Teens Growing

This groundbreaking book, first published in 1982, is the story of two teenage girls whose friendship blossoms into love and who, despite pressures from family and school that threaten their relationship, promise to be true to each other and their feelings.

A false king has seized Camelot’s throne, sentencing Tedros, the true king, to death. While Agatha, narrowly escapes the same fate, Sophie is caught in King Rhian’s trap. With her wedding to Rhian approaching, she’s forced to play a dangerous game as her friends’ lives hang in the balance.

When the Brotherband crew are caught in a massive storm at sea, they're blown far off course and wash up on the shores of a land so far west that Hal can't recognize it from any of his maps. Eerily, the locals are nowhere in sight, yet the Herons have a creeping feeling they are being watched.

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.

In the final book of the Wizard for Hire trilogy, Ozzy and his friend (and Rin’s daughter), Sigi, are in danger. They are still being hunted by Ray, the power-mad villain who will stop at nothing to find the formula to the mind-controlling discipline serum - one that Ozzy’s parents created and injected into him. Knowing the dangers that lie ahead, Rin introduces Ozzy to four more friends who also claim magical, wizard-like abilities. Again, Ozzy has no reason to believe that magic exists or that Rin’s eccentric friends can help.

Capricorn Anderson has spent his entire life on a farm with his hippie grandmother. After an accident puts Grandma in the hospital, Cap is forced to attend Claverage Middle School and live with his guidance counselor. The tradition at Claverage is for students to nominate the biggest nerd for class president, and Cap is the obvious choice. But with his odd ways and positive outlook, Cap just might turn the joke upside down by becoming the best class president ever.

Ella of Frell wants nothing more than to be free of Lucinda's gift of obedience and feel that she belongs to herself. For how can she truly belong to herself if she knows that at any time, anyone can order her to hop on one foot, cut off her hand, or betray her kingdom, and she'll have to obey?

In this third Alcatraz adventure, Alcatraz Smedry has made it to the Free Kingdoms at last. Unfortunately, so have the evil Librarians—including his mother! Now Alcatraz has to find a traitor among the Knights of Crystallia, make up with his estranged father, and save one of the last bastions of the Free Kingdoms from the Evil Librarians.

Nic Sheff was drunk for the first time at age 11. In the years that followed, he would regularly smoke pot, do cocaine and ecstasy, and develop addictions to crystal meth and heroin. Even so, he felt like he would always be able to quit and put his life together whenever he needed to. It took a violent relapse one summer in California to convince him otherwise.

Five years. That's how long Coyote and her dad, Rodeo, have lived on the road in an old school bus, criss-crossing the nation. It's also how long ago Coyote lost her mom and two sisters in a car crash. Coyote hasn't been home in all that time, but when she learns that the park in her old neighborhood is being demolished - the very same park where she, her mom, and her sisters buried a treasured memory box - she devises an elaborate plan to get her dad to drive 3,600 miles back to Washington state in four days...without him realizing it.

Prosper and Bo are orphans on the run from their cruel aunt and uncle. The brothers decide to hide out in Venice, where they meet a mysterious thirteen-year-old boy who calls himself the "Thief Lord." Brilliant and charismatic, the Thief Lord leads a ring of street children who dabble in petty crimes. Prosper and Bo delight in being part of this colorful new family. But the Thief Lord has secrets of his own.

Tennyson: Don’t get me started on the Bruiser. He was voted “Most Likely to Get the Death Penalty” by the entire school. He’s the kid no one knows, no one talks to, and everyone hears disturbing rumors about. So why is my sister, Brontë, dating him? One of these days she’s going to take in the wrong stray dog, and it’s not going to end well.BronteMy brother has no right to talk about Brewster that way — no right to threaten him. There’s a reason why Brewster can’t have friends — why he can’t care about too many people.

Seventh-grader Martin McLean has always been surrounded by people who can express themselves. His mother is an artist, his colorful Tio Billy works in theater, and his best friends Carmen and Pickle are outgoing and don't care what other people think. But Martin can only find the right words when he's answering a problem at a Mathletes competition - until his tio introduces him to the world of drag.

Landfill has lived his whole life as a scavenger, running with wooflers, swimming with turtles and feasting on fresh gull. Old Babagoo has always looked after him, on one condition - follow his rules. Never come looking outside. Never rise above the wall. But despite the dangers, Landfill longs to see Outside. And some rules are made to be broken.

Carly Chambers leads an unusual life. She moves frequently and has to run mysterious packages to her father’s clients. Now living in Oceanside, New Jersey, Carly finds excitement by sneaking out at night to the town’s bustling boardwalk. More and more Carly finds herself hoping to spend time with Nick, one of the few kids who doesn’t outright ignore her. But then her life is thrown into further disarray when she realizes she’s being followed, and Carly suspects that the menacing stranger shadowing her has something to do with her father’s business....

Newbery Honor winner Janet Taylor Lisle's gorgeous and profound new novel about a pivotal summer in two girls' lives explores the convictions we form, the judgments we make, and the values we hold. The pond is called Quicksand Pond. It's a shadowy, hidden place full of chirping, shrieking, croaking life. It's where, legend has it, people disappear. It's where scrappy Terri Carr lives with her no-good family. And it's where 12-year-old Jessie Kettel is reluctantly spending her summer vacation. Jessie meets Terri right away, on a raft out in the water.

Like handshakes or housepets, many things are preferable when not slippery. Unfortunately, in this miserable volume, I am afraid that Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire run into more than their fair share of slipperiness during their harrowing journey up, and down, a range of strange and distressing mountains.

When a battle with death-dealing Skinners catapults Daine and her mentor, Numair, into the divine realms the riddles of Daine’s past finally begin to reveal themselves. However the pair must return to their beloved Tortall, for the kingdom is under attack and survival depends on Daine’s wild magic.A harrowing journey across the divine realms leads Daine and Numair through danger to dragons; to a breathtaking confrontation with their great enemy Ozorne; and finally brings Daine face to face with the Great Gods, who will force the girl to make the most important decision of her life.

Elsewhere is where 15-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died. It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different. Here Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. But Liz wants to turn 16, not 14 again. She wants to get her driver's license. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. And now that she's dead, Liz is being forced to live a life she doesn't want.

They said his uncle Ian died in a car accident. Alex Rider knows that's a lie, and the bullet holes in his uncle's car confirm the truth. But nothing can prepare him for the news that the uncle he always thought he knew was really a spy for Britain's top-secret intelligence agency. Enlisted to find his uncle's killers and complete Ian's final mission, Alex suddenly finds himself caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse, with no way out.