Difficult Teens

At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting - he’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different. It’s ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth.

After losing her beloved sister three years ago, Savannah Litchfield has been living half a life. Now seventeen—the age Poppy died—the pain of losing her is worse than ever. When Savannah’s therapist suggests a trip around the world to help teens stricken by loss, she reluctantly agrees to it, clutching the unread journal Poppy left her as she goes.

A disabled teen, an empathetic dragon, and a bond that will save the world. Sixteen-year-old Amel arrived at Dragon School just like everyone else - with a dream to ride dragons and join the Dominion Dragon Riders. But Amel has a crippled leg, and Dragon School training is grueling. Before she can even become an initiate, she must complete her first flight on a dragon. Can Amel survive First Flight and become a Dragon School initiate, or will her dreams dash on the rocks below?

It's been three months since all the adults disappeared. Gone. Food ran out weeks ago, and starvation is imminent. Meanwhile, the normal teens have grown resentful of the kids with powers. And when an unthinkable tragedy occurs, chaos descends upon the town. There is no longer right and wrong. Each kid is out for himself, and even the good ones turn murderous. But a larger problem looms.

Sixteen-year-old Lexi Stevens has never been kissed - never even been asked on a date. So when she humiliates herself in front of her crush and her brother's best friend offers to be her fake boyfriend for the week to make him jealous, she doesn't know if it's the stupidest idea ever or a dream come true. Noah Taylor gets kicked out of his house by his abusive stepdad. When his new "girlfriend" discovers him sleeping in his car and offers to let him sleep in her closet, he starts to wonder if he's found someone he can confide in after all.

Kristina Georgia Snow is the perfect daughter: gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble. But on a trip to visit her absentee father, she meets a boy who introduces her to crank. At first she finds it freeing, but soon Kristina's personality disappears inside the drug. What began as a wild, ecstatic ride turns into a struggle through hell for her mind, her soul, and her life.

Lexi is a survivor; she has spent her whole life moving from one abusive foster home to the next, until she decided to take charge of her own life. Living in abandoned buildings, couch surfing, and working at a strip clubs were a huge improvement on what she had before. All she needs is enough money to feed herself, finish high school, and hopefully go to college. She has a plan. That is until she is caught and sent to live with a strange foster family upstate.

All that Tacca GloomLily ever wanted to be since she was very little was a fairy assistant to a Dungeon Core. After her negatively portentous birth, however, she was never fully accepted by her superstitious peers and instructors at the Dungeon Assistant Preparatory School. Nevertheless, she persisted in her studies and graduated at the top of her class. Unfortunately for her, the “hands-on” training she was supposed to receive from a mentor and his bonded Dungeon Core didn’t go the way she would’ve hoped.

Darren has settled into life as a vampire's assistant and feels at home in the Cirque du Freak. But now he must leave the freak show and his friends behind. With Mr. Crepsley as a traveling companion, he embarks on a dangerous trek to the very heart of the vampire world. But they face more than the cold on Vampire Mountain - the vampaneze have been there before them. Will a meeting with the Vampire Princes restore Darren's human side or turn him further toward the darkness? Only one thing is certain: Darren's initiation into the vampire clan is more deadly than he can ever have imagined.

After six years of living in Vampire Mountain, Darren Shan,the Vampire Prince, leaves on a life-and-death mission. As part of an elite force, Darren searches the world for the Vampaneze Lord, who is determined to lead his forces to victory against the vampires. But the road ahead is long and dangerous - and lined with the bodies of the damned. Hunters of the Dusk is the start of an action-packed, three-part Darren Shan adventure, a tale of quests, friendship, treachery, despair, and bloodshed....

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.

I’m a big girl, “plus-sized”, whatever. I’m sick of hearing about it, especially since my doctor diagnosed me with PCOS. So when mean girl Merritt shot her mouth off about how fat people should just lose weight, I couldn’t take it anymore. And now I’ve got a huge problem. To prove curvy girls like me can get happily-ever-afters too, I have to get our school’s quarterback, Beckett Langley, to take me to homecoming. And he doesn’t know I even exist. But it’s not hopeless. Four other girls just like me are willing to help, because enough is enough.

>"Lily?" My stomach dropped as a tall, dark-haired man stepped into view. Had he been hiding between the trees? "No. Sorry." Gulping, I took a step back. "I'm not Lily." He shook his head, a satisfied grin on his face. "No. You are Lily." "I'm Summer. You have the wrong person." For months, Summer is trapped in a cellar with the man who took her - and three other girls: Rose, Poppy, and Violet. His perfect, pure flowers. His family. But flowers can't survive long cut off from the sun, and time is running out....

The story in which a 16-year-old is chosen by her government to undergo The Testing, which decides if she gets to go to The University. The University is for the country’s best and brightest teens and puts the rebuilding and future leadership of the United Commowealth in their hands. During The Testing, extreme psychological and physical trials pit them against one another to determine which teens have what it takes to become a leader.

Darren Shan and his best friend, Steve, get tickets to the Cirque du Freak, a wonderfully gothic freak show featuring weird, frightening half human/half animals who interact terrifyingly with the audience. In the midst of the excitement, true terror raises its head when Steve recognizes that one of the performers - Mr. Crepsley - is a vampire! Steve confronts the vampire after the show finishes - but his motives are surprising!

Relationships matter. But they’re also hard. Conflict is a reality in life that can lead to isolation, anger, and broken relationships. With the proper tools, however, teenagers can learn to respond to conflict and experience meaningful community. They don’t have to be controlled by their frustrations. Instead, they can manage and even reverse the effects of anger.

The trials: There are seventeen ways to die unless the luck of the vampire is with you. Darren Shan must pass five of these fearsome trials to prove himself to the vampire clan - or face the stakes of the Hall of Death. But Vampire Mountain holds hidden threats. Sinister, potent forces are gathering in the darkness. In this nightmarish world of bloodshed and betrayal, death may be a blessing.

Audie Award, Middle Grade, 2016. Lost and alone in the forbidden Black Forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and suddenly finds himself entwined in a puzzling quest involving a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica. Decades later Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California each become sinterwoven when the very same harmonica lands in their lives, binding them by an invisible thread of destiny. All the children face daunting challenges: rescuing a father, protecting a brother, holding a family together.

The powerful forces of group pressure that pervaded many historic movements such as Nazism are recreated in the classroom when history teacher Ben Ross introduces a "new" system to his students. And before long "The Wave", with its rules of "strength through discipline, community, and action," sweeps from the classroom through the entire school. And as most of the students join the movement, Laurie Saunders and David Collins recognize the frightening momentum of "The Wave" and realize they must stop it before it's too late.

The daughter of a respected horse healer, 14-year-old Amy has a powerful connection with horses. With her mother's help, she is developing her skills as a horse whisperer while tending to the animals at Heartland, a refuge for horses that have been emotionally or physically traumatized. But when her mother is killed in a tragic trailer accident, Amy realizes she will never see her world the same way again.