Bullies will find your weakness and jump on it. Teachers will say you did something wrong when really you didn't mean to do anything wrong. The kids who joke the loudest can drown out the quieter, nicer kids.Maverick wants to change all that. One of the last things his father left him was a toy sheriff's badge, back when Maverick was little. Now he likes to carry it around to remind him of his dad -- and also to remind him to make school a better place for everyone . . . even if that's a hard thing to do, especially when his own home life is falling apart.The Secret Sheriff of Sixth Grade is a story about standing up for yourself -- and being a hero at home and in the halls of your school.

    The sky is blue, the sun is blazing, and the days brim with possibility. But Leah feels. . . lost. She has been this way since one terrible afternoon a year ago, when everything changed. Since that day, her parents have become distant, her friends have fallen away, and Leah’s been adrift and alone.Then she meets Jasper, a girl unlike anyone she has ever known. There’s something mysterious about Jasper, almost magical. And Jasper, Leah discovers, is also lost. Together, the two girls carve out a place for themselves, a hideaway in the overgrown spaces of Atlanta, away from their parents and their hardships, somewhere only they can find.But as the days of this magical June start to draw to a close, and the darker realities of their lives intrude once more, Leah and Jasper have to decide how real their friendship is, and whether it can be enough to save them both.

    It's hard work, but Tom doesn't mind so much after he falls in love with one of the pups, a rare blue-eyed pointer Tom names Tad. It's almost as if Tad understands when Tom talks to him, especially about confusing things like how hard it is to write to Angie, a girl Tom met on vacation. The trouble is, Grandpa promised the owner of the pup's sire the pick of the litter, and it's pretty clear that's Tad. Tom knows what he should do, but he can't help hoping there's a way to get around Grandpa's promise. How can he do the honorable thing when it will cost him what he wants most in the world?

    When Khalid unexpectedly passed away, he shed what was his first skin for another to live down by the bayou in their small Louisiana town. Khalid still visits in dreams, and King must keep these secrets to himself as he watches grief transform his family.It would be easier if King could talk with his best friend, Sandy Sanders. But just days before he died, Khalid told King to end their friendship, after overhearing a secret about Sandy—that he thinks he might be gay. "You don't want anyone to think you're gay too, do you?"But when Sandy goes missing, sparking a town-wide search, and King finds his former best friend hiding in a tent in his backyard, he agrees to help Sandy escape from his abusive father, and the two begin an adventure as they build their own private paradise down by the bayou and among the dragonflies. As King's friendship with Sandy is reignited, he's forced to confront questions about himself and the reality of his brother's death.

    To cope, she tries to live by the Fat Girl Rules–like “no making waves,” “avoid eating in public,” and “don’t move so fast that your body jiggles.” And she’s found her safe space–her swimming pool–where she feels weightless in a fat-obsessed world. In the water, she can stretch herself out like a starfish and take up all the room she wants. It’s also where she can get away from her pushy mom, who thinks criticizing Ellie’s weight will motivate her to diet. Fortunately, Ellie has allies in her dad, her therapist, and her new neighbor, Catalina, who loves Ellie for who she is. With this support buoying her, Ellie might finally be able to cast aside the Fat Girl Rules and starfish in real life–by unapologetically being her own fabulous self.

    Perfect for fans of Counting by 7s and The Fourteenth Goldfish.  My secret life is filled with psychic vampires, wheelchair zombies, chain-rattlin’ ghosts, and a one-eyed cat. But they’re nothing compared to my real-life stalker: a sixth-grade girl named Kandi Kain. . . .   Lincoln Jones is always working on the latest story he’s got going in his notebook. Those stories are his refuge. A place where the hero always prevails and the bad guy goes to jail. Real life is messy and complicated, so Lincoln sticks to fiction and keeps to himself. Which works fine until a nosy girl at his new school starts prying into his private business. She wants to know what he’s writing, where he disappears to after school, and why he never talks to anybody. . . .  The Secret Life of Lincoln Jones is a terrifically funny and poignant story about a boy finding the courage to get to know the real characters all around him—and to let them know him.

    Nawra cannot read or write, but when a nonprofit organization called Save the Girls pairs her with an American donor, Nawra dictates her thank-you letters. Putting her experiences into words begins to free her from her devastating past—and to brighten the path to her future.K. C. is an American teenager from Richmond, Virginia, who hates reading and writing—or anything that smacks of school. But as Nawra pours grief and joy into her letters, she inspires K. C. to see beyond her own struggles. And as K. C. opens her heart in her responses to Nawra, she becomes both a dedicated friend and a passionate activist for Darfur.In this poetic tale of unlikely sisterhood, debut author Sylvia Whitman captures the friendship between two girls who teach each other compassion and share a remarkable bond that bridges two continents.

    That is until the night she's hit by a car and killed while walking home from the movies.     In brief, moving chapters, we hear about Raquel from her classmates, her best friend, her family--and the woman who was driving the car that struck her.     The loss of this seemingly invisible girl deeply affects her entire community, proving just how interconnected and similar we all really are.

    People in the industry kiss up to her. She’s rich, she’s famous, and she’s full of herself.When she’s invited to an A-list writers’ conference, she decides to accept so she can work on her next book and enjoy the admiration—and envy—of the writer wannabes. Plus, she has a new, cute sports car, and it’ll be fun to drive there by herself. And then she hits the detour. Before she knows it, the car is wrecked, she’s hurt, and she’s trapped in a basement, with no idea where she is. A woman and her apparently manic daughter have kidnapped her. And they have no intention of letting her go.

    So they must flee to the big city of Mumbai in hopes of finding work and a brighter future. Gopal is eager to help support his struggling family until school starts, so when a stranger approaches him with the promise of a factory job, he jumps at the offer.But Gopal has been deceived. There is no factory but, instead, a small, stuffy sweatshop, where he and five other boys are forced to make beaded frames for no money and little food. The boys are forbidden to talk or even to call one another by their real names. In this atmosphere of distrust and isolation, locked in a rundown building in an unknown part of the city, Gopal despairs of ever seeing his family again.Then, late one night when Gopal decides to share kahanis, or stories, he realizes that storytelling might be the boys' key to holding on to their sense of self and their hope for any kind of future. If he can make them feel more like brothers than enemies, their lives will be more bearable in the shop—and they might even find a way to escape.

    Clair tries to ignore the ugly junk, choosing instead to dream of a future beyond her rural New Hampshire town. But when a black dog named Wally is chained up to a pole in the yard next door, Clair can’t look the other way. Because Wally isn’t just another piece of trash.Clair takes it upon herself to save Wally, and the immediate connection she has with the lovable dog catches her off-guard. Even more surprising is her developing relationship with eighteen-year-old Danny Stewart, a boy trying to escape the violent storm cloud that hangs over his family.Over the course of one fateful spring in rural New Hampshire, two teenagers will ask: Doesn’t everyone—and every dog—deserve a chance at happiness?

    I couldn't just stay here and listen to him telling me he was leaving, I couldn't just deal with it. Tears were running down my face as I made it to the street, just at the edge of the grass and the sidewalk-arms wrapped around my waist and I collapsed into them. "Baby girl, I'm so sorry." He sounded as heartbroken as I am "I really am, I don't want you crying like this. It breaks my heart". "I still remember the time I lost you in he woods" he chuckled, even though his face was sad. "You had no idea how scared I-how scared I was because I lost you. I thought I lost you for good, that I wouldn't be able to find you, ever. Every time I called your name I got more scared I wouldn't find you, but then I did. I found you. You were huddled up crying, you didn't even know it was me till I said your name.'' "The way you looked at me after that, made me never to see you cry again. So I promised I would do everything in my power to keep you from crying, and except for the little things here and there-I did a good job. Until now that is. Not only did I not keep you from crying, but I'm the reason" he said, barely above a whisper. His eye's shining with tears, and some were trailing down his face. "You also promised never to leave me" I whispered, finally able to talk. "I know..." "Your promised!" I shouted, he held me tighter as I cried. "I know... I know, and I'm sorry. I never meant to break that promise either" Tyler and Dakota have been best friends since either can remember, even with a 2 year gap in their age. But what happens when Ty leaves and joins the military, and leaves Kota behind? Something he promised he would never do? Will it wreck their friendship for good, will they be able to repair it? When Ty comes back, Kota is in a terrible situation. will Ty be able to protect her?

    But all that changes when his mother brings home Zan — an eight-day-old chimpanzee. Ben’s father, a renowned behavioral scientist, has uprooted the family to pursue his latest research project: a high-profile experiment to determine whether chimpanzees can acquire advanced language skills. Ben’s parents tell him to treat Zan like a little brother. Ben reluctantly agrees. At least now he’s not the only one his father’s going to scrutinize.It isn’t long before Ben is Zan’s favorite, and Ben starts to see Zan as more than just an experiment. His father disagrees. Soon Ben is forced to make a critical choice between what he is told to believe and what he knows to be true — between obeying his father or protecting his brother from an unimaginable fate.Half Brother isn’t just a story about a boy and a chimp. It’s about the way families are made, the way humanity is judged, the way easy choices become hard ones, and how you can’t always do right by the people and animals you love. In the hands of master storyteller Kenneth Oppel, it’s a novel you won’t soon forget.

     Eleven-year-old Maybelle Lane collects sounds. She records the Louisiana crickets chirping, Momma strumming her guitar, their broken trailer door squeaking. But the crown jewel of her collection is a sound she didn't collect herself: an old recording of her daddy's warm-sunshine laugh, saved on an old phone's voicemail. It's the only thing she has of his, and the only thing she knows about him.Until the day she hears that laugh--his laugh--pouring out of the car radio. Going against Momma's wishes, Maybelle starts listening to her radio DJ daddy's new show, drinking in every word like a plant leaning toward the sun. When he announces he'll be the judge of a singing contest in Nashville, she signs up. What better way to meet than to stand before him and sing with all her heart?But the road to Nashville is bumpy. Her starch-stiff neighbor Mrs. Boggs offers to drive her in her RV. And a bully of a boy from the trailer park hitches a ride too. These are not the people May would have chosen to help her, but it turns out they're searching for things too. And the journey will bond them into the best kind of family--the kind you choose for yourself.

    Solitude means time to think, time to hear for the first time the awful silence left in her world two years ago by her mother's death.But the summer holds a surprise for Charley, in the form of a mysterious dog who appears in the woods across the lake from her home. In order to connect with this wild spirit she names Coyote, Charley will have to do more than just walk. She will have to follow Coyote into the heart of her memories: the woods her mother loved so much. And she will have to learn to listen past the silence.This unsentimental, unforgettable story comes straight from the heart of Newbery Honor author Stephanie S. Tolan. As she describes Charley's difficult emotional and physical journey, she weaves together themes of nature, family, and love into a complex and powerful portrait of recovery.