They live in a beautiful house, with a caring family, and attend an exclusive missionary school. They're completely shielded from the troubles of the world. Yet, as Kambili reveals in her tender-voiced account, things are less perfect than they appear. Although her Papa is generous and well respected, he is fanatically religious and tyrannical at home—a home that is silent and suffocating. As the country begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili and Jaja are sent to their aunt, a university professor outside the city, where they discover a life beyond the confines of their father’s authority. Books cram the shelves, curry and nutmeg permeate the air, and their cousins’ laughter rings throughout the house. When they return home, tensions within the family escalate, and Kambili must find the strength to keep her loved ones together.Purple Hibiscus is an exquisite novel about the emotional turmoil of adolescence, the powerful bonds of family, and the bright promise of freedom.

    Before she was a Mammy, before she had Chisellers, and before they made her a Granny, Agnes Browne was Agnes Reddin, a young girl-or a Young Wan- growing up in the Jarro in Dublin. Brendan O'Carroll takes readers back to the heart of working-class Dublin, this time in the 1940s.  Together with her soon to be lifelong best friend Marion Delany, young Agnes manages to survive the indignities and demands of Catholic school, the unwanted births of siblings, days spent in the factories and markets, and nights in the dance hall as rock-and-roll invades Dublin.But on the eve of her wedding night, the Jarro is alive with gossip—will Agnes be turned away at the altar?  For the whole parish knows Agnes's not-so-well-kept secret.  And with a mother falling further into dementia, and a younger sister turning to a life of crime, it's up to Agnes alone to keep her splintering family together, while trying to create one of her own. Filled with O'Carroll's trademark wicked wit and loving, larger-than-life characters, The Young Wan shows the hardscrabble beginnings of the ultimate Irish mother and family.

    Draper’s Jericho Trilogy.When Jericho is invited to pledge for the Warriors of Distinction, he thinks his life can’t get any better. As the most exclusive club in school, the Warriors give the best parties, go out with the hottest girls, and great grades are a given. When Arielle, one of the finest girls in his class, starts coming on to him once the pledge announcements are made, Jericho is determined to do anything to become a member… But as the initiation week becomes progressively harrowing, Jericho is forced to make choices he’s not entirely comfortable with. And one member seems to have it in for the sole female pledge in the group…a pledge who will stop at nothing to show she can handle the pressure. But when is she being pushed too far, and when should Jericho and his friends step in and risk losing their places in the pledging process? As Jericho becomes increasingly uneasy, his cousin Joshua breezes through the initiation, never thinking of the consequences, even when the fine line between fun and games, and life and death is crossed.

    Firing fastballs at ninety miles per hour, he loves being a winner. But when his father is accused of a crime, Shane's charmed world is turned upside down. Nothing is the way it once was, and Shane's not sure he wants to -- or even can -- pitch ever again. But like baseball, life sometimes throws you curves, and Shane discovers it's how you play the game that counts most of all.

    A tale of security and discovery, of playfulness and tragedy, of a fall from grace and the origins of faith.

    Dad Dr Craig Westerly, who left. Step-dad Bob, who wants control. Kids like too-good Devon. Except Jack. A mangy pup who only likes Logan.A new disease turns dogs vicious in days, spreads to humans. Logan runs with Jack when nobody believes she is immune. Meanwhile, Portland U. begs reclusive Craig back for old prion disease work.

    . . . Both lyrical and gripping." — KIRKUS REVIEWS (starred review)When Paul Faustino of LA NACION flips on his tape recorder for an exclusive interview with El Gato — the phenomenal goalkeeper who single-handedly brought his team the World Cup — the seasoned reporter quickly learns that this will be no ordinary story. Instead, the legendary El Gato narrates a spellbinding tale that begins in the South American rainforest, where a ghostly but very real mentor, the Keeper, emerges to teach a poor, gawky boy the most thrilling secrets of the game. A seamless blend of magic realism and exhilarating soccer action, this evocative novel will haunt readers long after the story ends.

    The kids listen idly to rockabilly on the radio and waste their weekends at the Dairy Queen. And an undetected menace simmers under the heat that clings to the skin like molasses... For thirteen-year-old Stanley Mitchell, the end of innocence comes with his discovery of the mysterious long-ago demise of two very different young women. In his quest to unravel the truth about their tragic fates, Stanley finds a protector in Buster Lighthorse Smith, a black, retired Indian-reservation cop and a sage on the finer points of Sherlock Holmes, the blues, and life's faded dreams. But not every buried thing stays dead. And on one terrifying night of rushing creek water and thundering rain, an arcane, murderous force will rise from the past to threaten the boy in a harrowing rite of passage... Vintage Lansdale, A Fine Dark Line brims with exquisite suspense, powerful characterizations, and the vibrant evocation of a lost time.

    After his father dies, Noah's mother, a temperamental poet, takes a teaching job in a small New Hampshire town, far from Chicago and the only world Noah has known. While Noah gets along reasonably with his mother, the crumbling house they try to renovate quickly reveals dark secrets, via dusty Mason jars they discover interred between walls. The jars contain scraps of letters, poems, and journal entries, and eventually reconstructs a history of pain and violence that drives a sudden wedge between Noah and his mother. Fortunately, Noah finds an unexpected ally in J.D., a teenager down the street who has family troubles of his own.

    But what will their mother say? Mom's been having a hard time ever since Dad walked out on them four years ago. But caring for a pony might keep Nat and his older sister, Cid, from bickering, and it would mean so much to eight-year-old Queenie. It takes some serious persuasion — and a promise to use Nat's paper route money for the pony’s keep — but Mom finally relents.And so begins a year of self-discovery, as Nat struggles to deal with his father's absence; look out for his younger sister, who is "different"; and recover from having his heart broken by a rich, pretty girl from school. Life is not always easy, but Nat knows that Smokey, his very own pony, will be waiting for him at the end of each day. Or will he?

    After the loss of their mother at their father’s hand, Aja has kept a close watch over her siblings. The three siblings much find a way to recover from their family’s history, but it’s not clear how. Tired of carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, Aja is finally ready for a change that she hopes could lead her down the path of recovery: find someone to love. Her best friend, Roxie, knows just what to do—she sets Aja up on a date with one of the most sought-after bachelors in town, handsome sportscaster Charles Clayton. Charles is everything Aja has ever dreamed of—sensitive, sexy, and charming. But "happily ever after" isn't that simple. While Aja has begun to heal from the loss of her parents, her sister and brother have not. Jada is lost in a world of silence with no way for Aja to reach her, and Eric's uncontrollable rage is wreaking havoc on his life. As Aja sees her brother heading down the same violent path that destroyed their family, she makes it her business to stop the cycle—even if it means putting her own life, and her own chance at love, on hold. My Brother's Keeper is a poignant novel about a resilient family learning that sometimes you have to forgive in order to find the strength to move on.

    Despite being born to a broken-hearted mother and a faithless father, Campbell still believes in the power of love...if she can ever find it. Living in the same neighborhood, but unknown to Campbell until a chance meeting brings them together, is Donovan, the "little man" of a shattered home-a family torn apart by anger and bitterness. In the face of these daunting obstacles, Donovan dreams of someday marrying, raising a family, and playing for the NBA. But, deep inside, Campbell and Donovan live with the histories that have shaped their lives. What they discover-together and apart-forms the basis of this compelling, sensual, and surprising novel.A deeply thoughtful novel about hope, forgiveness, and the cost of Loving Donovan, this is certain to be another bestseller from a supremely gifted author.

    Wendy is heading to school, eager to make plans with her best friend, worried about how she looks, mad at her mother for not letting her visit her father in California, impatient with her little brother and with the almost too-loving concern of her jazz musician stepfather. She's out the door to catch the bus. An hour later comes the news: A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center--her mother's office building.Through the eyes of thirteen-year-old Wendy, we gain entrance to the world rarely shown by those who documented the events of that one terrible day: a family's slow and terrible realization that Wendy's mother has died, and their struggle to go on with their lives in the face of such a crushing loss.Absent for years, Wendy's real father shows up without warning. He takes her back with him to California, where she re-invents her life: Wendy now lives more or less on her own in a one-room apartment with a TV set and not much else. Wendy's new circle now includes her father's cactus-grower girlfriend, newly reconnected with the son she gave up for adoption twenty years before; a sad and tender bookstore owner who introduces her to the voice of Anne Frank and to his autistic son; and a homeless skateboarder, on a mission to find his long-lost brother.Over the winter and spring that follow, Wendy moves between the alternately painful and reassuring memories of her mother and the revelations that come with growing to know her real father for the first time. Pulled between her old life in Brooklyn and a new one 3,000 miles away, our heroine is faced with a world where the usual rules no longer apply but eventually discovers a strength and capacity for compassion and survival that she never knew she possessed.At the core of the story is Wendy's deep connection with her little brother, back in New York, who is grieving the loss of their mother without her. This is a story about the ties of siblings, about children who lose their parents, parents who lose their children, and the unexpected ways they sometimes find one another again. Set against the backdrop of global and personal tragedy, and written in a style alternately wry and heartbreaking, The Usual Rules is an unexpectedly hopeful story of healing and forgiveness that will offer readers, young and old alike, a picture of how, out of the rubble, a family rebuilds its life.

    But for years, a genetic time bomb has been ticking away. Because of Alice’s near-genius intelligence, teachers and counselors have always made excuses for her “little idiosyncrasies.” But during a stress-filled senior year at college, a new world of voices, visions, and unexplainable “knowledge” causes Alice to begin to lose her grip on reality.As Alice’s schizophrenia progresses, she experiences a disturbing religious “awakening,” believing that God and angels and demons are speaking to her. When others attempt to intervene, Alice is subjected to a wide range of “treatments” even more frightening and painful than her illness.Powerfully raw and brutally honest, Finding Alice is a story of individual suffering and hope, a family’s shared ordeal, and a search for true mental and spiritual healing.

    With just a few pennies and her I Ching, a change of clothes and a one-way ticket to Hong Kong, a perceptive, searching Gore makes her way through the labyrinthine customs of Cold-War China, wanders bustling, electric Katmandu, and hunkers down in an icy London squat with a prostitute and a boyfriend on the dole. Yet it is in the calm, verdant landscape of rural Italy where, pregnant and penniless, nineteen-year-old Gore’s adventure truly begins. An illuminating glimpse into the boldly political Gore—creator of HipMama.com and Hip Mama magazine—this unflinching memoir offers a poignant exploration of the meaning of home, and surveys the frontiers of both land and heart.

    For Ky, it's no contest: Even running the prestigious Vatta Transport Ltd. shipping concern can't hold a candle to shipping out as an officer aboard an interstellar cruiser. It's adventure, not commerce, that stirs her soul. And despite her family's misgivings, there can be no doubt that a Vatta in the service will prove a valuable asset. But with a single error in judgment, it all comes crumbling down. Expelled from the Academy in disgrace--and returning home to her humiliated family, a storm of high-profile media coverage, and the gaping void of her own future--Ky is ready to face the inevitable onslaught of anger, disappointment, even pity. But soon after opportunity's door slams shut, Ky finds herself with a ticket to ride--and a shot at redemption--as captain of a Vatta Transport ship. It's a simple assignment: escorting one of the Vatta fleet's oldest ships on its final voyage ... to the scrapyard. But keeping it simple has never been Ky's style. And even though her father has provided a crew of seasoned veterans to baby-sit the fledgling captain on her maiden milk run, they can't stop Ky from turning the routine mission into a risky venture--in the name of turning a profit for Vatta Transport, of course. By snapping up a lucrative delivery contract defaulted on by a rival company, and using part of the proceeds to upgrade her condemned vehicle, Ky aims to prove she's got more going for her than just her family's famous name. But business will soon have to take a backseat to bravery, when Ky's change of plans sails her and the crew straight into the middle of a colonial war. For all her commercial savvy, it's her military training and born-soldier's instincts that Ky will need to call on in the face of deadly combat, dangerous mercenaries, and violent mutiny....

    Falling in love, learning to like yourself, staying out late and coping with heartbreak - these friends help each other through it all.

    Devastated by his loss, but secure in their love, Claybird feels as though life could almost go on as usual in their small, sleepy Southern hometown.Until Uncle Gabe comes back.A stranger to Claybird, Uncle Gabe is a brilliant academic who disappeared twenty years ago. Despite the deep mystery that surrounds him, Gabe's humor and intellect shine, and he quickly positions himself in the role of the Catts family's patriarch, filling the role of Claybird's dead father. Gabe and Claybird become coconspirators and best friends, until a slip of the tongue unveils the real history of their relationship, a heart-wrenching revelation that turns Claybird's world upside down.

    And how did this guy (he lifted his brother’s homework through the entire tenth grade) ever become a writer, not to mention the author of fourteen critically acclaimed books for young people?The frontier may be mild, but the book is not. Fans of Tara Westover’s Educated, Jack Gantos’s Hole in My Life, and Walter Dean Myers’s Bad Boy will laugh, will cry, and will remember.“Funny, bittersweet and brutally honest. Readers will clasp this hard-to-put-down book to their hearts even as they laugh sympathetically.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

    Huston has never before written about that time—an era of racism and repression, a time when this country was still relatively young, an age of quirky individualism and almost frontier-style freedom that largely has ceased to exist. Fearful he would not be believed, on one hand, but desirous of the freedom to embellish, on the other, Curtiss chronicles that time in Sins of the Seventh Sister, a book he characterizes as “a novel based on a true story of the gothic South.” It is his story and the story of the people of Elkins, West Virginia, a small town whose inhabitants included his mother, Billy-Pearl Curtiss, and her many sisters—all stunning blondes. Billy-Pearl would prove to be an irresistibly romantic figure in her son’s life. She was the seventh of eleven children, all girls to her father’s consternation. By the time of her arrival, her father felt he had been patient enough and insisted on calling her Billy; he taught her everything he had intended to impart to his firstborn son. She would grow up to be one of the most beautiful women in the county, but also one of the most opinionated and liberal. Her aim was so precise that she was barred from the local turkey shoot because none of the men had a chance against her. When a Klansman accused her of attempted homicide after she shot him through the shoulder to stop him from setting fire to the home of her black neighbors, she told the sheriff, “If I had meant to kill him, he’d be dead.” And with that defense, she was exonerated.Curtiss Farm was large and the house had many rooms, which Billy-Pearl got in the habit of gathering people to fill, especially the downtrodden who had nowhere to go. In May 1929, Billy-Pearl brought home a boy from the local orphanage. Stanley was sixteen, the age at which the orphanage kicked children out, and Billy-Pearl, knowing his sad history, could not allow him to end up on the streets. Stanley had witnessed his father beat his mother to death in a drunken rage and had taken a straight razor and slit his father’s throat while he slept. A country judge had the boy castrated to control his aggressive ways. Not a boy, but not yet a man, Stanley was tall, willowy, and frightened as a colt upon his arrival at Curtiss Farm—not at all the playmate for whom Huston had hoped. But quickly a friendship developed between the two that would last a lifetime—a friendship that would survive murder, suicide, madness, and Stanley’s eventual transformation into Stella, a singer who would live her adult life as a glamorous woman.Sins of the Seventh Sister is brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, as alive with flamboyant characters and wildly uncontained emotions as any book to come out of the South.

    In that fantastic and inaccessible territory is where the ten year-old boy will take mental refuge to cure his wounds. Due to the abductions during Argentina's coup d tat, and knowing they are being chased, his parents decide to hide away. Through the story of this boy forced to contemplate the dark side of reality, Figueras tells a story full of sweet and humorous characters, which is also an adventure.

    Teens share stories about how God has given them the courage to cope with the tough stuff, the joy to live a fulfilling life, the strength to persevere when they feel alone, and the love and confidence they need to feel good about themselves. This very special volume will also help them to use other teens' experiences to build a stronger relationship with God.For teens tempted to use drugs, alcohol or other substances, Chicken Soup for the Christian Teenage Soul can be a lifeline to God. They will know that God cares what they think when it feels as if no one else does, and that He loves them no matter what. Book Details: Format: Paperback Publication Date: 6/2/2003 Pages: 400 Reading Level: Age 12 and Up

    Mae’s convinced that the old men have millions stashed away from bank robberies—and she’s determined that she and Walter deserve a piece of the pie. So while Mae’s off trying to find a husband, Walter tries to make himself at home in the company of these older, grumpier men—and some other relatives that are equally determined to get their share of the family assets. Soon Walter is transfixed and transformed by the stories Garth tells of his and Hub’s dashing younger years: how they were in the French Foreign Legion and how Hub won the love of the Sultan’s daughter and evaded the jealous Sheik’s assassins. Are Hub and Garth sitting on a fortune, or is that a story too? And who’s going to get it if they are?

    But with his foul mouth comes a heart of gold, and he's going to need it to get through the last weekend of summer 1984. Everyone up and down St. Patrick Street, Henry's claustrophobic Irish-Catholic block in Philadelphia -- with its seventy-eight row homes, seventy-eight skinny mile-high lawns, seventy-eight statues of saints, and seventy-eight Mondale-Ferraro signs -- knows that the Toohey family is falling apart. Henry's mailman father is having an affair with a neighbor lady right under his mother's nose. His big brother has been a drunken mess since his girlfriend died. And his little sister is counting on him to keep her laughing through it all. But Henry has a plan to pull the family back together: He'll propose to his chain-smoking fourteen-year-old girlfriend, Grace McClain, at a neighborhood wedding. To prepare, he and his ragtag group of friends pinball around the streets, making elaborate plans for his proposal, riding bikes, rating breasts, bothering the local merchants, talking trash about Mike Schmidt and Bob Seger, and kissing behind the seafood-store dumpster. Gritty, giddy, and bursting with Henry's boundless energy, Green Grass Grace is a heart-thumping rocket ride back to adolescence that is riotously funny and tragic at the same time.

    But there is another side to him, which comes to the fore when he falls for laborer Sylvain and gets sexually involved with two friends. The results are explosive in this passionate story of illicit romance and teenage angst-a combination that is eternally popular with gay readers.

    In fact, Cuss loves languages, period: unlike his older brothers, who left school after sixth grade to work in the coal mines, he likes reading about as much as he likes goofing around with his friends - or planning the great grape heist of Roslyn. But when bootleggers stir up trouble and force his big brothers to skip town, Cuss feels the weight of family responsibility dropping onto his shoulders. How can he hold on to his dream to stay in school - and still do the honorable thing by his ma and little brother?

    So Fiona practices by herself and attracts the attention of the dance teacher. But when her sister, Wallace, disappears, Fiona risks the dance audition and the acceptance she has worked so hard to get and finally finds her place in her family in her life.

    To know horses, sheep, cattle and the land; to interact with local Maoris and wandering Aussies; to ride in the hunt meets, and to fall quite often into adventures of every kind are, at least according to Gay, part of what normal life should be. Readers will move from Drover's Road to the next stage of Gay’s growing-up life, when she comes into an inheritance in Cape Lost, and finally, accompany her through the tensions and rewards that bring her into adulthood in The Golden Country.

    Jim cherishes the solitude of his secluded fishing hole and is startled when he discovers a stranger named Sam, an older African American man from the other side of town, fishing in his favorite spot. Though initially troubled by the intrusion, Jim soon becomes attached to Sam, who gradually becomes a father figure to the boy. Together they form a remarkable relationship, discussing the death of Jim's alcoholic father, Sam's years playing baseball in the Negro Leagues, the racial tension in their community, and the confusion of Jim's first crush. This touching novel about camaraderie and growing pains is sure to resonate with anyone who came of age in small-town America.

    At its center lies Sherwin Nuland’s Rembrandtesque portrait of his father, Meyer Nudelman, a Jewish garment worker who came to America in the early years of the last century but remained an eternal outsider. Awkward in speech and movement, broken by the premature deaths of a wife and child, Meyer ruled his youngest son with a regime of rage, dependency, and helpless love that outlasted his death. In evoking their relationship, Nuland also summons up the warmth and claustrophobia of a vanished immigrant New York, a world that impelled its children toward success yet made them feel like traitors for leaving it behind. Full of feeling and unwavering observation, Lost in America deserves a place alongside such classics as Patrimony and Call It Sleep.

    The contents of this book are totally radical and uncompromising. This message is a rare and singular expression of absolute non-dualism. It bypasses the mind and speaks directly to the very core of a wisdom that is imminent in all of us. When there is a readiness to hear, all seeking and need for personal endeavour falls away, leaving simply the wonder of what is.

    Those years of the Great Depression were lean ones for most Americans; jobs were scarce and nobody had any money. But all was not struggle and hardship; it was also a time of innocence, kindness, and generosity. It is this special time that Samuel Hynes, a distinguished scholar and wartime marine pilot, captures in this lyrical memoir of his midwestern boyhood. Born in 1924, Sam Hynes grew up in cities and towns and on farms around the country, following his father to wherever there was work, and eventually to Minneapolis. Though Hynes's family lived through hard times, he remembers his early years not as a time of pinched deprivation but as a golden stretch of opportunities and discoveries. Looking back with a clear-eyed, unsentimental gaze, Hynes describes the rough-and-tumble games in back alleys and a long hot summer on a farm, the temptations of sex, stealing, and drinking, and the wonder of falling in love for the first time. Here, too, are deeply etched portraits of Hynes's widowed father and of the feisty widow he brought home to be stepmother to his sons. Hynes's new memoir recaptures what came before the war he fought in: his dreams, his adventures, his sins and triumphs. Moving, written with great clarity and humor, The Growing Seasons is the story of a truly American boyhood.

    Jacques was almost eighteen and gay-in spite of all the stories he'd read where he didn't fit the profile; his family wasn't loaded, he didn't drive an incredible road machine, and he was neither effeminate nor the super-jock. He didn't hate himself, and while he didn't exactly bolt out of the closet, he wasn't in a state of painful denial either. So, what did he want? Chris wanted love, but that's tough to find. But that didn't matter anyway, because everything he heard and saw told him all gay men wanted was sex-and that he knew how to find. Looking for it one night he met Jamie Levesque, and with stars in his eyes he had to change his mind... The way Chris saw it, once he had a boyfriend, everything was going to be different. Just like in the stories, life with Jamie was going to be sunshine, romance, and rainbows forever-right? Uh-huh. Right.

    A boy has twelve older brothers - all of whom look different from one another! He lives in an orphanage so his family may be unusual, but they are very happy.

    Christie's Book Award, the Red Cedar Book Award, and a Canadian Children's Book Centre Our Choice selection, this adventure begins when Olivier goes to spend his summer vacation at Cat's Eye Corner, the very strange home of his grandfather and his new bride, Sylvia de Whosit of Whatsit -- a reported witch. Olivier discovers a mansion filled with shifting rooms, doors with mirrored keyholes, and talking shrubbery. The chief culprits are the Inklings -- word fairies that wreak havoc on language, much to the chagrin of the cats who have been changed from pets to poets! Olivier finds himself embroiled in a magical scavenger hunt to recover a fantastical book buried in Nevermore Lake. Along the way, he meets members of the So-So Gang, a talking pen named Murray Shaeffer, a swarm of French-speaking flies, a girl named Linnette who can channel the wind, and a boy named Fathom who lives in the river. Filled with characters that pop in and out of the story, Cat's Eye Corner is a cleverly written novel with much of the fun derived from wordplay -- puns, literary allusions, and misspellings.