Difficult Teens

Singing is my life, but no agency will sign me because of my size. They want me to lose weight. Dress differently. Be someone other than my size 20 self. They want me to be like Jude Santiago with his perfectly fitted jeans and tight T-shirts and completely sell out. There’s no way I’m going down that path, and I tell him so publicly on my YouTube channel. But when it gets back to him, he has an agreement: go on tour with him and see for myself that he’s authentic. If I can’t, he won’t make another album.

Cameron Post feels a mix of guilt and relief when her parents die in a car accident. Their deaths mean they will never learn the truth she eventually comes to - that she's gay. Orphaned, Cameron comes to live with her old-fashioned grandmother and ultraconservative aunt Ruth. When she’s eventually outed, her aunt sends her to God’s Promise, a religious conversion camp that is supposed to “cure” her homosexuality. At the camp, Cameron comes face to face with the cost of denying her true identity.

"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.

Lupita, a budding actor and poet in a close-knit Mexican American immigrant family, comes of age as she struggles with adult responsibilities during her mother's long illness. As the oldest of eight siblings, Lupita is used to taking the lead—and staying busy behind the scenes to help keep everyone together. But when she discovers Mami has been diagnosed with cancer, Lupita is terrified by the possibility of losing her mother, the anchor of her close-knit Mexican American family.

All over the country, a strange phenomenon is happening. Some teenagers who die aren't staying dead. They are coming back to life, but they are no longer the same - they stutter, and their reactions to everything are slower. Termed "living impaired" or "differently biotic," they are doing their best to fit into a society that doesn't want them. Fitting in is hard enough when you don't have the look or attitude, but when almost everyone else is alive and you're not, it's close to impossible.

You might be the kind of person who stands up to online trolls. Or who marches to protest injustice. Perhaps you are #DisabledAndCute and dancing around your living room, alive and proud. Or perhaps you are the trans mentor that you wish you had when you were younger. Maybe you call out false allies or stand up to loved ones. Maybe you speak your truth and drop the mic, or maybe you take it with you when you leave. This anthology features fictional stories—in poems, prose, and art—that reflect a slice of the varied and limitless ways that listeners like you resist every day.

"So, my beautiful fat girlfriend, Cassidy, is threatening to kick me to the curb again, my best friend suddenly wants to put the brakes on our lives of fabulous fun, my mom and big sister are plotting a future in which I turn into an atomic vampire, and my dad, well, my dad is a big fat question mark that I'm not sure I want the answer to."

Taylor Edwards’ family might not be the closest-knit - everyone is a little too busy and overscheduled - but for the most part, they get along just fine. Then Taylor’s dad gets devastating news, and her parents decide that the family will spend one last summer all together at their old lake house in the Pocono Mountains. Crammed into a place much smaller and more rustic than they are used to, they begin to get to know each other again. And Taylor discovers that the people she thought she had left behind haven’t actually gone anywhere.

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.

By the time Effie Galanos starts her senior year, it feels like she's already been thinking about college applications for an eternity—after all, finding a college that will be the perfect fit and be accessible enough for Effie to navigate in her wheelchair presents a ton of considerations that her friends don't have to worry about. What Effie hasn't told anyone is that she already knows exactly what school she has her heart set on: a college in NYC with a major in Mass Media & Society that will set her up perfectly for her dream job in digital media.

Award-winning educator and author Alan Lawrence Sitomer’s engaging young adult novels have been named among the ALA’s Best Books of the Year. This first tale in his planned Nerd Girls series follows 13-year-old self-proclaimed “dorkasaurus” Maureen and her fellow social outcasts Alice and Barbara. When Maureen discovers that the Pretty, Popular, Perfect girls are planning a mean trick on Alice, she decides it’s finally time to take a stand. Signing up to compete against the ThreePees in a talent show, Maureen plans her revenge.

"Je vous présente une nouvelle élève, annonça le prof, elle s'appelle Haya. Elle vient de Syrie..." C'est drôle, songea Gabriel, il y a des gens qui attirent l'attention sans qu'on sache pourquoi... Cette fille, il ne la connaissait pas, mais elle l'intriguait à cause de ses yeux graves et la manière dont elle relevait fièrement le menton comme un défi.

Emily Lonergan's best friend died last year. And Emily hasn't stopped grieving. Lizzie Porter was lively, loud, and fun - Emily's better half. Emily can't accept that she's gone. When Lizzie's parents and her sister come back to town to visit, Emily's heartened to see them. The Porters understand her pain. They miss Lizzie desperately, too. Desperately enough to do something crazy. Something unthinkable. Suddenly, Emily's life is hurtling toward a very dark place - and she's not sure she'll ever be able to return to what she once knew was real.

During the summer of 1793, Mattie Cook lives above the family coffee shop with her widowed mother and grandfather. Mattie spends her days avoiding chores and making plans to turn the family business into the finest Philadelphia has ever seen. But then the fever breaks out. Disease sweeps the streets, destroying everything in its path and turning Mattie's world upside down. At her feverish mother's insistence, Mattie flees the city with her grandfather. But she soon discovers that the sickness is everywhere, and Mattie must learn quickly how to survive in a city frantic with disease.

When Janie first realized she was the missing child on the milk carton, her whole world fell apart. At first, she wondered if the parents she loved so much had actually kidnapped her, but it turns out that they were only trying to protect her. Now that the mystery of Janie's kidnapping has been unraveled, she is caught on the horns of a huge dilemma.

Reeling from the devastation of Dust & Decay, Benny Imura and his friends plunge deep into the zombie-infested wastelands of the great Rot & Ruin. Benny, Nix, Lilah, and Chong journey through a fierce wilderness that was once America, searching for the jet they saw in the skies months ago. If that jet exists, then humanity itself must have survived somewhere.

Parisian teenager Lou has an IQ of 160, OCD tendencies, and a mother who has suffered from depression for years. But Lou is about to change her life - and that of her parents - all because of a school project about homeless teens. While doing research, Lou meets No, a teenage girl living on the streets. As their friendship grows, Lou bravely asks her parents if No can live with them, and is astonished when they agree. No's presence forces Lou's family to come to terms with a secret tragedy.

Poland, 1940. The Russian army invades the beautiful city streets of Vilna. Soldiers storm 10-year-old Esther Rudomin's house and arrest her entire family. The Rudomins, the soldiers say, are "capitalists - enemies of the people". Forced from their home and friends, the Rudomins are herded onto crowded cattle cars. Their destination: the endless steppe of Siberia.

Ian Gray isn’t supposed to have a dog, but a lot of things that shouldn’t happen end up happening anyway. And Gather, Ian’s adopted pup, is good company now that Ian has to quit the basketball team, find a job, and take care of his mom as she tries to overcome her opioid addiction. Despite the obstacles thrown their way, Ian is determined to keep his family afloat no matter what it takes. And for a little while, things are looking up: Ian makes friends, and his fondness for the outdoors and for fixing things lands him work helping neighbors.

Caleb Springer is the up-and-coming star freshman quarterback on the high school football team, which isn't a surprise considering his dad, Sammy Springer, was an NFL superstar and is now the town celebrity. College scouts are already snooping around Caleb, and his future seems set. But just as Caleb's glory days begin, his dad starts to change. He's forgetting things and getting angry at random times. Caleb is forced to confront a bleak possibility: The sport that gives him so much status and self-worth might be the cause of his dad's strange behavior.