking short story. Set before the Spackle War in a small fishing village by the sea, this is a heartbreaking tale of love and loyalty in a divided world. Best listened to immediately after The Ask and the Answer, it features familiar characters such as Mistress Coyle but gives a new perspective on the shocking events in the award-winning trilogy.

With sensitivity and insight, this series offers suggestions for healing activities that can help survivors learn to express their grief and mourn naturally. Acknowledging that death is a painful, ongoing part of life, they explain how people need to slow down, turn inward, embrace their feelings of loss, and seek and accept support when a loved one dies. Each book, geared for mourning adults, teens, or children, provides ideas and action-oriented tips that teach the basic principles of grief and healing.

In the affluent town of Weslyn, Connecticut, where most people worry about what to be seen in and who to be seen with, Emma Thomas would rather not be seen at all. She’s more concerned with feigning perfection - pulling down her sleeves to conceal the bruises, not wanting anyone to know how far from perfect her life truly is. Without expecting it, she finds love. It challenges her to recognize her own worth - at the risk of revealing the terrible secret she’s desperate to hide.

A peaceful summer night is shattered by gunfire as an unseen assailant tries to murder police officer John Busby. Though horribly wounded, Busby survives. But the perpetrator remains at large, meaning neither Busby, nor his wife, nor their three children are safe. In separate chapters John and his daughter, Cylin, who was nine at the time, recount the story of that year. John writes graphically, and movingly, of his wounds, his pain, his multiple surgeries, and his rage.

Who will be the next to die? They've taken the children. And the son of a general. But that isn't enough. More horrors must come…

Twins Mary Lee and Madrigal are living double lives - with some shocking secrets. Mary Lee and Madrigal are twin sisters, beautiful and deeply attached to each other. Then in high school, Mary Lee and Madrigal's parents decide to send Mary Lee away to boarding school - cruelly separating the girls. The twins have only been apart a handful of times in their lives. Mary Lee is devastated at first, and then horrified as Madrigal betrays her by approving of their parents' shocking plan.

He was supposed to be my escape for the weekend. I wasn’t supposed to fall for him. I want to be a good daughter, but I’m tired of being looked over. So when I run into Jet Miller, the bad boy with a motorcycle, I pay him to take me away for the weekend. Two days of freedom quickly change into something more, and I find myself falling for Jet. Only, he doesn’t know that once our 48 hour escape is over, I’m gone. And I don’t know how to tell him. Some rules are meant to be broken.

Adam gave up everything for a new chance at life. Now with a cutting-edge digital mind, he is smarter, faster, better than a normal teen. But this new life isn't free. He's indebted to the government program that gave him this ability - and freedom comes at a price. Adam and his teammates, the six Pioneers, swore to defend humanity against Sigma, the most ruthless artificial intelligence program ever designed.

Disguised as a peasant, Cecilia has been hiding for years from the evil people who killed her parents. Now the time has come to reclaim her title. There's just one problem. Princess Desmia - supposedly Cecilia's decoy - believes a different version of the story.

It's the summer of 1955. For Ethan Harper, a biracial kid raised mostly by his White father, race has always been a distant conversation. When he's sent to spend the summer with his aunt and uncle in small-town Alabama, his blackness is suddenly front and center, and no one is shy about making it known he's not welcome there. Enter Juniper Jones. The town's resident oddball and free spirit, she's everything the townspeople aren't-open, kind, and accepting.

In the first book of the Shaw Confessions, the companion series to the New York Times best-selling Mara Dyer novels, old skeletons are laid bare and new promises prove deadly. This is what happens after happily ever after. Everyone thinks 17-year-old Noah Shaw has the world on a string. They're wrong. Mara Dyer is the only one he trusts with his secrets and his future. He shouldn't. And both are scared that uncovering the truth about themselves will force them apart. They're right.

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.

Shane is still reeling from the suicide of his kid sister, Destiny. How could he have missed the fact that she was so sad? He tries to share his grief with his girlfriend, Tara, but she's too concerned with her own needs to offer him much comfort. What he really wants is to be able to turn to the one person on the rez whom he loves - his friend, David. Things go from bad to worse as Shane's dream of going to university is shattered and his grieving mother withdraws from the world.

The year is 1941. Krystia lives in a small Ukrainian village under the cruel - sometimes violent - occupation of the Soviets. So when the Nazis march into town to liberate them, many of Krystia's neighbors welcome the troops with celebrations, hoping for a better life. But conditions don't improve as expected. Krystia's friend Dolik and the other Jewish people in town warn that their new occupiers may only bring darker days. The worst begins to happen when the Nazis blame the Jews for murders they didn't commit. As the Nazis force Jews into a ghetto, Krystia does what she can to help.

Best friends Julia and Ashleigh are looking for some romance, but Ashleigh's ways make Julia a little uncomfortable. While crashing a fall dance, they are befriended by two boys, one of whom being the mysterious male that Julia had seen at the mall. Unfortunately, Ashleigh has laid claim to her mysterious boy first. Julia is totally confused about high school love.

Seventeen-year-old Hannah Lynn has just one goal: to get out of Evans Beach, Maine. It's where she lost her mother to cancer. Where her estranged sister, Pauline, fell apart before moving out. Where her father, Larry, holds court as a local legend who once played for the Red Sox. Hannah has never fit in, but that doesn't matter now that she is finally on the cusp of escaping to her dream college. Then her life is turned upside down when Pauline's two sons are taken by the state, leaving Hannah and Larry the only people standing between the boys and the child welfare system.

It begins as an assignment for English class: Write a letter to a dead person. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain because her sister, May, loved him. And he died young, just like May. Soon, Laurel has a notebook full of letters to the dead - to people like Janis Joplin, Heath Ledger, Amelia Earhart, and Amy Winehouse - though she never gives a single one of them to her teacher. She writes about starting high school, navigating the choppy waters of new friendships, learning to live with her splintering family, falling in love for the first time, and, most important, trying to grieve for May.

Reeling from betrayal at the hands of the Whispers, Renata Convida is a girl on the run. With few options and fewer allies, she's reluctantly joined forces with none other than Prince Castian, her most infuriating and intriguing enemy. They're united by lofty goals: find the fabled Knife of Memory, kill the ruthless King Fernando, and bring peace to the nation. Together, Ren and Castian have a chance to save everything, if only they can set aside their complex and intense feelings for each other.