Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Difficult Situations

Fifteen-year-old Benny Imura lives in a world infested with zombies where, when a kid turns 15, he must get a job to continue receiving food rations. Benny has no interest in the family business of zombie killing, but figures he doesn’t have much of a choice. He’s tried out a bunch of other jobs, and hasn’t found anything he likes. But as Benny starts training with his brother, he learns things about being human that he never expected.

After Mia reveals a document that proclaims Genovia a Democratic Monarchy, a bitter election ensues. Mia's father is running against a cousin who is using some questionable tactics. Meanwhile, Mia's novel - written under a pen name - is getting denied just as quickly as Princess Mia Thermopolis' college applications are getting accepted. What's a princess to do?

When 15-year-old Janie Johnson sees her own face in the missing children box on a milk carton, her world begins to blur. Was she kidnapped when she was a baby? Who are her parents? And who are Mr. and Mrs. Johnson? Janie’s search for the answers will lead her back twelve years into memories of another house, another family, another life. Her questions threaten to destroy the love she feels for her parents and the security they have given her. But it is a search she cannot ignore. The Face on the Milk Carton has been extremely popular ever since it was first released.

Life at 15 isn't easy for a girl if she's shy and hates the way she looks. Each day is heaven or hell, depending on who talks to her, or who doesn't. So when she's finally accepted by a group, she doesn't refuse their party games, even if it means taking LSD. Soon she's taking little pills to wake up and others to go to sleep, and the days begin to blur. Based on a 15-year-old's diary, Go Ask Alice is the intimate account of one girl's fatal journey into the world of drug addiction.

Jade believes she must get out of her neighborhood if she's ever going to succeed. Her mother says she has to take every opportunity. She has. She accepted a scholarship to a mostly-white private school and even Saturday morning test prep opportunities. But some opportunities feel more demeaning than helpful. Like an invitation to join Women to Women, a mentorship program for "at-risk" girls. Except really, it's for black girls. From "bad" neighborhoods. But maybe there are some things Jade could show these successful women about the real world and finding ways to make a real difference.

First-time novelist Natasha Friend is a writer with a talent for realistically expressing the fears and uncertainties of today’s adolescents in a good story. Perfect has received the Milkweed Prize for Children’s Literature and is a Book Sense "Winter Picks" selection. This is the moving story of a young girl who develops a dangerous eating disorder while dealing with intense grief.

Lili St. Crow’s darkly exhilarating Strange Angels novels have won a devoted readership. In the third book of the series, Crow’s unusual heroine, Dru Anderson, has been through the ringer, what with a missing mother, her father turning all undead on her, and forces of evil that just won’t seem to let her be. On the run from a predator with a taste for her blood, Dru can count on help from Graves and Christophe—but they just might do more harm than good as they battle for her affections.

Ella Moore was the most popular girl in school … and also the most hated. When she’s murdered at her own party, there are too many suspects to count. And too many people who think she deserved it. The police’s prime suspect is the new girl, Dawn Foster. Dawn was the last to hand Ella a drink on the night she died. Plus, all of Ella’s friends with a motive for wanting her dead are more than willing to throw Dawn under the bus if it means keeping the heat off themselves. But Dawn refuses to go down without a fight. She’s determined to clear her name.

The Mediator series has earned #1 New York Times best-selling author Meg Cabot unrivaled praise for her portrayal of a smart, courageous heroine. Suze Simon, a mediator who guides ghosts to the afterlife, is having a great time with her best friend from New York. But then four ghosts, the "RLS Angels", show up looking for revenge. The angry spirits died in a car accident and they blame Michael Meducci, a nerdy boy who has a crush on Suze.

When Adam Blake lands the best elective ever in his senior year, serving as an aide to the school psychologist, he thinks he's got it made. Sure, it means a lot of sitting around, which isn't easy for a guy with ADHD, but he can't complain, since he gets to spend the period texting all his friends. Then the doctor asks him to track down the troubled freshman who keeps dodging her, and Adam discovers that the boy is Julian - the foster brother he hasn't seen in five years.

Reeling from the devastation of Dust & Decay, Benny Imura and his friends plunge deep into the zombie-infested wastelands of the great Rot & Ruin. Benny, Nix, Lilah, and Chong journey through a fierce wilderness that was once America, searching for the jet they saw in the skies months ago. If that jet exists, then humanity itself must have survived somewhere.

Vivian Carter's mom was a Riot Grrrl in the 1990s, but now she and Viv live a pretty quiet life in a small Texas town. When Viv witnesses a series of sexist incidents at her high school, she takes a page from her mom's past and makes a feminist zine that she distributes anonymously to her classmates. Viv is just blowing off steam, but before she knows it she's started a revolution.

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.

Sixteen-year-old Zarin Wadia is many things: an Indian girl, a bright and vivacious student, an orphan, a troublemaker whose romantic entanglements are the subject of endless gossip among the girls in her school. "You don't want to get involved with a girl like that," they say. So how is it that Porus, a Parsi boy, has only ever had eyes for her? And how did Zarin and Porus end up dead in a car together, crashed on the side of the highway in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia?

Girls in New America must have a chaperone with them at all times. Because of this, Stella is never alone. She can't go out by herself or learn about the world. She can't even spend time with boys except at formal Visitations. Still, Stella feels lucky that her chaperone, Sister Helen, is like a friend to her. And then the unthinkable happens. Sister Helen dies suddenly, and Stella feels lost. Especially when she's assigned a new chaperone just days later.

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.

Lena has her killer style, her awesome boyfriend, and a plan. She knows she's going to make it big. Campbell, on the other hand, is just trying to keep her head down and get through the year at her new school. When both girls attend the Friday-night football game, what neither expects is for everything to descend into sudden mass chaos. Chaos born from violence and hate. Chaos that unexpectedly throws them together. They aren't friends. They hardly understand the other's point of view. But none of that matters when the city is up in flames.

All Kane Montgomery knows for certain is that the police found him half-dead in the river. He can't remember anything since an accident robbed him of his memories a few weeks ago. And the world feels different - reality itself seems different. So when three of his classmates claim to be his friends and the only people who can tell him what's truly going on, he doesn't know what to believe or who he can trust. But as he and the others are dragged into unimaginable worlds that materialize out of nowhere Kane realizes that nothing in his life is an accident.

Number one New York Times best-selling author of the Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot knows the difficulties (real or otherwise) of awkward teenage years. In Twilight, Cabot continues her series about Suze Simon, the teenage mediator with an other-worldly boyfriend, Jesse de Silva. But when fellow mediator Paul Slater threatens to send Jesse back to where he came from, can Suze stop him in time?

When 16-year-old Tariq Johnson dies from two gunshot wounds, his community is thrown into an uproar. Tariq was black. The shooter, Jack Franklin, is white. In the aftermath of Tariq's death, everyone has something to say, but no two accounts of the events line up. Day by day, new twists further obscure the truth. Tariq's friends, family, and community struggle to make sense of the tragedy, and to cope with the hole left behind when a life is cut short.