Fiction

Sweet 15
Emily Adler
Destiny Lozada is turning fifteen, and her parents want to throw her a traditional quinceañera, celebrating her transition into "womanhood" with a religious ceremony, a big expensive party, a silly dress and tiaraâthe works. Destiny’s older sister calls it an antiquated, misogynistic ritual that just gives their mother a chance to show off. As usual, Destiny is caught in the middle and afraid to say anything. She’s not a princesa like her mother imagines or an activist like her sister. So who is she? Destiny isn’t sure yet, but she knows she’d rather be watching TV, riding her skateboard, and confiding to her cat and her stuffed bear. She also wouldn’t mind finding the guy of her dreams to be her escort for the quince. . . . When the plans, bills, and fights start piling up, Destiny has to stop being a spectator to "The Lozada Show" and take a stand once and for all in her family and her life. In their first novel written together, these talented co-authors bring a male and female perspective to the story.
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Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl
Daniel Manus Pinkwater
Big Audrey is a girl . . .with cat’s whiskers . . .and sort of cat’s eyes.But, is there an other cat-whiskered, sort of cat-eyed girl?Big Audrey waves goodbye to her friends Iggy and Neddie, Seamus, and Crazy Wig, in Los Angeles and hitches a ride with bongo-playing-while-driving Marlon Brando across the country to Poughkeepsie, New York, city of mystery. She finds she has questions needing answers—and a bit of inter-plane-of-existence traveling to do.Big Audrey and her telepathic friend Molly zigzag off on an incredibly strange and kooky adventure, and solve the mystery of the cat-whiskered doppelganger.
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The Boneshaker
Kate Milford, Andrea Offermann
Thirteen-year-old Natalie Minks loves machines, particularly automata—self-operating mechanical devices, usually powered by clockwork. When Jake Limberleg and his traveling medicine show arrive in her small Missouri town with a mysterious vehicle under a tarp and an uncanny ability to make Natalie’s half-built automaton move, she feels in her gut that something about this caravan of healers is a bit off. Her uneasiness leads her to investigate the intricate maze of the medicine show, where she discovers a horrible truth and realizes that only she has the power to set things right. Set in 1914, The Boneshaker is a gripping, richly textured novel about family, community, courage, and looking evil directly in the face in order to conquer it.
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His Own Where
Sapphire, June Jordan
This June Jordan treasure is a rare piece of fiction from one of America's most vital poets and political essayistsa tender story of young love in the face of generational opposition, a modern-day Romeo and Juliet that sings and sways.” Walter MosleyNominated for a National Book Award in 1971, His Own Where is the story of Buddy, a fifteen-year-old boy whose world is spinning out of control. He meets Angela, whose angry parents accuse her of being "wild." When life falls apart for Buddy and his father, and when Angela is attacked at home, they take action to create their own way of staying alive in Brooklyn. In the process, the two find refuge in one another and learn that love is real and necessary. His Own Where was one of The New York Times' Most Outstanding Books and was on the American Library Association's list of Best Books in 1971.June Jordan was a poet, essayist, journalist, dramatist, activist, and educator known for challenging oppression through her inspirational words and actions. She was the founder of Poetry for the People at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught for many years. The author of over twenty books, her poetry is collected in Directed by Desire; her selected essays in Some of Us Did Not Die. Sapphire is the author of American Dreams, Black Wings & Blind Angels, and Push, which was made into the 2009 award-winning motion picture Precious.
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Goal: Glory Days
Robert Rigby
You saw him on the screen in the hit movies GOAL: The Dream Begins and GOAL II: Living the Dream. Now the saga of young professional soccer player Santiago Muñez continues in this final installment of the GOAL trilogy.With a fresh start and a warm welcome from his old fans in Newcastle, Santi returns to England and to the team where his career began. Soon he’s back at the top of his game, and when he is selected for a 2010 World Cup squad, it seems as if his dream of playing in the World Cup finals is within reach.But when Santi is injured during an international warm-up game, he worries that this could be the end of it all. With no time to waste, the pressure is on for him to get back on the field. Will his injury keep him from achieving his ultimate goal? Or will he recover in time to play in the greatest competition of his life?
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Simple Secrets
Nancy Mehl
Can graphic designer Gracie Temple have it all: the big city life and a job at a successful advertising firm? Just when she feels life coming together she receives an unknown uncle’s inheritance in a quiet Kansas Mennonite community. The house comes with a dark legacy and a cast of interesting neighbors, including farmer Sam Goodrich. Can Gracie shake off the dust of this town or will its secret charms pull her in to stay?
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The Cardturner
Louis Sachar
From Louis Sachar, New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Newbery Medal for HOLES, comes the young adult novel THE CARDTURNER, an exploration of the human condition. How are we supposed to be partners? He can’t see the cards and I don’t know the rules! The summer after junior year of high school looks bleak for Alton Richards. His girlfriend has dumped him to hook up with his best friend. He has no money and no job. His parents insist that he drive his great-uncle Lester to his bridge club four times a week and be his cardturner—whatever that means. Alton’s uncle is old, blind, very sick, and very rich. But Alton’s parents aren’t the only ones trying to worm their way into Lester Trapp’s good graces. They’re in competition with his longtime housekeeper, his alluring young nurse, and the crazy Castaneda family, who seem to have a mysterious influence over him. Alton soon finds himself intrigued by his uncle, by the game of bridge, and especially by the pretty and shy Toni Castaneda. As the summer goes on, he struggles to figure out what it all means, and ultimately to figure out the meaning of his own life. Through Alton’s wry observations, Louis Sachar explores the disparity between what you know and what you think you know. With his incomparable flair and inventiveness, he examines the elusive differences between perception and reality—and inspires readers to think and think again.
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Party
Tom Leveen
It's saturday night in Santa Barbara and school is done for the year. Everyone is headed to the same party. Or at least it seems that way. The place is packed. The beer is flowing. Simple, right? But for 11 different people the motives are way more complicated. As each character takes a turn and tells his or her story, the eleven individuals intersect, and reconnect, collide, and combine in ways that none of them ever saw coming.
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Invisible Girl
Mary Hanlon Stone
When poor Boston girl Stephanie is abandoned by her abusive mother and taken in by Annie?s Beverly Hills family, she feels anything but home. Her dark complexion and accent stick out like a sore thumb in the golden-hued world of blondes and extravagance. These are girls who seem to live life in fastforward, while Stephanie is stuck on pause. Yet when a new rival moves to town, threatening Annie?s queen-bee status, Stephanie finds herself taking sides in a battle she never even knew existed, and that feeling invisible is a wound that can only be healed by standing up for who she is. Brilliant newcomer Mary Hanlon Stone delivers a compulsively readable insider?s view of growing up in a world where money and privilege don?t always glitter.
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Web of Lies
Jennifer Estep
Curiosity is definitely going to get me dead one of these days. Probably real soon. I'm Gin Blanco. You might know me as the Spider, the most feared assassin in the South. I’m retired now, but trouble still has a way of finding me. Like the other day when two punks tried to rob my popular barbecue joint, the Pork Pit. Then there was the barrage of gunfire on the restaurant. Only, for once, those kill shots weren’t aimed at me. They were meant for Violet Fox. Ever since I agreed to help Violet and her grandfather protect their property from an evil coalmining tycoon, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m really retired. So is Detective Donovan Caine. The only honest cop in Ashland is having a real hard time reconciling his attraction to me with his Boy Scout mentality. And I can barely keep my hands off his sexy body. What can I say? I’m a Stone elemental with a little Ice magic thrown in, but my heart isn’t made of solid rock. Luckily, Gin Blanco always gets her man . . . dead or alive.