Ryan Dean West is a fourteen-year-old junior at a boarding school for rich kids. He’s living in Opportunity Hall, the dorm for troublemakers, and rooming with the biggest bully on the rugby team. And he’s madly in love with his best friend Annie, who thinks of him as a little boy.
With the help of his sense of humor, rugby buddies, and his penchant for doodling comics, Ryan Dean manages to survive life’s complications and even find some happiness along the way. But when the unthinkable happens, he has to figure out how to hold on to what’s important, even when it feels like everything has fallen apart.
Filled with hand-drawn infographics and illustrations and told in a pitch-perfect voice, this realistic depiction of a teen’s experience strikes an exceptional balance of hilarious and heartbreaking.
It’s been a year since the shark attack that took Jane’s arm, and with it, everything she used to take for granted. Her dream of becoming an artist is on the line, and everything now seems out of reach, including her gorgeous, kind tutor, Max Shannon. While a perfectly nice guy from her science class is clearly interested in Jane — removing her fear that no one ever would want a one-armed girl — Jane can’t stop thinking about Max. But is his interest romantic? Or does he just feel sorry for her? Formerly Shark Girl picks up where Kelly Bingham’s artful, honest debut novel left off, following Jane as she deals with a career choice (should she “give back” by trying to become a nurse, or is art an equally valid calling?) along with family changes and her first real romance — all while remembering who she was before she was Shark Girl and figuring out who she is now.
In an environment where kindness equals weakness, how do those who care survive?
Shawn Goodman will capture your heart with this gritty, honest, and moving story about a boy struggling to learn about friendship, brotherhood, and manhood in a society where violence is the answer to every problem.
A Tayshas Reading List Pick
An ALA-YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Book
“Shawn Goodman takes us inside the gritty world of our juvenile justice system with the verve of a master storyteller.” —Jordan Sonnenblick, author of Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie
“A gripping story of a boy’s climb to manhood on his own terms.” —Paul Volponi, author of The Final Four
“The reader will be seized by [the boy’s] plight and his determination not only to survive, but to better himself.” —Todd Strasser, author of Give a Boy a Gun
“Kindness for Weakness is a daring, dazzling leap into the dark passage that is the journey to manhood.” —Paul Griffin, author of The Orange Houses
“Gripping action, gritty dialogue, vivid characters, and palpable tension permeate the brief chapters of James’s powerful, honest, compelling narrative.” —School Library Journal
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 Selection
A Bankstreet Best Book of the Year
A Notable Books for a Global Society Selection
A 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
Teenage twins Ysabel and Justin Nicholas are lucky. Ysabel's jewelry designs have already caught the eyes of the art world and Justin's intelligence and drive are sure to gain him entrance into the most prestigious of colleges. They even like their parents. But their father has a secret--one that threatens to destroy the twins' happy family and life as they know it.
Over the course of spring break, Ysabel and Justin will be forced to come to terms with their dad's new life, but can they overcome their fears to piece together their happy family again?
Growing up, London and Zach were as close as could be. And then Zach dies, and the family is gutted. London’s father is distant. Her mother won’t speak. The days are filled with what-ifs and whispers: Was it London’s fault?
Alone and adrift, London finds herself torn between her brother’s best friend and the handsome new boy in town as she struggles to find herself—and ultimately redemption—in this authentic and affecting novel from award-winning novelist Carol Lynch Williams.
In Allison Sekemoto's world, there is one rule left: Blood calls to blood
She has done the unthinkable: died so that she might continue to live. Cast out of Eden and separated from the boy she dared to love, Allie will follow the call of blood to save her creator, Kanin, from the psychotic vampire Sarren. But when the trail leads to Allie's birthplace in New Covington, what Allie finds there will change the world forever—and possibly end human and vampire existence.
There's a new plague on the rise, a strain of the Red Lung virus that wiped out most of humanity generations ago—and this strain is deadly to humans and vampires alike. The only hope for a cure lies in the secrets Kanin carries, if Allie can get to him in time.
Allison thought that immortality was forever. But now, with eternity itself hanging in the balance, the lines between human and monster will blur even further, and Allie must face another choice she could never have imagined having to make.
In stunningly raw, relatable prose that upends the idea of the manic pixie dream girl trope, Tom Leveen does more than just talk: he tells the story of a less-than-perfect "dream girl" and the equally flawed boy who worships her.
Tyler has been crushing on Becky since he started high school, but didn't get the guts to talk to her until long after he already found himself dating Sydney, a quintessential good girl whose patience for Tyler's unrequited love is thinning. After publishing a story about Becky in a prestigious magazine, Tyler decides tonight -- halfway through their senior year -- he's going to come clean to Becky, with whom he has become good friends. But "Open For Business Becca" has some not-so-secret secrets Tyler's been denying, and there's no way Tyler's dream girl can ever be what he needs her to be. Instead, he just might discover how far he's willing to go to break his own heart.
But her new relationship with Mike, a skater boy who's also in a local punk band, gives her a glimmer of confidence (even if he does seem too good to be true). And when she gets support from the unlikeliest of sources, Zero starts to wonder if she might be more than just a name.
I thought it was going to be just us.
I was wrong.
Nothing is what it seems in this creepy paranormal thriller by Cyn Balog.
Kate Vaughan is no stranger to tough choices.
She's made them before. Now it's time to do it again.
Kate has a secret, something tucked away in her past. And she's getting on with her life. Her business is thriving. She has a strong relationship with her family, and a devoted boyfriend whom she wants to love with all her heart. If Kate had ever made a list, Rowan would fill the imagined boxes of a perfect mate. But she wants more than the perfect on paper relationship; she wants a real and imperfect love. That's why, when Kate discovers the small velvet box hidden in Rowan's drawer, she panics.
It always happens this way. Just when Kate thinks she can love, just when she believes she can conquer the fear, she's filled with dread. And she wants more than anything to make this feeling go away. But how?
When the mistakes have been made and the running is over, it's time to face the truth. Kate knows this. She understands that a woman can never undo what can never be undone. Yet, for the first time in her life she also knows that she won't fully love until she confronts those from her past. It's time to act.
Can she do it? Can she travel to the place where it all began, to the one who shares her secret? Can the lost ever become found?
And Then I Found You gives new life to the phrase "inspired by a true story." By travelling back to a painful time in her own family's history, author Patti Callahan Henry explores the limits of courage, and the price of a selfless act.