And between Jacob, the cranky old man who runs the place, and the endless dusty boxes overflowing with stuff no one will ever claim, Duncan’s just about had enough. Then he finds a little leather book. It’s a diary filled with the dark and dirty secrets of a twisted mind, a serial killer stalking his prey in the subway. And Duncan can’t make himself stop reading.What would you do with a book like that? How far would you go to catch a madman?And what if time was running out. . . .From the Hardcover edition.

    R. Frank switches gears and narrows her focus to the pivotal events of one 8th grade classroom.The progressive petri dish of Forest Alternative's middle school is stirred the wrong way when sophisticated, tongue-ringed Stacy makes the scene. Almost immediately, Stacy takes advantage of the school's relaxed and experimental atmosphere to start a little excitement.For reasons known only to herself, she begins to insinuate that Simon, the 8th grade's idealistic, good-looking young teacher, is in love with Alex, Friction's mild mannered first person narrator. Embarrassed and infuriated, Alex tries to squelch the gossip, but only manages to make herself look more guilty to her classmates. When she finally confronts Stacy, Alex is horrified when Stacy tearfully admits that the reason she's been spreading the rumors is to draw attention away from the fact that Simon is actually molesting her. Confused and half caught up in Stacy's stories herself, Alex makes the mistake of trusting her shifting feelings instead of what she knows to be true, irreparably harming her admired teacher in the process.Friction is a provocative, deadly accurate portrayal of puberty, in all its manipulative, perplexing, unmanageable glory. Alex's quest to discover the definition of truth is a journey every teenager makes, and teen readers of Friction will take great comfort in the fact that a trusted author, who clearly hasn't forgotten adolescence herself, is helping to chart the path. (Ages 12 to 15)

    But Stacy refuses to accept this social blacklisting in the hilarious follow-up to You Are SO Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah!.

    What he wants most of all is to be just like his older brother, the Motorcycle Boy. He wants to stay calm and laughing when things get dangerous, to be the toughest street fighter and the most respected guy on their side of the river. Rusty-James isn't book-smart, and he knows it. He relies on his fists instead of his brains. Until now he's gotten along all right, because whenever he gets into trouble, the Motorcycle Boy bails him out. But Rusty-James' drive to be like his brother eats away at his world--until it all comes apart in an explosive chain of events. And this time the Motorcycle Boy isn't around to pick up the pieces.

    When Eddie's mom goes into rehab and his aunt and uncle take him away to Boston, everything changes. His new school, which he attends with his cousin Alex, is experimental: there's a CEO instead of a principal, classes are held in an office building, and the students, all sporting business-casual looks, are the only urban kids Eddie has ever seen outside of a rap video. As for Alex, it's bad enough that he has to share his bedroom with Eddie, but his parents are on his case about including his quiet cousin in his social life as well. Alex wants to do the right thing, but between talking to girls, playing video games, thinking about girls, laughing with his friends, and looking at girls, when is he supposed to find time to help Eddie and "work up to his potential" in school?Two boys find that they have a lot to learn from each other in this touching, funny novel about finding your place and looking out for your friends.

    Wherever Paul goes, laughter follows, and Johanna longs to be a part of his inner circle. Getting Paul into her life turns out to be the easy part. Keeping Paul happy is tough, even for an overachiever like Johanna. And keeping Paul happy is a must, because when he's not, Johanna becomes his target. But can she find the strength to change her life when Paul's happiness becomes more important to Johanna than her family, her friends, and even her own safety?

    In fact, he enlisted in the National Guard because he wanted to serve his country the way his father did. When the Guard is called up on the Idaho governor's orders to police a protest in Boise, it seems like a routine crowd-control mission ... but then Danny's gun misfires, spooking the other soldiers and the already fractious crowd, and by the time the smoke clears, twelve people are dead.The president wants the soldiers arrested. The governor swears to protect them. And as tensions build on both sides, the conflict slowly escalates toward the unthinkable: a second American civil war.With political questions that are popular in American culture yet rare in YA fiction, and a provocative plot that could far too easily become real.

    Seventeen-year-old Leah's chance to make the national soccer team does not seem so important when she learns that her father has cancer and may only have months to live.

    Not one for dog-walking or brat-sitting, Massie comes up with the ah-bvious solution: She'll be a sales rep for the cosmetics brand Be Pretty. Massie fully hearts her new role as fairy gawdmother of makeup-until she discovers transforming LBRs into glam-girls takes more than a swish of her royal purple mascara wand.

    A reporter for her high school newspaper, The Core, she's just waiting for a chance to prove herself. Not content to just cover school issues, Hildy's drawn to the town's big story--the haunted old Ludlow house. On the surface, Banesville, USA, seems like such a happy place, but lately, eerie happenings and ghostly sightings are making Hildy take a deeper look. Her efforts to find out who is really haunting Banesville isn't making her popular, and she starts wondering if she's cut out to be a journalist after all. But she refuses to give up, because, hopefully, the truth will set a few ghosts free. Peeled is classic Joan Bauer, featuring a strong heroine, and filled with her trademark witty dialogue, and problems and people worth standing up to.

    She doesn't know how to deal with any of it-until she meets Francis. With a dead mother, a teardrop tattooed on his face, and a curiosity which is almost nosy, he has a lot to teach Sophie about losing someone and saving memories. They start out as friends, but soon Sophie realizes that Francis wants to be her boyfriend, too. Can Sophie give herself the permission to grow up? "Fast-paced, light, yet introspective, this novel of transition, love, and loss explores emotion while telling a fine story." (School Library Journal, starred review)

    Determined to be herself, not the "perfect" girl her mother hopes for, Julia chooses to live with her grandmother and her divorced father in a little town in the Cascade Mountains.But tiny Moon Valley lacks the one thing Julia desperately craves: a good music teacher. When a girl dressed in white appears among the cattails, singing Puccini arias in a haunting voice, Julia knows she must meet her and find out where she studies. But the girl always manages to slip away and vanish among the trees. There are hints that the people of Moon Valley may have the answer to the mystery, and surely Luke Sutherland, Julia's silent, blue-eyed neighbor, knows more about this elusive person than he will admit.With her latest novel, Cattail Moon, award-winning Jean Thesman has created a romance, a mystery, and an absorbing story of a young girl who is learning to claim her decisions and choices as her own.

    To get some help, he cops a poetry book from his dad's den - and before Kevin knows it, he's writing in verse about stuff like, Will his jock friends give up on him? What's the deal with girlfriends? Surprisingly enough, after his health improves, he keeps on writing, about the smart-talking Latina girl who thinks poets are cool, and even about his mother, whose death is a still-tender loss. Written in free verse with examples of several poetic forms slipped into the mix, including a sonnet, haiku, pastoral, and even a pantoum, this funny, poignant story by a master of dialogue is an English teacher's dream - sure to hook poetry lovers, baseball fanatics, mono recoverers, and everyone in between.

    And then everything -- absolutely everything -- changed. Now she's counting down the days until she returns to school with her fake arm, where she knows kids will whisper, "That's her -- that's Shark Girl," as she passes. In the meantime there are only questions: Why did this happen? Why her? What about her art? What about her life? In this striking first novel, Kelly Bingham uses poems, letters, telephone conversations, and newspaper clippings to look unflinchingly at what it's like to lose part of yourself - and to summon the courage it takes to find yourself again.age range: 12 yrs and upgrade range: Grade 7 and up

    That means she's going to start middle school a-l-o-n-e. Bessica feels like such a loser. She wants friends. She's just not sure how to make them.It doesn't help that her beloved grandma is off on some crazy road trip and has zero time to listen to Bessica. Or that Bessica has a ton of homework. Or that gorgeous Noll Beck thinks she's just a kid. Or that there are some serious psycho-bullies in her classes. Bessica doesn't care about being popular. She just wants to survive—and look cute. Is that too much to ask when you're eleven?