Social Skills For Adults

While her mother, aerobics queen Kiki Sparks, spends the summer touring Europe, 15-year-old Colie Sparks is stuck in sleepy Colby, North Carolina. But she's not complaining. For one thing, her Aunt Mira is a sweet, laid-back eccentric; for another, no one knows that back home in Charlotte Colie is seen as a formerly-fat "golf-course slut," the school scapegoat. Then, by fate or by accident, Colie lands a waitressing job, where she meets Morgan and Isabel.

Zach, Poppy, and Alice have been friends forever. And for almost as long, they’ve been playing one continuous, ever-changing game of pirates and thieves, mermaids and warriors. Ruling over all is the Great Queen, a bone-china doll cursing those who displease her. But they are in middle school now. Zach’s father pushes him to give up make-believe, and Zach quits the game. Their friendship might be over, until Poppy declares she’s been having dreams about the Queen - and the ghost of a girl who will not rest until the bone-china doll is buried in her empty grave.

Twelve-year-old Shayla is allergic to trouble. All she wants to do is to follow the rules. (Oh, and she’d also like to make it through seventh grade with her best friendships intact, learn to run track, and have a cute boy see past her giant forehead.) But in junior high, it’s like all the rules have changed. Now she’s suddenly questioning who her best friends are and some people at school are saying she’s not black enough. Wait, what?

Nancy is helping out her Dad’s friend, Louise Alain, and her dog, Marge, at an upcoming dog show in Montreal. Marge is a professional and needs someone she can trust to handle her at the biggest show of the season. Nancy is happy to oblige, especially since Louise invited Bess and George as well! Of course, the three friends are investigating a crime within hours of their arrival. One of the show dogs was drugged and a giant wad of gum was matted into its hair.

It’s 1950, and as the French Quarter of New Orleans simmers with secrets, 17-year-old Josie Moraine is silently stirring a pot of her own. Known among locals as the daughter of a brothel prostitute, Josie wants more out of life than the Big Easy has to offer. She devises a plan get out, but a mysterious death in the Quarter leaves Josie tangled in an investigation that will challenge her allegiance to her mother, her conscience, and Willie Woodley, the brusque madam on Conti Street.

Award-winning novelist for young adults, Cynthia Voigt creates this moving tale of a youngster discovering genuine family love. If Jeff is perfect, maybe his father won't leave like his mother. Narrator Jeff Woodman holds listeners spellbound as he narrates the teenage boy's poignant struggles to accept himself before he can really know others.

Kaeleigh and Raeanne are 16-year-old identical twins, the daughters of a district court judge father and politician mother running for U.S. Congress. Everything on the surface seems fine, but underneath run very deep and damaging secrets. When the girls were nine, Daddy turned to his beloved Kaeleigh in ways a father never should. Raeanne needs to numb the pain of not being Daddy's favorite; Kaeleigh wants to do everything she can to feel something normal, even if it means cutting herself and vomiting after every binge.

The Clique Summer Collection is a series of five audio-novellas about the summer plans of the main characters in the Clique. Each story is told from the point of view of a different girl in the Pretty Committee: Massie, Alicia, Dylan, Kristen, and Claire. This is a collection of each audio-novella.

Jacqueline Woodson's first middle-grade novel since National Book Award winner Brown Girl Dreaming celebrates the healing that can occur when a group of students share their stories. It all starts when six kids have to meet for a weekly chat—by themselves, with no adults to listen in. There, in the room they soon dub the ARTT Room (short for "A Room to Talk"), they discover it's safe to talk about what's bothering them—everything from Esteban's father's deportation and Haley's father's incarceration to Amari's fears of racial profiling and Ashton's adjustment to his changing family fortunes.

Here's an etiquette book that teens will want to read - because it keeps them laughing, doesn't preach, and deals with issues that matter to them, as teens themselves reported in a nationwide survey. In How Rude!, author Alex J. Packer blends outrageous humor with sound advice as he guides readers through the mysterious world of manners from A ("Applause") to Z ("Zits").

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.

To Joseph Friedman, middle school might as well be the Running of the Bulls. He's friendless and puny, with ADD to boot, so he spends most of his time avoiding class bully Charlie Kastner and hiding out in the Resource Room, a safe place for misfit kids like him. But then, on the first day of seventh grade, two important things happen. First, his Resource Room teacher, Mrs. T, encourages (i.e., practically forces) him to join the school track team, and second, he meets Heather, a tough, athletic new girl who isn't going to be pushed around by Charlie Kastner.

It's 1950 and Mickey Tussler - the now-famous pitching prodigy with autism and a golden arm - is back for another baseball season in this third installment of Frank Nappi's critically acclaimed Legend of Mickey Tussler series. Talk of Mickey's legendary exploits on the field has grown since his improbable debut two years prior, as have the fortunes of Murph and the rest of the lovable ragtag Brew Crew. Now Mickey, Murph, and Lester find themselves heading to Bean Town to play for the Boston Braves.

It’s 1949 and 18-year-old pitching phenom Mickey Tussler is back with the rejuvenated minor league Brewers in the sequel to The Legend of Mickey Tussler (the basis for the television movie A Mile in His Shoes). Despite Mickey’s proclamation that he will never play baseball again after last season’s violent conclusion, his manager - and now surrogate father - Arthur Murphy cajoles the emotionally fragile, socially awkward boy with autism into giving it another shot.

Jennifer Allison's best-selling Gilda Joyce series features a spunky heroine with a knack for hunting down the paranormal. When best friend Wendy Choy gets an invitation to compete in a piano competition in Oxford, England, Gilda Joyce manages to secure a position as Wendy's page turner. They will sip tea, flirt with English boys, and bask in the warm glow of applause. But when Wendy seems set to become the next victim of a local ghost, the Psychic Investigator goes to work.

When his family packs up and moves from the city to a small town deep in the Wisconsin countryside, 15-year-old Wil Neuton makes an exhilarating discovery. He finds a small island on a nearby lake, a place where he can be alone and learn to know nature—and himself. On his island, he can write, paint, and watch the loons and fish in the lake. Wil can’t stay away from the outside world forever, though. Sooner or later, he must return and face the bully determined to fight him and his bickering parents, who worry when Wil decides to stay on the island indefinitely.

Rafe Khatchadorian, the hero of the bestselling Middle School series, is ready for a fun summer at camp - until he finds out it's a summer school camp! Luckily, Rafe easily makes friends with his troublemaking cabin mates and bunkmate, a boy nicknamed Booger-Eater, who puts up with endless teasing from the other kids. Rafe soon realizes there's more to a person than a nickname, though, and Booger-Eater might be the kind of friend you want on your side when the boys from the Cool Cabin attack.

The Lockwood brothers are supposed to be able to survive anything. Their dad, a hardcore believer in self-reliance, has stockpiled enough food and water at their isolated Nevada home to last for months. But when they are robbed of all their supplies during a massive blackout while their dad is out of town, John and Stew must walk 96 miles in the stark desert sun to get help. Along the way, they’re forced to question their dad’s insistence on self-reliance and ask just what it is that we owe to our neighbors, our kin, and to ourselves.

In Mississippi Jack, the fifth installment in the Bloody Jack series, the intrepid Jacky Faber, having once again eluded British authorities, heads west, hoping that no one will recognize her in the wilds of America. There she tricks the tall-tale hero Mike Fink out of his flatboat, equips it as a floating casino-showboat, and heads south to New Orleans, battling murderous bandits, British soldiers, and other scoundrels along the way.

Zara and her friends knew they hadn't solved the pixie problem for good. Far from it. The king's needs grow deeper every day he's stuck in captivity, while his control over his people gets weaker. It's made him vulnerable. And now there's a new king in town.