The Freak Observer

Author	Eishes Chayil
ISBN	0802720889

Inside the closed community of Borough Park, where most Chassidim live, the rules of life are very clear, determined by an ancient script written thousands of years before down to the last detail--and abuse has never been a part of it. But when thirteen-year-old Gittel learns of the abuse her best friend...

Author	Beth Kephart
ISBN	0061429287

Rosie and her mother coexist in the same house as near strangers. Since Rosie's father abandoned them years ago, her mother has accomplished her own disappearing act, spending more time with her boss than with Rosie. Now faced with losing her grandfather too, Rosie begins to visit him every day, traveling...

Author	Adam Rapp
ISBN	0763630314

An award-winning writer and playwright hits the open road for a searing novel-in-letters about a street kid on a highstakes trek across America.

For a runaway boy who goes by the name "Punkzilla," kicking a meth habit and a life of petty crime in Portland, Oregon, is a prelude to a mission: reconnecting...

Author	Beverley Brenna
ISBN	0889954836

The White Bicycle is the third stand-alone title in the Wild Orchid series about a young woman with Asperger's Syndrome. This installment chronicles Taylor Jane's travels to the south of France where she spends a summer babysitting for the Phoenix family. Including flashbacks into Taylor's earliest...

Author	Guadalupe Garcia McCall
ISBN	1600604293

Lupita, a budding actor and poet in a close-knit Mexican American immigrant family, comes of age as she struggles with adult responsibilities during her mother's battle with cancer in this young adult novel in verse.

When Lupita learns Mami has cancer, she is terrified by the possibility...

Author	Andrew Smith
ISBN	0312375581

Jonah and his younger brother, Simon, are on their own. They set out to find what’s left of their family, carrying between them ten dollars, a backpack full of dirty clothes, a notebook, and a stack of letters from their brother, who is serving a tour in Vietnam. And soon into their journey, they have...

Author	Barbara Stuber
ISBN	1416997032

At fifteen, Iris is a hobo of sorts -- no home, no family, no direction. After her mother’s early death, Iris’s father focuses on big plans for his new shoe stores and his latest girlfriend, and has no time for his daughter. Unbeknownst to her, he hires Iris out as housekeeper and companion for a country...

Author	Martine Leavitt
ISBN	0374351236

When sixteen-year-old Angel meets Call at the mall, he buys her meals and says he loves her, and he gives her some candy that makes her feel like she can fly. Pretty soon she's addicted to his candy, and she moves in with him. As a favor, he asks her to hook up with a couple of friends of his, and then a couple more....

Author	Ebony Joy Wilkins
ISBN	0545109280

It is a summer that will change everything . . . .

NaTasha has a wonderful life in affluent Park Adams. She fits in, she has friends, and she's a member of the all-white ballet troupe. Being nearly the only African American in her school doesn't bother NaTasha. But it bothers Tilly, NaTasha's spitfire...

Author	Brent Runyon
ISBN	0375844465

The cottage on the lake is always the same, but Luke is changing. At thirteen he’s excited. At fourteen he’s cool. At fifteen he’s pissed off. At sixteen he’s in love.

Through four summers’ worth of trips to the emergency room, campfires and house fires, parties and feuds with neighbors,...

Author	L.K. Madigan
ISBN	0547194897

Winner of the 2010 William C. Morris Award!

Fifteen-year-old Blake has a girlfriend and a friend who’s a girl. One of them loves him; the other one needs him.

When he snapped a picture of a street person for his photography homework, Blake never dreamed that the woman in the photo was...

Author	Sandra Alonzo
ISBN	1423118987

Everyone has to know the truth in case I get killed on the trail. It’ll be My Escape all written and drawn WHILE IT HAPPENS. Could be a little raw. I’m a little raw. I’m going to lay low, still and quiet, blend in, harmonize with the world out there. It’s not an easy thing to be, a boy on a horse...riding...

Author

Sean Beaudoin

Stan Smith has the world's dullest name, and the world's dullest life to go with it. At 17, the former junior chess champion turned "Town's Laziest Register Monkey at the Town's Only Video Store" has no car, no college, and, of course, no girl. If that weren't pathetic enough, he's got an organic-food-freak...

Author	Rune Michaels
ISBN	1416912592

It's tough to measure up to your parents' expectations. Imagine how much harder it would be if your mother told you that your biological father—whom you'd never met—was a Nobel prize-winning genius? What if, after years of testing and tutoring, you never showed that particular spark of brilliance?...

Author	Lee Weatherly
ISBN	0440419042

Juliet is passionate about acting and has been given the chance to star as the lead role in the play Northern Lights (based on Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass). But at home, her life is not so happy. Her family starts to disintegrate after her father suddenly and unexpectedly leaves home. What exactly...

Author	A.M. Jenkins
ISBN	0064473740

Colt's perfect life crumbles when his girlfriend breaks up with him and looming academic ineligibility threatens his baseball career. For a guy who gets by on his good looks and talent with a bat, Colt knows that he could be facing his toughest challenge ever.

Just as she did in her acclaimed...

Author	Conrad Wesselhoeft
ISBN	0547577257

Since the death of his brother, Jonathan’s been losing his grip on reality. Last year’s Best Young Poet and gifted guitarist is now Taft High School’s resident tortured artist, when he bothers to show up. He's on track to repeat eleventh grade, but his English teacher, his principal, and his crew...

Author	Martine Murray
ISBN	0439669510

It's dawn, on an empty road in the countryside. Empty, except for the girl in the long, red evening gown, standing next to a bicycle, and looking back at the home she's about to leave. Mannie's ready to start a new life and forget the terrible things that have happened here, but there are questions that need...

Author

Steve Brezenoff

“Brezenoff’s enviable prose captures distinct, compelling characters as they struggle through the often heartbreaking work of becoming adults. Readers will identify with Lily, Noah, and Simon as they try to reconcile their longing for connection with their need to break free.”

—Sara...

Author	E.M. Crane
ISBN	0385734794

If all the world’s a stage, Andrea Anderson is sitting in the audience. High school has its predictable heroes, heroines, villains, and plotlines, and Andrea has no problem guessing how each drama will turn out. She is, after all, a professional spectator. In the social hierarchy she is a Nothing,...

Author	Chris Lynch
ISBN	0689847904

Beautiful. I woke up on the morning I started reading this book and went down to my first breakfast at the new resort I was staying at for the last leg of my trip to Zanzibar. The girl I was with slept fourteen hours every night (hi, Miranda!), so I always had the mornings to myself at that resort. I went up to...

Author

Rosemary Wells

It's Grandma's birthday and Max and Ruby are having a party for her. Ruby has invited seven stuffed-toy guests she's sure Grandma will like. Max wants to invite his Jellyball Shooter Spider, his Ear-Splitter Space Cadet and his Can't-Sit-Up Slug, but Ruby says no. Yet each time Ruby counts the number...

Author	David A. Adler
ISBN	0142404179

After nearly a quarter of a century, Cam Jansen remains a popular character, garnering new fans with each new title. In this newest Cam Jansen mystery, it's a very snowy day outside, so Cam and Eric are running late to computer lab. When they finally arrive, they realize that three computers are missing!...

Author	Angela Johnson
ISBN	0689865058

Three-time Coretta Scott King Award–winner Angela Johnson writes a wrenching, honest book about surviving the unimaginable and finding a way to go on.

Scotty compares herself to tofu: no flavor unless you add something. And it’s true that Scotty’s friends, Misha and Falcone, and...