Growing Relationship

The Pants first came to us at the perfect moment. That is, when we were splitting up for the first time. It was two summers ago when they first worked their magic, and last summer when they shook up our lives once again. You see, we don't wear the Pants year-round. We let them rest so they are extra powerful when summer comes. (There was the time this spring when Carmen wore them to her mom's wedding, but that was a special case.)

Laylee can barely remember the happier times before her beloved mother died. Before her father, driven by grief, lost his wits (and his way) and she was left as the sole remaining mordeshoor in the village of Whichwood, destined to spend her days scrubbing the skins and souls of the dead in preparation for the afterlife. It's become easy to forget and easier still to ignore not only her ever-increasing loneliness but the way her overworked hands are stiffening and turning silver, just like her hair.

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.

Seventeen-year-old Bianca Piper is cynical and loyal, and she doesn’t think she’s the prettiest of her friends by a long shot. She’s also way too smart to fall for the charms of man-slut and slimy school hottie Wesley Rush. In fact, Bianca hates him. And when he nicknames her “the Duff,” she throws her Coke in his face. But things aren’t so great at home right now, and Bianca is desperate for a distraction. She ends up kissing Wesley. Worse, she likes it.

We live in a culture that suppresses our ability to truly feel our grief—deeply, safely, and on our own terms. But each person’s experience is as unique as the grief itself. Here, Camille Barton’s take on grief speaks directly to the ways that BIPOC and queer readers disproportionately experience unique constellations of loss.

Five months ago, Valerie Leftman's boyfriend, Nick, opened fire on their school cafeteria. Shot trying to stop him, Valerie inadvertently saved the life of a classmate, but was implicated in the shootings because of the list she helped create. A list of people and things she and Nick hated. The list he used to pick his targets. Now, after a summer of seclusion, Val is forced to confront her guilt as she returns to school to complete her senior year.

What is the ultimate force that holds a marriage together? Love? Sex? Children? Vacations? The answer is both very simple and very complex: communication. Communication is the foundation of everything that makes a marriage happy, including love, good sex, and good parenting. Good communication creates an environment of safety, love, and respect - this makes a relationship satisfying.

Three Mormon high school friends, perky Nikki, studious Alicia, and football player Sam, make a pact of the Pygmalion style—they decide to help the “untapped” students at their school. Their plan is to transform three classmates and take them to the prom. But the experiment doesn’t go exactly as planned. They slowly begin to realize that there is more to most people than meets the eye.

Yes, there really is a Normal, Illinois. Charles Harrisong should know; he was born there. But life is difficult for Charles because his family isn't normal. They're poor, for one thing. They stand out, which is the worst thing. After an ugly incident at school, Charles and family leave Normal and begin an adventure that takes them to a houseboat that just might be their new home. And Charles begins a personal journey within his own heart; one that will ultimately deliver him both from and to himself.

K. A. Nuzum - best-selling author of A Small White Scar, delivers clear, crisp prose that's reminiscent of John Steinbeck. The Leanin' Dog tells the bittersweet tale of a girl with agoraphobia, a dog with claustrophobia, and the friendship that saves them both. Dessa really needs a friend. A friend with whom she can confide and share all the joys of Christmas. But with hope almost gone, Dessa hears a scratching sound that changes her life forever.

Continuing the story begun in Under the Blood-Red Sun, House of the Red Fish returns to Honolulu one year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Thirteen-year-old Japanese American Tomi Nakaji must struggle to support his family after the arrest of his father and grandfather.

Kathryn Erskine won the National Book Award for her mesmerizing novel Mockingbird. In The Absolute Value of Mike, a young man grows up during an unlikely adventure. Despite his best efforts, Mike has a hard time communicating with his calculus-loving father - and having a math learning disability certainly doesn’t help. But when Mike is sent to Pennsylvania to work on an engineering project, the young man learns valuable lessons from the colorful characters he meets.

All the troubles in sixth-grader Claudia Harper’s life seem to start with her fourth-grade friend Dunford Wylie Booth V.

Can a stray dog change the life of a teenage boy? It looks as if Strider can. He's a dog that loves to run; because of Strider, Leigh Botts finds himself running -- well enough to join the school track team. Strider changes Leigh on the inside, too, as he finally begins to accept his parents' divorce and gets to know a redheaded girl he's been admiring. With Strider's help, Leigh finds that the future he once hated to be asked about now holds something he never expected: hope.

Fifteen-year-old Reed Brennan wins a scholarship to Easton Academy---the golden ticket away from her pill-popping mother and run-of-the-mill suburban life. But when she arrives on the beautiful, tradition-steeped campus of Easton, everyone is just a bit more sophisticated, a bit more gorgeous, and a lot wealthier than she ever thought possible. Reed realizes that even though she has been accepted to Easton, Easton has not accepted her.

Los Angeles is all about the sweet life: hot clubs, cute guys, designer... everything. Nineteen-year-old Jane Roberts can't wait to start living it up. She may be in L.A. for an internship, but Jane plans to play as hard as she works, and has enlisted her BFF Scarlett to join in the fun. When Jane and Scarlett are approached by a producer who wants them to be on his new series, a "reality version of Sex and the City," they can hardly believe their luck. Their own show? Yes, please!

Not only is Turner Buckminster the son of the new minister in a small Maine town, he is shunned for playing baseball differently than the local boys. Then he befriends smart and lively Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from Malaga Island, a poor community founded by former slaves. Lizzie shows Turner a new world along the Maine coast from digging clams to rowing a boat next to a whale. When the powerful town elders, including Turner’s father, decide to drive the people off the island to set up a tourist business, Turner stands alone against them.

It's 1935. Moose Flanagan lives on Alcatraz with his family, the other families of the guards, and a few hundred no-name hit men, con men, mad dog murderers and a handful of bank robbers too. And one of those cons has just done him a big favor. You see, Moose has never met Al Capone, but a few weeks ago Moose wrote a letter to him asking him to use his influence to get his sister, Natalie, into a school she desperately needs in San Francisco.

The last thing Cammie Morgan remembers is leaving the Gallagher Academy to protect her friends and family from the Circle of Cavan - an ancient terrorist organization that has been hunting her for over a year. But when Cammie wakes up in an Alpine convent and discovers that months have passed, she must face the fact that her memory is now a black hole. The only traces left of Cammie’s summer vacation are the bruises on her body and dirt under her nails, and all she wants is to go home.

New kid Jake Garrett seems to have it all figured out. He's a star athlete, he hosts the best parties, and every girl in school wants to date him. But who is Jake Garrett, really? And why has he gone to all the trouble to reinvent himself?

Gordon Korman's brilliant and intense writing and cutting edge dialogue quickly draw listeners into the adolescent struggle of popularity and acceptance.