Holly is in her fifth foster home in two years and she's had enough. She's run away before and always been caught quickly. But she's older and wiser now--she's twelve--and this time she gets away clean.
Through tough and tender and angry and funny journal entries, Holly spills out her story. We travel with her across the country--hopping trains, scamming food, sleeping in parks or homeless encampments. And we also travel with her across the gaping holes in her heart--as she finally comes to terms with her mother's addiction and death.
Runaway is a remarkably uplifting portrait of a girl still young and stubborn and naive enough to hold out hope for finding a better place in the world, and within herself, to be.
Maud Flynn is known at the orphanage for her impertinence, so when the charming Miss Hyacinth and her sister choose Maud to take home with them, the girl is as baffled as anyone. It seems the sisters need Maud to help stage elaborate séances for bereaved, wealthy patrons. As Maud is drawn deeper into the deception, playing her role as a "secret child," she is torn between her need to please and her growing conscience – until a shocking betrayal makes clear just how heartless her so-called guardians are. Filled with tantalizing details of turn-of-the-century spiritualism and page-turning suspense, this lively historical novel features a winning heroine whom readers will not soon forget.
From the Hardcover edition.
Written with a realism that shocked critics, this biting social commentary offers a sympathetic portrait of Agnes and a moving indictment of her brutish and haughty employers. Separated from her family and friends by many miles, paid little more than subsistence wages, Agnes stands alone--both in society at large and in a household where she is neither family member nor servant. Agnes Grey remains a landmark in the literature of social history. In addition to its challenge to the era's chauvinism and materialism, it features a first-person narrative that offers a rare opportunity to hear the voice of a Victorian working woman.
This thrilling tale of romance and intrigue offers a close-up view of Pakistani culture in a post-9/11 world.
Political unrest is on the rise in Pakistan, where remnants of AlQaeda are stirring up trouble in tribal territories. It’s clearly not the best time for fifteen-year-old Mumtaz―the daughter of a famous lawyer who’s also the leader of an outlawed opposition party―to get mixed up in Karachi’s criminal underworld. But when her brother is held hostage by a drug-running thug named Moocher, she has no choice. Defying her parents and generations of cultural tradition, Mumtaz gets involved with a young man who risks everything to assist her on a dangerous mission to expose Moocher as a spy. Not until she gets caught does the bright Pakistani teenager realize she may be in over her head.
Set against the gritty apocalypse that began in Peeps, The Last Days is about five teenagers who find themselves creating the soundtrack for the end of the world.
For Matt and his sisters, life with their cruel, physically abusive mother is a day-to-day struggle for survival. But then Matt witnesses a man named Murdoch coming to a child’s rescue in a convenience store; and for the first time, he feels a glimmer of hope. Then, amazingly, Murdoch begins dating Matt’s mother. Life is suddenly almost good. But the relief lasts only a short time. When Murdoch inevitable breaks up with their mother, Matt knows that he’ll need to take some action. Can he call upon Murdoch to be his hero? Or will Matt have to take measures into his own hands?
A gripping, powerful novel that will stay with you long after you’ve read it. Nancy Werlin, the New York Times Bestselling author of Impossible, shows why she is a master of her genre.
“[A] dark but hopeful tale, with pacing and suspense guaranteed to leave readers breathlessly turning the pages.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Beautifully framed as a letter from Matthew to his younger sister, the suspense is paced to keep Matthew’s survival and personal revelations chock-full of dramatic tension. Bring tissues.”—Kirkus (starred review)
“Grace and insight.”—School Library Journal (starred review)
National Book Award Finalist
LA Times Book Prize Finalist
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ALA Quick Pick
The thing is, this guy Fletcher Berkowitz keeps nosing around, asking lots of questions about the Club. He's cute, and interesting, and possibly likes Shelby. Therefore, she must torture him. One good thing about being a loner: no one can break your heart.
And then he is shown the nations of his world from the peak of a fortress drear and tempted with fame and fortune and his rightful place on the throne of great kingdoms--his kingdoms. He need only surrender his humanity; kill his loves and he would have his childhood fantasy.
He would be granted great Black knowledge, more furious than anything he had ever imagined. He could desire justice…but would have to kill everything he loved to get it. His prayers would be answered…if only he would sacrifice everything he held dear.
Reiffen's Choice is the first book in a trilogy about innocence and struggle that can only be compared to Eragon and Eldest, The Once and Future King and Raymond E. Feist's Magician. It will be an experience you will never forget.
Because all my life had been a chrysalis, with you, Ada and Marshall and our house; even though we did other things and saw other people, the summers at the lake, and all those homeschoolers' parties, it was still always just – us.
Hilly and her brother, Ivan, have been homeschooled by their parents. All their lives it has been just the two of them – Ivan and Hilly, brother and sister, pilot and copilot. Until Hilly breaks out of their cozy cocoon to work on the local high school literary magazine as an extracurricular activity. Ivan feels betrayed: it's no longer just the two of them. And when Hilly goes into a depression after the suicide of a friend she has made at the magazine, she drifts even further away from Ivan. Hilly's parents insist that she see a psychotherapist. Ivan steps in to help manage Hilly's recovery by taking her to and from her appointments but compounds the betrayal by establishing his own relationship with the manipulative therapist.
Through the alternating voices of Hilly and Ivan, and drawing on the myths of Persephone and Narcissus, Kathe Koja explores the souls of two teenagers caught in a world where love takes you deeper than you ever dreamed you'd go.
I could trap my own food and make my own clothes. I could find my way by the stars and make fire in the rain. Pap said he even figured I could whip somebody three times my size. He wasn't worried about me.
For as long as ten-year-old Moon can remember, he has lived out in the forest in a shelter with his father. They keep to themselves, their only contact with other human beings an occasional trip to the nearest general store. When Moon's father dies, Moon follows his father's last instructions: to travel to Alaska to find others like themselves. But Moon is soon caught and entangled in a world he doesn't know or understand, apparent property of the government he has been avoiding all his life. As the spirited and resourceful Moon encounters constables, jails, institutions, lawyers, true friends, and true enemies, he adapts his wilderness survival skills and learns to survive in the outside world, and even, perhaps, make his home there.
In this compelling, action-packed book, Watt Key gives us the thrilling coming-of-age story of the unique and extremely appealing Moon.
Alabama Moon is a 2007 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
In the first book of the Caretaker Trilogy, readers are taken on an electrifying, fast-paced adventure of hunting truth, all in the name of staying alive.