A nuanced novel in verse that explores identit, friendship, love, loss, and home in a multicultural world.For Emma Karas, Japan is home. It is where she has lived almost her entire life. But when her mother falls ill, Emma’s family moves in with her grandmother, back in Massachusetts. Emma is desperately homesick. She feels out of place in the U.S. and starts to get painful migraines. Then Emma begins volunteering at a long-term care center, helping a patient, Zena, write down her poems. There, Emma meets Samnang, a cute boy from her high school. As the weeks pass, Emma and Samnang grow close. But when Emma is given the choice, will she stay in Massachusetts, or return home to Japan?An ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults SelectionA Bankstreet Best Book of the YearA Notable Books for a Global Society SelectionA Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts“With beautiful language and deep sensitivity, Holly Thompson explores the courage it takes to find your own voice.” —Patricia McCormick, author of National Book Award finalist Never Fall Down“Pulsing with pain and passion, with humor, heart, and hope.” —Sonya Sones, author of What My Mother Doesn’t Know and To Be Perfectly Honest*“Thompson captures perfectly the feeling of belonging elsewhere. A sensitive and compelling read that will inspire teens to contemplate how they can make a difference.” —School Library Journal, Starred “Thompson nimbly braids political tragedy, natural disaster, PTSD, connections among families, and a cautious, quiet romance into an elegant whole. This is an artistic picture of devastation, fragility, bonds and choices.” —Kirkus Reviews “Thompson, working in a free-verse style that becomes a seamless piece of a world imbued with poetry, weaves [the plot strands] together skillfully. The result is a touching portrait of Emma working through loss and opportunity as Lowell becomes not just “not-Japan,” but the site of new connections and a possible romance.” —Publishers Weekly “The vivid imagery in the lyrical free verse lends immediacy to Emma’s turbulent feelings. Readers will finish the book knowing that, like Zena, the Cambodian refugees, and the tsunami victims, Emma has the strength to ‘a hundred times fall down / a hundred and one times get up.’” —The Horn Book Magazine

Middleburg's teen martial artists scramble to reunite the broken shards of the powerful and mysterious Shen ring, in an effort to locate their missing friend Raphael and avert worldwide disaster―but it won't be easy. A pack of government agents, a secret order of Chinese kung fu masters, and a family of vengeful fallen angels stand in their way. Amid the struggle, tensions between the two teen gangs flare once again when one of the Flats kids gets jumped and put in the hospital. Zhai and Ignacio, the leaders of the rival factions, struggle to maintain peace and continue their quest for the ring shards amid the rising tide of confrontation. Meanwhile, Middleburg's leading ladies Maggie and Dalton put their differences aside in an effort to wrest their friend Aimee from the clutches of the sultry and seductive Nephilim, Orias. But when a powerful fallen angel learns that Orias has imprisoned his father Oberon, a new supernatural menace is unleashed on Middleburg, one that threatens to bring all the conflicting factions together in one final, deadly conflagration. The only hope is that Middleburg's missing teen hero will somehow reappear and find a way to set things right―but he's been gone for over two months, without leaving a single clue as to his whereabouts. As the situation grows more dire, all of Middleburg wonders: where is Raphael Kain? With mighty doses of kung fu, eastern mysticism, and star-crossed love, Shadow Train is the most poignant, romantic and explosive book in The Tracks series thus far!

Girls who are fans of Judy Moody, Matilda and Clementine will love spunky Alice-Miranda!Alice-Miranda is thrilled to be back at Winchesterfield-Downsfordvale Academy for Proper Young Ladies, where the girls are rehearsing a play with the neighboring boys' school. But it's not all glamour and stage lights: there are rumors of a witch in the woods, and Alice-Miranda's friends, Jacinta and Millie, are clashing with Sloan Sykes, a rude new student whose pushy mother comes up with a get-rich scheme that could have disastrous results. When Alice-Miranda learns of the plot, she tries to set things right--and on the night of the big performance, no less!

Time for a seventh-inning stretch! The San Francisco Splash is book #7 in our early chapter book mystery series, where each book is set in a different American ballpark!   Splash! A hit soars over the walls of the San Francisco ballpark on the bay and drops into the water. But then Mike and Kate hear another, much larger splash nearby . . . and this time it's not a baseball. It's a man overboard! And when he's pulled from the water, the old-time ballplayer discovers his World Series ring is gone! Is it at the bottom of the bay? Or was it somehow stolen by a long-ago rival?   The San Francisco Splash includes several pages of "Dugout Notes," fun facts about San Francisco's recently built ballpark.Cross Ron Roy's A to Z Mystery series with Matt Christopher's sports books and you get the Ballpark Mysteries: fun, puzzling whodunits aimed at the younger brothers and sisters of John Feinstein's fans.