Nicki Demere is 13 years old. She’s street savvy, book smart, and still keeps her giant stuffed animal, Ms. Fancypaws McKittenfluff on her bed. She’s also a seasoned pick-pocket, and she’s lived with five foster families in the past five years. Now she’s back at the Center again, waiting for her next placement. When the coordinator tells Nicki there are Read More …
Undertaking a big project can lead to a dazzling success…or an epic fail. There are plenty of books about great achievements. This one is about messy mistakes. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, up near Seattle, was considered to be a marvel of modern engineering when it was built in 1940. It was the third longest suspension bridge in the world at the time. Just Read More …
Sugar and her mom, Reba, live in a house with a white fence, green front door, and lilacs in the back yard. Sugar has two best friends and the world’s greatest 6th grade teacher, Mr. B. And now she has the cutest puppy, too, a little rescue dog named Shush. But she also has some serious problems at home. Her Read More …
Bethany’s parents have been acting really anxious lately, but they won’t tell her what’s wrong. Then one day they hustle her into the car. Her dad drives, and her mom cries. For 15 hours straight. When they finally stop, it’s late at night, and they’re in some random town four states from home. They pull up to a house, and her Read More …
Mason is the biggest kid in 7th grade. He’s always sweaty. And when he tries to read, the words just seem to slip off the page. His family has had some rough times lately. His mom died six years ago, hit by a car. Since then, instead of working, Uncle Drum has been selling off portions of the family’s apple Read More …
Kelly doesn’t believe in monsters under the bed. Obviously. She’s an ordinary 8th grader with a best friend, secret crush, and dreams of being cooler in high school. She’s trying to save up enough money to go to a sleepaway camp. That’s the only reason she takes this babysitting job, her first ever, on Halloween. She doesn’t even like kids. Read More …
Due to the unfortunate day of her birth, Morrigan Crow is destined to die at midnight on her eleventh birthday. And while she lives, she’s a curse. Anything that goes wrong in Jackalfax—hail storms, heart attacks, ruined batches of marmalade—they’re all blamed on her. It’s a lonely life. Nobody wants to be in the same room with her, for fear of something Read More …
Ada has been lying to people her whole life. With her black wavy hair, brown skin, and green eyes, Ada looks completely normal. Completely human. But she’s not. She’s a dreaded chimera, or kime. Most people are terrified of the kimes — these part human, part animal monster children. No one knows why Chimera Syndrome is spreading across Long Island. Read More …
Aventurine is tired of being kept cooped up in her family’s mountainside cavern. She won’t be allowed outside until her scales harden…in another 30 years. Aventurine is a young dragon, and most young dragons spend their early, quiet years learning everything they can about some subject that interests them. Aventurine’s older sister mastered twenty languages and wrote epic poetry. Her Read More …
Ty was the first kid born in the undersea settlers’ community. His family has a soft jellyfish-shaped house, they farm fish, and they swallow Liquigen whenever they need to breathe underwater. People who live above the sea call them Dark Life. Ty can’t wait to stake his own underwater homestead claim when he turns 18, in just three years, but Read More …