Even before Jen disappeared, Jimmy knew his best friend was leaving him behind. While she attracts stares from boys and men, fifteen-year-old Jimmy still passes for a child at the movies. He takes refuge in the past, before their friendship and life became so complicated. She’s his favorite subject―in front of the camera and otherwise―but photos can’t capture what he really wants. Yet Jimmy remains devoted, even lying for her when she runs off with strangers―men―she’s met online.Jimmy feels that Jen’s disappearance is his fault, just like the twelve-acre blaze he starts in the canyon near their trailer park. And he’s holding on to a secret that no one can drag out of him―not the taunting kids at school, an apathetic psychologist, or his despairing mother. Revolving between past and present, Paul W. Buchanan’s vivid “snapshot” vignettes evoke a young man’s struggle with oncoming adulthood, heartbreak, and incredible loss.

To save his family, one boy will defy the power of two armies in 15th-century China. Shen and his sister Chang are on the run. It's 1403, and the city of Nanjing is under siege. Their mother has been imprisoned, and their father, an Imperial Bodyguard, is presumed dead. Hoping to avoid detection for their connection to the former regime, Shen and Chang take refuge in a traveling acrobat troupe. Meanwhile, the new emperor has commanded the construction of an armada to explore the world the -- treasure fleet. But a violent struggle breaks out between Zheng He, the powerful leader of the fleet, and the government officials who fear him. Fleeing the growing conflict, the acrobats gain passage with the fleet. Shen soon discovers they'll be sharing their vessel with the notorious Yang Rong, a government official with the power to free their mother. Shen and Chang enter a dangerous game of double-dealing. After months at sea they manage to defy the power of both armies, and they eventually save their parents. But they also discover that their own lives have been changed forever. The China they knew no longer exists. For Shen especially, it is too late to go home. Set in a period of unparalleled Chinese exploration and rich with historical detail, Shen and the Treasure Fleet is an adventure of majestic proportions.

A young man's quest to reconcile his deafness in an unforgiving world leads to a remarkable sojourn in a remote African village that pulsates with beauty and violence These are hearing aids. They take the sounds of the world and amplify them." Josh Swiller recited this speech to himself on the day he arrived in Mununga, a dusty village on the shores of Lake Mweru. Deaf since a young age, Swiller spent his formative years in frustrated limbo on the sidelines of the hearing world, encouraged by his family to use lipreading and the strident approximations of hearing aids to blend in. It didn't work. So he decided to ditch the well-trodden path after college, setting out to find a place so far removed that his deafness would become irrelevant.That place turned out to be Zambia, where Swiller worked as a Peace Corps volunteer for two years. There he would encounter a world where violence, disease, and poverty were the mundane facts of life. But despite the culture shock, Swiller finally commanded attention―everyone always listened carefully to the white man, even if they didn't always follow his instruction. Spending his days working in the health clinic with Augustine Jere, a chubby, world-weary chess aficionado and a steadfast friend, Swiller had finally found, he believed, a place where his deafness didn't interfere, a place he could call home. Until, that is, a nightmarish incident blasted away his newfound convictions.At once a poignant account of friendship through adversity, a hilarious comedy of errors, and a gripping narrative of escalating violence, The Unheard is an unforgettable story from a noteworthy new talent.

Teenager Reid Anderson knows there’s something wrong with society, otherwise he wouldn’t feel so alienated. He has a problem with authority but can’t decide: “am I antisocial or does society suck?” So he goes through life pretending he doesn’t care. A new Wii console and simulation game show up in his rec room, and Reid is just bored enough to try them out. When a demon from inside the game threatens him in reality, Reid is plunged into a world of troubled teens he didn’t know existed. The demon’s challenge takes him on a journey of discovery. Suddenly exposed to other outsiders, Reid learns to question authority and find his own answers. He finds true friends among those labeled defective and cast aside by society—and together, they learn to fight for themselves. Set against a background of video games, teen mental illness, and anticonsumer counterculture; told through the eyes of Reid and his friends, Outside the Box challenges the safe, orthodox picture of the world championed in many popular teen novels.