Senior year is flying by, the prom is approaching, and Dana, her best friend, Avra, and Avra's boyfriend, Emil, are about to encounter the pains and pleasures of that intricate beehive called adult life. While Dana plans on college, Avra plots escape once school is over―and plans to take Emil along for the ride. What does Emil want? He's not saying. Dana studies bees for a biology project, fascinated by their habits and their mythological imagery – but in real life, emotions can sting, and while two's company, these three may just become a crowd. As Dana reminds us, in every hive there is only one queen bee.
With remarkably textured language and a distinctive heroine, Kissing the Bee is a novel of rare depth and stark honesty that will draw readers in from the very first page.
Kissing the Bee is a 2008 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
Discover 101 of the most fascinating, most disgusting, and most unbelievable facts. Make your friends jealous with your increased knowledge and amaze people with your ability to answer almost impossible questions!
Why is the sky blue?
How do birds stand on electric wires without being electrocuted?
Could I spontaneously combust at any moment?
Warning: increased braininess may be only temporary.
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 teen girl on the edge. A rage turned to violence.
Sometimes 15-year-old Mara loses control. She strikes out at people, then runs. Often, she can't recall what she's done. She knows losing control is dangerous, but she also feels that somehow the rage protects her, making her invincible.
Then she meets Tibor, a sweet guy who's not put off by her attitude or her messed-up home life. There's also a teacher at school who sees a better future than Mara's ever imagined for herself. The teacher even gets Mara a volunteer job in a preschool.
But the anger is never far away. The day Mara spots Tibor on his motorcycle with another girl, the rage takes over. Mara tracks the girl down and beats her senseless.
Horrified, Mara finally seeks help for her behavior. But salvation isn't that simple. The injured girl is Tibor's sister. Devastated by the news, but determined to make amends, Mara takes her first steps toward a life free of violence.
Filled with raw emotion and unflinching honesty, Red Rage is a vivid portrait of one teen lost in a vortex of her own violence.
What if advertisements ruled the world?
Taylor and Barrett maybe cousins, but they're from different worlds. Taylor lives in high-tech luxury, the daughter of top advertising specialists. Barrett was raised by his uncle in an ecocult called Simplicity. When his uncle dies, Barrett is whisked away to live with Taylor and her power parents.
Barrett is deeply distressed by the "Chattering World." Here, invasive advertising screams out from improbable places- on the sides of cars, on the bathroom mirror, even on the shirts of his teachers. Taylor, on the other hand, loves it and wants her "farmie" cousin to embrace it, too.
Barrett soon discovers that his aunt and uncle have a hidden agenda: there is a lotto gain from finding out the effects of advertising on an untouched mind. When Barrett's worst suspicions are confirmed, only Taylor, and the horrible secrets he discovers about her family, can expose the truth. To do so, she must turn her back on everything she's been raised to believe.
Thrilling and thought-provoking, Leaving Simplicity takes readers into a wildly driven consumer society that seems only a heartbeat away from our own.
A dead body in a railroad yard, a teenager’s diary, security-camera footage, maps, interviews, and forensic evidence… does it all add up to murder? And more importantly, is Amanda, the diary’s author, the prime suspect or is there another killer on the loose? The reader becomes the forensic investigator in this innovative, interactive whodunit that’s full of real science and packed with eye-popping artwork by one of today’s sharpest graphic illustrators.
As the mystery unfolds, readers look for clues hiding on multiple levels within the story and check their results against the Crime File, which contains the investigating team’s notes on the case. As they progress deeper and deeper into the book, they get closer to uncovering the truth.
Joe doesn't feel much like a warrior-hero.** But evil is stirring in the heart of Elfwood, and the people of Muddle Earth need help (although most of them don't know it yet). Perhaps Joe Jefferson really is a hero after all. . . .
* Actually, Muddle Earth's only wizard. And he's not very good.
** He doesn't really look much like one either.
The New York Times bestselling sequel to Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli’s modern-day classic Stargirl!
Love, Stargirl picks up a year after Stargirl ends and reveals the new life of the beloved character who moved away so suddenly at the end of Stargirl. The novel takes the form of "the world's longest letter," in diary form, going from date to date through a little more than a year's time. In her writing, Stargirl mixes memories of her bittersweet time in Mica, Arizona, with involvements with new people in her life.
In Love, Stargirl, we hear the voice of Stargirl herself as she reflects on time, life, Leo, and - of course - love.
Don’t miss Jerry Spinelli’s latest novel, The Warden’s Daughter, about another girl who can't help but stand out.
“Spinelli is a poet of the prepubescent. . . . No writer guides his young characters, and his readers, past these pitfalls and challenges and toward their futures with more compassion.” —The New York Times
Then Vivian falls in love with a human, a meat-boy. Aiden is kind and gentle, a welcome relief from the squabbling pack. He's fascinated by magic, and Vivian longs to reveal herself to him. Surely he would understand her and delight in the wonder of her dual nature, not fear her as an ordinary human would.
Vivian's divided loyalties are strained further when a brutal murder threatens to expose the pack. Moving between two worlds, she does not seem to belong in either. What is she really--human or beast? Which tastes sweeter--blood or chocolate?
From the Paperback edition.
New York Times bestselling sportswriter John Feinstein tackles doping in the NFL in this exciting football mystery.
The Super Bowl. America’s biggest sports spectacle. Over 95 million fans will be watching, but teen sports reporters Stevie and Susan Carol know that what they’ll be watching is a lie. They know that the entire offensive line of the California Dreams have failed their doping tests. They know the owner is trying to cover up the results. The only thing they don’t know is how to prove it.
John Feinstein has been praised as “the best writer of sports books in America today” (The Boston Globe), and he proves it again in this fast-paced novel.
And so he travels to Corsica, home of his other forbearers, hoping to find some knowledge, some power. The blood feud of vendetta still runs hot in Sky's family, as does the supernatural power of the MazzeriÑthe Corsican dream hunters of death. Sky must again travel back through time, inhabiting the life of Tza, a fierce girl from the 1500s. As he sinks into Tza's mind, Sky wondersÑare all of his ancestors murderers?
Vendetta is a heady, exciting blend of supernatural possibility and historical truth that will leave readers gasping for the final installment of the trilogy.
Young Jane — or Jenny, as she is called — is a girl with a head full of questions. Surrounded by her busy parents and brothers, Jenny finds a place for her thoughts in the companionship of her older sister, Cassandra. Theirs is a country life full of balls and visits, at which conversation inevitably centers on one topic: marriage. But the arrival of their worldly-wise cousin disrupts Jenny’s world, bringing answers to some of her questions and providing a gem of an idea. Veronica Bennett invites us into a society where propriety and marriage rule hand in hand, a milieu in which Jenny finds inspiration to write the masterpieces PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and SENSE AND SENSIBILITY — a world where a clever young girl will one day become the beloved Jane Austen.
With the Japanese army poised to invade their Indonesian island in 1942, Rita la Fontaine’s family knew that they and the other Dutch and Dutch-Indonesian residents would soon become prisoners of war. Fearing that twelve-year-old Rita would be forced to act as a "comfort woman" for the Japanese soldiers, the family launched a desperate plan to turn Rita into "Rick," cutting her hair short and dressing her in boy’s clothes. Rita’s aptitude for languages earned her a position as translator for the commandant of the prisoner camp, and for the next three years she played a dangerous game of disguise while advocating against poor conditions, injustice, and torture. Sixty-five years later, Rita describes a war experience like no other — a remarkable tale of integrity, fortitude, and honor.
Back matter includes a glossary.
As the city of San Juan pulses to summer’s sluggish beat, its teenage soccer prodigy, El Brujito, the Little Magician, vanishes without a trace — right after he misses a penalty kick and loses a big game for his team. Paul Faustino, South America’s top sports reporter, is reluctantly drawn into the mystery of the athlete’s disappearance. As a story of corruption and murder unfolds, Faustino is forced to confront the bitter history of slavery and the power of the occult. A deftly woven mystery flush with soccer and suspense, this gripping novel is a thrilling read not to be missed.
