Showing titles in Family Life

The year is 1977 and Adrian is nine. He lives with his Gran and his uncle Rory; his best friend is Clinton Tull. He loves to draw and he wants a dog; he's afraid of quicksand, shopping centres, and self-combustion. Adrian watches his suburban world, but there is much he cannot understand. He does not for instance, know why three neighborhood children might set out to buy ice-cream and never come back home.

Virginia Euwer Wolff takes on the biggest questions about life and love, certainly, but also about girls and women, sacrifice and compassion and has something quite revelatory to say about them in this full house.

Working with Seoul’s premiere matchmaker, Jisu’s traditional South Korean parents are determined to ensure her success in life and love by matching her with the right boyfriend. After one too many slip-ups at school, Jisu finds herself shipped off to San Francisco to focus on her academics and approved dates, leaving her little space to figure out her own dreams. As her newly realized passion for photography lights her on fire, Jisu wonders...does she even want to find "The One"?

Matt Donaghy has always been a Big Mouth. But it's never gotten him in trouble, until the day Matt is accused of threatening to blow up Rocky River High School.

Ursula Riggs has always been an Ugly Girl. A loner with fierce, staring eyes, Ursula has no time for petty high school stuff like friends and dating, or at least that's what she tells herself. Ursula is content with minding her own business. And she doesn't even really know Matt Donaghy.

When 16-year-old Jill Whitaker's mom walks out - with a sticky note as a goodbye - only Jill knows the real reason she's gone. But how can she tell her father? Jill can hardly believe the truth herself. Suddenly, the girl who likes to fix things - cars, relationships, romances, people - is all broken up. It used to be, her best friend, tall, blond, and hot flirt Sean Addison, could make her smile in seconds. But not anymore. They don't even talk. With nothing making sense, Jill tries to pick up the pieces of her life.

This heartfelt and humorous contemporary take on Sense and Sensibility follows two sisters - complete opposites - who discover the secrets they’ve been keeping make them more alike than they’d realized.

Best friends Julia and Ashleigh are looking for some romance, but Ashleigh's ways make Julia a little uncomfortable. While crashing a fall dance, they are befriended by two boys, one of whom being the mysterious male that Julia had seen at the mall. Unfortunately, Ashleigh has laid claim to her mysterious boy first. Julia is totally confused about high school love.

When Kira's father enters rehab, she's forced to leave everything behind—her home, her best friends, her boyfriend...everything she loves. Now her father's sober (again) and Kira is returning home, determined to get her life back to normal...exactly as it was before she was sent away. But is that what Kira really wants? Life, love, and loss come crashing together in this visceral, heartfelt story by BuzzFeed writer Farrah Penn about a girl who struggles to piece together the shards of her once-normal life before his alcoholism tore it apart.

In this newest contemporary YA novel from author Amy Clipston, Chelsea’s responsible life takes a turn when she meets Dylan while working with the summer stock theater. But when their fun starts to interfere with her relationships and possibly her dreams, Chelsea must decide if her heart is leading her in the right direction after all.

Seventeen-year-old Tess Fowler has dropped out of high school, tossed her laptop in a freezing lake, then jumped in after it fully clothed. Why? Because Jonah was the boy she knew only through texts and emails but understood to his very core. Jonah was the only boy she’d told she loved and the only boy to say it back. And Jonah was the boy whose suicide she never saw coming.

The time is now. The place is San Francisco. The world is filled with adults devoid of emotion and children on the cusp of losing their feelings - of "waning" - when they reach their teens. Natalia Peña has already waned. So why does she love her little brother with such ferocity that, when he's kidnapped by a Big Brother-esque corporation, she'll do anything to get him back?

Concrete Kids is an exploration of love and loss, melody and bloodshed. Musician, playwright, and educator Amyra León takes us on a poetic journey through her childhood in Harlem, as she navigates the intricacies of foster care, mourning, self-love, and resilience. In her signature free-verse style, she invites us all to dream with abandon - and to recognize the privilege it is to dream at all.

Mark Twain wrote this essay when asked to share something with America’s youth. Though he begins in a serious tone, his advice quickly takes a turn for the satirical: “Always obey your parents, when they are present. This is the best policy in the long run, because if you don’t, they will make you.” In a similar tone, he goes on to address the matters of respecting one’s elders, rising early, lying, handling firearms, and reading books. This essay is a great example of Twain’s infamous satirical wit and an easy entry point for anyone interested in the writer’s nonfiction.

Ta-Nehisi Coates grew up in the tumultuous 1980s in Baltimore, known back then as the murder capital of the United States. With seven siblings, four mothers, and one highly unconventional father: Paul Coates, a larger-than-life Vietnam vet and Black Panther, Ta-Nehisi's coming-of-age story is gripping and lays bare the troubled, often violent life of the inner city, and the author's experience as a young Black person in it.

Emma has always orbited Henri, her fierce, magnetic queen bee of an older sister, and the two have always been best friends. Until something happens that wrecks them. Then the unthinkable occurs - a watery nightmare off the dazzling coast. The girls wash up onshore, stranded. Their only companion is Alex, a troubled boy agonizing over his own secrets. Trapped in a gorgeous hell, Emma and Alex fall together as Emma and Henri fall catastrophically apart. To find their way home, the sisters must find their way back to each other.

The secrets of the past meet the shocks of the present. Aslaug is an unusual young woman. Her mother has brought her up in near isolation, teaching her about plants and nature, and language - but not about life. Especially not how she came to have her own life, and who her father might be. When Aslaug’s mother dies unexpectedly, everything changes. For Aslaug is a suspect in her mother’s death. And the more her story unravels, the more questions unfold. About the nature of Aslaug’s birth. About what she should do next. About whether divine miracles have truly happened.

Seventeen-year-old Vivian Apple never believed in the evangelical Church of America, unlike her recently devout parents. But when Vivian returns home the night after the supposed 'Rapture,' all that's left of her parents are two holes in the roof. Suddenly, she doesn't know who or what to believe. With her best friend Harp and a mysterious ally, Peter, Vivian embarks on a desperate cross-country road trip through a paranoid and panic-stricken America to find answers.

When the matriarch of the least successful Jewish family in America gets tired of their misfortune, she begins to consult mystical texts for help. Determined that their next born grandchild will be a genius who changes their fortunes, and convinced that no one in her clan is smart enough to raise a genius by themselves, she decides that the child will be passed from household to household to gain their collective wisdom.

This fiery autobiographical novel captures a pivotal week or two in the life of 14-year-old Jack Gantos, as the author reveals the moment he began to slide off track as a kid who in just a few years would find himself locked up in a federal penitentiary for the crimes portrayed in the memoir Hole in My Life.

Taliah Sahar Abdallat lives and breathes music. Songs have always helped Tal ease the pain of never having known her father. Her mother, born in Jordan and very secretive about her past, won't say a word about who her dad really was. But when Tal finds a shoebox full of old letters from Julian Oliver - yes, the indie rock star Julian Oliver - she begins to piece the story together. She writes to Julian, but after three years of radio silence, she's given up hope. Then, one day, completely out of the blue, Julian shows up at her doorstep.