Difficult Teens

Winifred has lived in the apartment above the cemetery office with her father, who works in the crematorium, all her life, close to her mother's grave. With her sixteenth birthday only days away, Winifred has settled into a lazy summer schedule, lugging her obese Chihuahua around the grounds in a squeaky red wagon to visit the neglected gravesides and nursing a serious crush on her best friend, Jack.

Corey and her best friend, Kyra, are inseparable. Corey is the only person who understands Kyra's high-highs and low-lows. So when Corey's family moves away from their Alaskan town, she makes Kyra promise to stay strong during the long, dark winters and wait for her return. Except Kyra doesn't. Two days before Corey is to visit, Kyra is found floating underneath the ice. While everyone in Lost Creek deems Kyra's death a suicide, Corey knows something is wrong. With every hour, her suspicion grows.

In The Silver Kiss—Annette Curtis Klause’s critically acclaimed debut novel—life’s tough for 16-year-old Zoe Sutcliff. Her mom is dying, her dad is growing distant, and her best friend is moving. Sorting out her thoughts one night, Zoe sees a man lurking about. Taken aback at first, she finds herself drawn to the handsome stranger who seems to sense what’s in her heart. As the two exchange life stories, he makes a startling revelation

Best-selling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.

Juliette and Warner fought hard to take down the Reestablishment once and for all. Life in the aftermath isn’t easy, as they and their friends at the Sanctuary work with their limited resources to stabilize the world. Warner has his sights set on more than just politics. Since he proposed to Juliette two weeks ago, he’s been eager to finally marry her, the person he loves more than anything and has endured so much to be with.

In the blink of an eye, everyone disappears. Gone. Except for the young. There are teens, but not one single adult. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no Internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what's happened. Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents - unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers - that grow stronger by the day. It's a terrifying new world.

Sixteen-year-old Bri wants to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Or at least win her first battle. As the daughter of an underground hip hop legend who died right before he hit big, Bri’s got massive shoes to fill. But it’s hard to get your come up when you’re labeled a hoodlum at school, and your fridge at home is empty after your mom loses her job. So Bri pours her anger and frustration into her first song, which goes viral...for all the wrong reasons. Bri soon finds herself at the center of a controversy, portrayed by the media as more menace than MC.

In the second book of the Uglies series, Tally's Pretty. And everything's changed. The new, Pretty Tally is totally happy right where she is. She doesn't think she needs any kind of cure at all. When someone from her Ugly life shows up with a message, Tally has a hard time listening. Did she really promise to give all this up? Is she bound by a promise she made when she was a different person?

Simi prayed to the gods, once. Now she serves them as Mami Wata—a mermaid—collecting the souls of those who die at sea and blessing their journeys back home. But when a living boy is thrown overboard, Simi goes against an ancient decree and does the unthinkable—she saves his life. And punishment awaits those who dare to defy the gods.

As millions of readers of Hatchet, The River, and Brian's Winter know, Brian Robeson survived alone in the wilderness by finding solutions to extraordinary challenges. But now that's he's back in civilization, he can't find a way to make sense of high school life. He feels disconnected, more isolated than he did alone in the North. The only answer is to return-to "go back in"-for only in the wilderness can Brian discover his true path in life, and where he belongs.

What begins with a sense that Michael's deceased grandfather might be inhabiting his body soon escalates to "slipping" into to the river of the dead. When Michael slips, he relives moments of his grandfather's life and tries to help him find peace. But each time he ventures into the river it's harder to come out again. Michael will have to depend on an unlikely group of friends to keep him from slipping... permanently. A penetrating twist on the classic ghost story, full of humor and insight about family relationships.

In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die. Cassia has always trusted the Society’s choices. And when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, she is certain he’s the one - until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now she is faced with impossible choices: Between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s ever known and a path no has dared to follow...between perfection and the truth.

Felix Love has never been in love — and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many — Black, queer, and transgender — to ever get his own happily-ever-after.

In the city of Ombrazia, saints and their disciples rule with terrifying and unjust power, playing favorites while the unfavored struggle to survive. After her father’s murder at the hands of the Ombrazian military, Rossana Lacertosa is willing to do whatever it takes to dismantle the corrupt system—tapping into her powers as a disciple of Patience, joining the rebellion, and facing the boy who broke her heart. As the youngest captain in the history of Palazzo security, Damian Venturi is expected to be ruthless and strong, and to serve the saints with unquestioning devotion.

Joe Stoshack has to write a report for school about a famous African-American who contributed to society. Joe chooses to write about legendary baseball player Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in the 1940s. But unlike every other kid in his class, Joe has a special talent: with the help of old baseball cards, he can travel through time.

A bag of chips. That's all 16-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad's pleadings that he's stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad's resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad's every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered.

A cannon. A strap. Or, you can call it a gun. That's what 15-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That's where Will's now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother's gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he's after. Or does he?

Everyone knows that Nick and Charlie are the perfect couple – that they’re inseparable. But now Nick is leaving for university, and Charlie will be left behind at Sixth Form. Everyone’s asking if they’re staying together, which is a stupid question – they’re ‘Nick and Charlie’ for God’s sake!

But as the time to say goodbye gets inevitably closer, both Nick and Charlie question whether their love is strong enough to survive being apart. Or are they delaying the inevitable? Because everyone knows that first loves rarely last forever....

Adam's muscular dystrophy has stolen his mobility, his friends, and in less than a year, it will take his life. Virtual reality games are Adam's only escape from his wheelchair. In his alternate world, he can defeat anyone. Running, jumping, scoring touchdowns: Adam is always the hero. Then, an artificial intelligence program hacks into Adam's game. Created by Adam's computer-genius father, Sigma has gone rogue, threatening to kill Adam - and the entire human race. Their one chance to stop Sigma is using the technology Adam's dad developed to digitally preserve the mind of his son.

When 17-year-old Valerie Russell runs away to New York City, she's trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city's labyrinthine subway system.