Difficult Teens

Thirteen-year-old Habo has always been different - light eyes, yellow hair, and white skin. Not the good brown skin his family has and not the white skin of tourists. Habo is strange and alone. His father, unable to accept Habo, abandons the family; his mother can scarcely look at him. His brothers are cruel, and the other children never invite him to play. Only his sister, Asu, loves him well. But even Asu can't take the sting away when the family is forced from their small Tanzanian village, and Habo knows he is to blame.

For all of Emory's life she's been told who she is. In town she's the rich one—the great-great-granddaughter of the mill's founder. At school she's hot Maddie Ward's younger sister. And at home, she's the good one, her stoner older brother Joey's babysitter. Everything was turned on its head, though, when she and Joey were in the car accident that killed Candy MontClaire. The car accident that revealed just how bad Joey's drug habit was.

Newbery Medal winner Paul Fleischman writes a profoundly moving story of connectedness and the journey of a young soul to self-discovery. Told through the voices of five characters and narrated by age-appropriate actors, Whirligig compels the listener with its lesson on how our actions can impact the lives of others - even years later. A stunningly authentic listening experience.

From her first moment at Merryweather High, Melinda Sordino knows she's an outcast. She busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, a major infraction in high-school society, so her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't know glare at her. She retreats into her head, where the lies and hypocrisies of high school stand in stark relief to her own silence, making her all the more mute.

Everyone in fifteen-year-old Bella’s life needs something from her. Her mom needs her to help around the house, her dad needs her to not make waves, her ex needs her to not be so much. The only person who never needed anything from her was her grandmother—and now she’s dead. There’s only one thing that dulls the pressure: alcohol. Vodka, beer, peppermint schnapps—alcohol smooths the sharp edges of Bella’s life. And what’s the big deal? Everyone drinks. Besides, Bella can stop whenever she wants.

Life will never be the same for Red Porter. He's a kid growing up around black car grease, white fence paint, and the backward attitudes of the folks who live in his hometown, Rocky Gap, Virginia. Red's daddy, his idol, has just died, leaving Red and Mama with some hard decisions and a whole lot of doubt. Should they sell the Porter family business, a gas station, repair shop, and convenience store rolled into one, where the slogan - "Porter's: We Fix it Right!" - has been shouting the family's pride for as long as anyone can remember?

Centuries after nuclear war has destroyed our planet, humanity struggles to rebuild. It's been a month since the dropships landed and the rest of the Colonists joined the 100 on the ground. The teens, once branded juvenile delinquents, are now leaders among their people. But suddenly a new threat looms on the horizon - something neither Colonists or Earthborns have prepared for. In this thrilling fourth installment, Clarke, Bellamy, Wells, and Glass are pushed to the limits as they fight to protect their people...and to survive.

In the affluent town of Weslyn, Connecticut, where most people worry about what to be seen in and who to be seen with, Emma Thomas would rather not be seen at all. She’s more concerned with feigning perfection - pulling down her sleeves to conceal the bruises, not wanting anyone to know how far from perfect her life truly is. Without expecting it, she finds love. It challenges her to recognize her own worth - at the risk of revealing the terrible secret she’s desperate to hide.

It's been over a year since all the adults disappeared. Gone. In the time since every person over the age of 14 disappeared from the town of Perdido Beach, California, countless battles have been fought: battles against hunger and lies and plague, and epic battles of good against evil. And now, the gaiaphage has been reborn as Diana's malicious mutant daughter, Gaia. Gaia is endlessly hungry for destruction.

Fed up with her wild behavior, 16-year-old Lex’s parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape. But Uncle Mort’s true occupation is much dirtier than shoveling manure. He’s a Grim Reaper. And he’s going to teach Lex the family business. She quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next.

It's been 21 days since the hundred landed on Earth. They're the only humans to set foot on the planet in centuries...or so they thought. Book two in The 100 series, now a popular show on the CW network. Facing an unknown enemy, Wells attempts to keep the group together. Clarke strikes out for Mount Weather, in search of other colonists, while Bellamy is determined to rescue his sister, no matter the cost. And back on the ship, Glass faces an unthinkable choice between the love of her life and life itself.

He's a boy called Jew. Gypsy. Stopthief. Runt. Happy. Fast. Filthy son of Abraham. He's a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He's a boy who steals food for himself and the other orphans. He's a boy who believes in bread and mothers and angels. He's a boy who wants to be a Nazi someday, with tall, shiny jackboots and a gleaming Eagle hat of his own. Until the day that suddenly makes him change his mind.

He says: Omar "T-Diddy" Smalls has got it made - a full football ride to UMiami, hero-worship status at school, and pick of any girl at West Charleston High. She says: Football, shmootball. Here's what Claudia Clarke cares about: Harvard, the poor, the disenfranchised, the hungry, the staggering teen pregnancy rate, investigative journalism...the list goes on. She does not have a minute to waste on Mr. T-Diddy Smalls and his harem of bimbos.

Eden was always good at being good. Starting high school didn’t change who she was. But the night her brother’s best friend rapes her, Eden’s world capsizes. What was once simple, is now complex. What Eden once loved—who she once loved—she now hates. What she thought she knew to be true, is now lies. Nothing makes sense anymore, and she knows she’s supposed to tell someone what happened but she can’t. So she buries it instead. And she buries the way she used to be.

A bag of chips. That's all 16-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad's pleadings that he's stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad's resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad's every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered.

Every morning, A wakes in a different person’s body, a different person’s life. There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere. It’s all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply....

Elliot Finch is a quiet boy. He loves the beach and pancakes at the local diner and drawing in his journal. A journal that housed his most private, most intimate thoughts and feelings. A journal that was never meant to be seen by anyone other than himself. But someone did see it, and it ruined his life. Everything in Elliot's life is now marked as "before" or "after" The Party, and he vowed to never put his thoughts down on paper again, that way no one can use them against him.

Ever since a devastating nuclear war, humanity has lived on spaceships far above Earth's radioactive surface. Now, one hundred juvenile delinquents - considered expendable by society - are being sent on a dangerous mission: to recolonize the planet. It could be their second chance at life...or it could be a suicide mission. Clarke was arrested for treason, though she's haunted by the memory of what she really did. Wells, the chancellor's son, came to Earth for the girl he loves - but will she ever forgive him?

Ever since the untimely death of her mother, 14-year-old Joan Skraggs has been desperately unhappy. Under the thumb of her cruel father and three sullen brothers, Joan lives like a servant on their farm just outside of Lancaster, forever cooking, cleaning, and attending to the many demands of the home. But she has little freedom and less support from her family for her love of reading and blossoming interest in education.

The first time she saw him, she flipped. The first time he saw her, he ran. That was the second grade, but not much has changed by the seventh. Juli says, "My Bryce. Still walking around with my first kiss." He says, "It's been six years of strategic avoidance and social discomfort." But in the eighth grade, everything gets turned upside down: Just as Bryce is thinking that there's maybe more to Juli than meets the eye, she's thinking that he's not quite all he seemed.