Foster Teens

Esther struggles with depression and low self-esteem due to the lack of parental involvement in her life while growing up. The constant desire for acceptance from her parents, especially her father, caused her to make many impulsive decisions. As she reminisces on her teen years with appreciation, she realizes every obstacle she came in contact with helped her grow into the strong young woman she is today.

Growing up in foster care, Muir has lived in many houses. And if she's learned one thing, it is to Pack. Light. Carry only what fits in a suitcase. Toothbrush? Yes. Socks? Yes. Emotional attachment to friends? Foster families? A boyfriend? Nope! There's no room for any additional baggage. Muir has just one year left before she ages out of the system. One year before she's free. One year to avoid anything - or anyone - that could get in her way. Then she meets Francine. And Kira. And Sean. And everything changes.

Life at St. Agatha's School for Girls is anything but a fairy tale. With ratty blankets and a torturous device called the box, it's not hard to understand Eliza's desperation to escape. When the timing is right, Eliza manages to run away with her best friend, Millie, heading through the Louisiana swamps to the town on the other side. But the swamps may be even more dangerous than the orphanage. Silver and black fairies invite the girls to experience a world where they can have it all, but Eliza doesn't trust the sparkling beauty.

Poppy, Dash, Azumi, and Dylan may have made it out of Shadow House - but the grounds are a whole new nightmare. Someone they thought was a friend is hunting them, and there's no place that's safe now that they've woken the shadow creature. If they want to survive, they'll have to figure out once and for all what the house wants from them, and what - or who - they'll need to leave behind in order to escape...or risk being trapped within Shadow House forever.

Martine's parents are killed in a fire, and she must leave her home in England to live on a wildlife reserve in Africa with a grandmother she never even knew she had. As soon as Martine arrives at the reserve, she hears whisperings of a mythical animal living there, a white giraffe. No one has ever seen the animal, but it leaves footprints behind.

When Liv Hall and her friends find boxes of letters hidden in her grandfather’s attic, they discover hundreds of psychic predictions addressed to the Premonitions Bureau, a bureau to investigate psychic abilities that mysteriously closed in 1993. As the group reads decades-old premonitions, they stumble on letters from powerful psychics who mailed in their predictions and then disappeared.

For years, 16-year-old Hattie's been shuttled between relatives. Tired of being Hattie Here-and-There, she courageously leaves Iowa to prove up on her late uncle's homestead claim near Vida, Montana. With a stubborn stick-to-itiveness, Hattie faces frost, drought, and blizzards. Despite many hardships, Hattie forges ahead, sharing her adventures with her friends, especially Charlie, fighting in France, through letters and articles for her hometown paper.

Molly Moon is back, and this time she's hypnotizing her way to the Academy Awards in Los Angeles. Along with Rocky and Petula the pug, Molly is tracking the sinister activities of American billionaire Primo Cell, who wants to become president and take over the world. He has all the Hollywood celebrities in his power, but Molly Moon has an amazing power of her own, which even she doesn't know about.

On a frosty morning sometime in the 14th century, in a village somewhere in England, a girl known only as Brat was sleeping in a dung heap. "You, girl. Are you alive or dead?" When she opened her eyes, she saw an important-looking woman with a sharp glance and a sharp nose and a wimple starched into sharp pleats. This woman was Jane the midwife, and she needed a helper....

Forced to live on his own after his mom dies and her boyfriend abandons him, 12-year-old Jayson does whatever it takes to get by. He will do anything to avoid the foster care system. Besides, his real home has always been the beat-up basketball court behind the projects in the North Carolina hills, and his family has always been his friends and teammates. He manages to get away with his deception until the day he gets caught stealing a new pair of basketball sneakers. Game over. Within a day a social worker places him with a family from the other side of town, the Lawtons.

Kek comes from Africa. In America, he sees snow for the first time, and feels its sting. He’s never walked on ice, and he falls. He wonders if the people in this new place will be like the winter - cold and unkind. In Africa, Kek lived with his mother, father, and brother. But only he and his mother have survived, and now she’s missing. Kek is on his own. Slowly, he makes friends: A girl who is in foster care, an old woman who owns a rundown farm, and a cow whose name means “family” in his native language.

April had absolutely no intention of becoming the only person who knows that Gabriel Winterborne, the missing-and-presumed-dead billionaire, is actually living in the basement of Winterborne House, sharpening his swords and looking for vengeance. Now it’s up to April to keep him alive. But there’s only so much a 12-year-old girl can do, so April must turn to the other orphans for help. Together, they’ll have to unravel the riddle of a missing heir and a creepy legend, and find a secret key, before the only home they’ve ever known is lost to them forever.

Growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a mostly absent father, Nikki Grimes found herself terrorized by babysitters, shunted from foster family to foster family, and preyed upon by those she trusted. At the age of six, she poured her pain onto a piece of paper late one night - and discovered the magic and impact of writing. For many years, Nikki's notebooks were her most enduing companions. In this accessible and inspiring memoir, Nikki shows how the power of those words helped her conquer the hazards - ordinary and extraordinary - of her life.

With renewed interest in Alexander Key's extraordinary 1968 novel, fans can dive into Escape to Witch Mountain as it was meant to be listened to. The powerful, thrilling story of Tony and Tia - twins joined by their paranormal gifts, on the run from evil forces that seek to suppress their forgotten pasts - is more gripping and relevant than ever.

There is no universal adoption experience, and no two adoptees have the same story. This anthology for teens edited by Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung contains a wide range of powerful, poignant, and evocative stories in a variety of genres. These tales from fifteen bestselling, acclaimed, and emerging adoptee authors genuinely and authentically reflect the complexity, breadth, and depth of adoptee experiences.

Charlie longed for the love of a family; what he got was something else when the foster care system put him with Barbara Norse. Only Caroline, who also came to live with Barbara, provided him any sense of belonging. Vowing to be there for each other, they find that sometimes life has a way of tearing people apart, especially when the system forgets about you and forces you to fight for your family.

Kyle Stilleno is the invisible student, toiling through high school in the middle of Nowhere, Texas. Brad Greymark is the baseball star of Foster High. When they bond over their mutual damage during a night of history tutoring, Kyle thinks maybe his life has changed for good. But the promise of fairy-tale love is a lie when you're gay and falling for the most popular boy in school. A coming of age story in the same vein of John Hughes, Tales from Foster High shows an unflinching vision of the ups and downs of teenage love and what it is like to grow up gay.

When Pollyanna Whittier's loving but impoverished father dies, she is left orphaned and alone. Her wealthy spinster aunt, Aunt Polly, agrees to take her in, so she and her few belongs are packed onto an eastbound train. Pollyanna looks forward to living with her aunt, but Aunt Polly is cold and strict. She puts Pollyanna in a musty attic room and expects her to keep quiet and stay out of the way.

Newbery Honor winner Joan Bauer's new novel will touch your heart.

The two-time Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt delivers the shattering story of Joseph, a father at 13 who has never seen his daughter, Jupiter. After spending time in a juvenile facility, he’s placed with a foster family on a farm in rural Maine. Here Joseph, damaged and withdrawn, meets 12-year-old Jack, who narrates the account of the troubled, passionate teen who wants to find his baby at any cost. In this riveting novel, two boys discover the true meaning of family and the sacrifices it requires.