Rick Dresner is spending the summer with the Romero family, who live in a barrio in the hills of Santo Domingo, Mexico. He'll help them build a house on their land, and in return, they'll provide room and board and help Rick improve his Spanish. But the construction project turns out to be a lot tougher than Rick had imagined. Language and cultural differences lead to awkwardness and misunderstanding, especially when he falls for a rich American girl from a very different part of town. In this new twist on the classic fish-out-of-water story, it's a middle-class white boy who's out of his element and must change and grow to adapt to his surroundings.
Lotus Lowenstein's life is merde. She dreams of moving to Paris and becoming an existentialist. Yet here she is trapped in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with a New-Agey mom, an out-of-work dad, and a chess champion brother who dreams of being a rock star. Merci à Dieu for Lotus’s best friend, Joni, who loves French culture enough to cofound their high school’s first French Club with Lotus. At the first meeting, the cutest boy in the world walks in. His name is Sean, and he too loves French culture and worships Jean-Paul Sartre.
At first, Lotus thinks Sean is the best thing to happen to her in years. He’s smart, cultured, and adorable. Unfortunately, though, Joni feels the same way. And having an existentialist view of love, Sean sees nothing wrong with enjoying both girls’ affections. Things come to a head when all three depart for Montreal with their teacher, Ms. G, on the French Club’s first official field trip. Will Sean choose Joni over Lotus? And will Lotus and Joni’s friendship ever recover?
Did you know that the main campus of the Academy of Spirits is at a Dairy Queen in Phoenix? Me either. Until now. Some weird stuff has been happening to my stepmother, Paula, and the Academy has asked me, Sherry Holmes Baldwin, to get to the bottom of it. They think someone’s trying to hurt her.
I really don’t want to get involved—my life is way too busy. Josh and I are celebrating two blissful months of togetherness. And my best friend, Junie, is finally showing a teeny bit of interest in clothes and makeup after years of brainiac behavior. But being that my mom is a ghost and all, me, my brother, and my dad rely on Paula a lot. So it’s not like I can just ignore what’s going on. Especially since my mom is competing at the Ghostlympics. If she comes in first place, she earns five minutes of Real Time.
And that means I’ve got to get involved in a creepy, freaky mystery.
But . . . I so don’t do spooky.
Stuck. That's how 33-year-old aspiring singer Celeste Duncan feels, with her deadbeat boyfriend and static career. But then Celeste receives a puzzling phone call and a box full of mysterious family heirlooms which just might be the first real clue to the identity of the father she never knew. Impulsively, Celeste flies to Japan to search for a long-lost relative who could be able to explain. She stumbles head first into a weird, wonderful world where nothing is quite as it seems―a land with an inexplicable fascination with foreigners, karaoke boxes, and unbearably perky TV stars.
With little knowledge of Japanese, Celeste finds a friend in her English-speaking homestay brother, Takuya, and comes to depend on him for all variety of translation, travel and investigatory needs. As they cross the country following a trail after Celeste's family, she discovers she's developing "more-than-sisterly" feelings for him. But with a nosy homestay mom scheming to reunite Takuya with his old girlfriend, and her search growing dimmer, Celeste begins to wonder whether she's made a terrible mistake by coming to Japan. Can Celeste find her true self in this strange land, and discover that love can transcend culture?
Chamberlain Ski Resort and Spa
Welcome to the 10th Annual Snow Queen competition!
I can't believe I got roped into this.
Snow Princesses must attend all pageant rehearsals, with appropriate outfits.
Well, no matter what it takes, I'm going to wipe that smirk off Layla Chamberlain's face.
Our rehearsal space can be booked to practice your talent.
Um, does "looking dumb in a dress" count as a talent?
See Grayson Chamberlain, the assistant director, with any questions.
If you insist! First question: How can someone so sweet (and hot!) be a Chamberlain?
Good luck! One of you will soon be our new Snow Queen!
Oh joy.
Unless Grayson comes with the tiara . . .
Thus begins Hallie's great odyssey, for the first time she ventures outside the safety of Cosgrove County and the sixty-mile radius in which she's functioned for her entire life. But somehow, escaping home doesn't translate into leaving behind all of her problems, and, unfortunately, not all can be solved by putting her superior gambling skills to work.
Eventually, it's time to return home to all the good people who are great at driving each other crazy. Hallie must finally face the biggest decision of her life.
Humorous and heartfelt, Best Bet underscores the importance of friends, family, and a sense of belonging. The characters in this modest, but neighborly, small town prove that an ordinary existence made up of small but genuine moments can satisfy a soul that's hungry for life in all of its glories and disappointments.
The Cresbard school means a lot to sixth grader Rachel Johnson. It means classes with a beloved teacher, important band rehearsals for the upcoming concert in Chicago, and time to hang out with Winnie and Darren and the rest of the town kids. For a twelve year-old living on a remote prairie farm with no phone, school means connection. And that connection is about to be severed. The most dangerous winter that Rachel has ever known is about to descend on Cresbard, marooning her on the farm and keeping her from the school she so desperately loves.
Then, in a surprising turn of events, Rachel’s dad agrees to fly his three oldest daughters to town so they can continue the school year. Rachel will be boarding in a hotel with no parents, no rules, and no chores. Her choice of desserts every night, two-stepping with Darren Baxter at the school dance . . .will Rachel ever be able to return to farm life after this?
When the tabloids print a "where are they now" story about her, claiming that Lindsay's maniacal father has kept her imprisoned in her house for the past five years, a couple of well-meaning teens attempt to "rescue" Lindsay. For the first time in five years, Lindsay is outside the protective quiet of her house. And that's when she hears the one voice she never expected to hear: her mother's.
When she discovers that perhaps her mother didn't leave voluntarily, she has a choice to make: will she risk everything to find the truth about her past--and the source of her ability?
Najika faces a new challenge, and it may be her toughest one yet. Before their tragic accident, her parents, both famous pastry chefs, made a promise to the grandmother of a classmate of Najika’s: to duplicate a white cake the elderly woman once tasted abroad as a teenager. Now Najika hopes to re-create the cake herself.
With so few clues (it’s fluffy and heavenly) and so many possibilities, the trial and error might just go on forever. But Najika refuses to give up–for one reason: She knows that all great masterpieces contain a distinct magic: a secret ingredient called love.
Najika will need lots of it to make the wishes of Anju’s grandmother–and certain other classmates–come true. And who knows? With so much amour in the air, Najika might just find a little left over for herself!
The spring of 1955 tests Laurie Valentine’s gifts as a storyteller. After her friend Dickie contracts polio and finds himself confined to an iron lung, Laurie visits him in the hospital. There she meets Carolyn and Chip, two other kids trapped inside the breathing machines. Laurie’s first impulse is to flee, but Dickie begs her to tell them a story. And so Laurie begins her tale of Collosso, a rampaging giant, and Jimmy, a tiny boy whose destiny is to become a slayer of giants.
As Laurie embellishes her tale with gnomes, unicorns, gryphons, and other fanciful creatures, Dickie comes to believe that he is a character in her story. Little by little Carolyn, Chip, and other kids who come to listen, recognize counterparts as well. Laurie’s tale is so powerful that when she’s prevented from continuing it, Dickie, Carolyn, and Chip take turns as narrators. Each helps bring the story of Collosso and Jimmy to an end—changing the lives of those in the polio ward in startling ways.
Liam and his friend Max are playing in their neighborhood when the call of a bird leads them out into a field beyond their town. There, they find a baby lying alone atop a pile of stones—with a note pinned to her clothing. Mystified, Liam brings the baby home to his parents. They agree to take her in, but police searches turn up no sign of the baby’s parents. Finally they must surrender the baby to a foster family, who name her Allison. Visiting her in Northumberland, Liam meets Oliver, a foster son from Liberia who claims to be a refugee from the war there, and Crystal, a foster daughter. When Liam’s parents decide to adopt Allison, Crystal and Oliver are invited to her christening. There, Oliver tells Liam about how he will be slaughtered if he is sent back to Liberia. The next time Liam sees Crystal, it is when she and Oliver have run away from their foster homes, desperate to keep Oliver from being sent back to Liberia. In a cave where the two are hiding, Liam learns the truth behind Oliver’s dark past—and is forced to ponder what all children are capable of.
Nutaaq and her older sister, Aaluk, are on a great journey, sailing from a small island off the coast of Alaska to the annual trade fair. There, a handsome young Siberian wearing a string of cobalt blue beads watches Aaluk "the way a wolf watches a caribou, never resting." Soon his actions―and other events more horrible than Nutaaq could ever imagine―threaten to shatter her I~nupiaq world. Seventy years later, Nutaaq's greatgranddaughter, Blessing, is on her own journey, running from the wreckage of her life in Anchorage to live in a remote Arctic village with a grandmother she barely remembers. In her new home, unfriendly girls whisper in a language she can't understand, and Blessing feels like an outsider among her own people. Until she finds a cobalt blue bead―Nutaaq's bead―in her grandmother's sewing tin. The events this discovery triggers reveal the power of family and heritage to heal, despite seemingly insurmountable odds.
Two distinct teenage voices pull readers into the native world of northern Alaska in this beautifully crafted and compelling debut novel.
