She should be in class, enduring yet another miserable day of her first year of high school. But for once, Ryan isn't thinking about what she should be doing. She's not worried about her lack of friends, or her suffering math grade, or how it's been five whole years since the last time she was really and truly happy. Because she's finally returning to the place that her father loved, where the two of them spent so many afternoons cheering on their team. And on this -- the fifth anniversary of his death -- it feels like there's nowhere else in the world she should be.Ryan is once again filled with hope as she makes her way to the game. Good luck is often hard to come by at a place like Wrigley Field, but it's on this day that she meets Nick, the new kid from her school, who seems to love the Cubs nearly as much as she does. But Nick carries with him a secret that makes Ryan wonder if anyone can ever really escape their past, or believe in the promise of those reassuring words: "Wait till next year." Is it too much for Ryan to hope that this year, this season, might be her comeback season?

    The higher it soars, the more valued you are. The lower it plummets, the harder you must work to improve yourself. For the students at the prestigious Maplethorpe Academy, every single thing they do is reflected in their ratings, updated daily and available for all to see.But when an act of vandalism sullies the front doors of the school, it sets off a chain reaction that will shake the lives of six special students -- and the world beyond.

    Just one of 2,567 students, not at the top of the head, not at the bottom. Just a brown-haired piece of the middle. Take me out and nothing would collapse. No one would notice.But in Kansas, I was marked out. The new kid. The stranger. The boy with the weird accent. The boy with the weird dad, and no mom. From the moment Madison Pagels tripped me as I walked down the aisle of the school bus at 7:07 a.m. to the moment Madison's best friend, Chelsea Monroe, tripped me as I walked up the aisle at 3:56 p.m., and at the spitballs, hall-pulling, snickers, catcalls, "Kick me" notes, and fistfights in between, the school day pretty much seemed to revolve around me. After one rock-solid week of this, I decided that if there had to be a target on my head, I'd paint it there myself.

    But look at it this way. In ninety years I'll be dead, too, and the age difference won't matter.Sym is not your average teenage girl. She is obsessed with the Antarctic and the brave, romantic figure of Captain Oates from Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole. In fact, Oates is the secret confidant to whom she spills all her hopes and fears.But Sym's uncle Victor is even more obsessed--and when he takes her on a dream trip into the bleak Antarctic wilderness, it turns into a nightmarish struggle for survival that will challenge everything she knows and loves.In her first contemporary young adult novel, Carnegie Medalist and three-time Whitbread Award winner Geraldine McCaughrean delivers a spellbinding journey into the frozen heart of darkness.

    Kevin’s daughter, Cammie, keeps acting like Amber’s friend, even though she’s definitely not. And Jordan—star basketball player, hottest boy in school, and Cammie's best friend—keeps showing up at the most inconvenient moments.Amber has reasons for every one of her rules, and following them is the only way to protect her heart when her mom inevitably moves on. But as she spends more time with Kevin, his daughter, and especially Jordan, she starts to wonder if the rules might be worth breaking this time.Chosen by readers like you for Macmillan's young adult imprint Swoon Reads, Rules We're Meant to Break is a charming, heartachingly real story of family and young love by debut author Natalie Williamson.Praise for Rules We're Meant to Break:“The last time I devoured a book like this—I can't even remember. … It was so openhearted and raw.” —Clarissa, reader on SwoonReads.com"It is such a true true story about a girl finding herself within her first love. I loved it!" —Forever Bookish, reader on SwoonReads.com

    And now that she’s a high school junior, everything she’s worked for is finally coming together. She’s paid her dues on the field, and as an upperclassman, she’s a shoo-in for the varsity team. But that’s not what happens.This year, Coach Hartley moved up every JV player but two—and one of those two was Parker. Now, she’s stuck with the freshmen, her friends are cutting her loose, and her love of the game is seriously beginning to fail. But Parker is determined to get her life back. She has to get on the varsity team, and she has the perfect plan. All she needs now is the right kind of coach.Tina Ferraro lives in southern California. You can visit her online at www.tinaferraro.com.

    "So?""So no one wants you here. Why don't you go back where you came from?"I can't go back, I wanted to say. That was the thing about living in a group home. There was nowhere for me to go but forward.Brent Hartinger's second novel, a portrait of a subculture of teenagers that many people would like to forget, is as powerful and provocative as his first book, Geography Club.

    A new reading-group guide written by the author is included in the back of this paperback edition.

    After 9/11, immigration regulations change, forcing the family to seek asylum.

    When Garth, an accomplished diver, shows an interest in her, Beverly is ecstatic, until it turns out Garth is only interested in one thing. Struggling with failing strength from her self-imposed starvation diet, Beverly finds herself in deep trouble when she has to fight Garth off underwater.Also available in Spanish.

    But life in his idyllic small Maine town quickly gets turned upside down after the events of 9/11. Enniston has become a “secondary migration” location for Somali refugees, who are seeking a better life after their country was destroyed by war—they can no longer go home. Tom hasn’t thought much about his Somali classmates until four of them join the soccer team, including Saeed. He comes out of nowhere on the field to make impossible shots, and suddenly the team is winning, dominating even; but when Saeed’s eligibility is questioned and Tom screws up in a big way, he’s left to grapple with a culture he doesn’t understand and take responsibility for his actions. Saeed and his family came out of nowhere and vanish just as quickly. And Tom may find himself going nowhere, too, if he doesn’t start trying to get somewhere.

     When enigmatic freshman Amanda Valentino arrived at Endeavor High, she chose three people— Callie, Hal, and Nia; to guide her through the choppy waters of her new school. Except she didn't tell them about each other. When Amanda leaves, the three must reluctantly work together to figure out why. But once they start piecing together the cryptic clues that Amanda herself is leaving for them, they realize that everything they thought they knew about her is false. The more they dig, the mystery of where; and who Amanda is deepens.

    Not like her older sister, Carla, who leaves her three-year-old daughter, Lulu, with Aunt Sadie while she parties and gets high. But when both sisters are caught up in a drug deal — wrong place, wrong time — it falls to Sadie to confess to a crime she didn’t commit to keep Carla out of jail and Lulu out of foster care. Sadie is supposed to get off with a slap on the wrist, but somehow, impossibly, gets sentenced to six months in juvie. As life as Sadie knew it disappears beyond the stark bars of her cell, her anger — at her ex-boyfriend, at Carla, and at herself — fills the empty space left behind. Can Sadie forgive Carla for getting her mixed up in this mess? Can Carla straighten herself out to make a better life for Lulu, and for all of them? Can Sadie survive her time in juvie with her spirit intact?

    She is a field hockey star on the fast track to a college scholarship, but her relationship with alcohol has always been a little questionable. Then trouble finds her. Alec is the most popular guy in school, and also the biggest bully—with his sights set firmly on Katie. When Alec turns on the charm, Katie thinks she must have been wrong about him.Except that she wasn’t. On a rain-soaked, alcohol-drenched night, one impulsive decision leaves Katie indebted to Alec in the worst possible way. This debut novel is a fast-paced and compelling story of addiction, heartbreak, and redemption.

    He's a senior running back on the football team, dominating every opponent in his way. To everyone else, Jack is totally in control. In reality, he struggles with an eating disorder that controls every aspect of his daily life. When Jack starts using steroids, he feels invincible, but will the steroids help him win the big game, or will he lose everything he's ever worked for?