Sandpiper

Sandpiper, 16, is known as the girl with the bad reputation, so none of her former friends cares when a classmate starts harassing her. At home everything is focused on her divorced, ex-hippy mom's joyful new marriage and the elaborate wedding rituals. Then Sandy meets and makes friends with a young man, "the Walker," who seems to go everywhere on foot. Why isn't he in school? Where is his family? Heading each chapter is a poem, and her edgy, angry first-person narrative sets her anguish against the wedding fun. Tension builds as Sandy and the Walker form a tentative friendship, reveal their secrets, and then save each other.

Sloppy Firsts

When her best friend, Hope Weaver, moves away from Pineville, New Jersey, hyperobservant sixteen-year-old Jessica Darling is devastated. A fish out of water at school and a stranger at home, Jessica feels more lost than ever now that the only person with whom she could really communicate has gone. How is she supposed to deal with the boy- and shopping-crazy girls at school, her dad’s obsession with her track meets, her mother salivating over big sister Bethany’s lavish wedding, and her nonexistent love life?
From the dark days of Hope’s departure through her months as a type-A personality turned insomniac to her completely mixed-up feelings about Marcus Flutie, the intelligent and mysterious “Dreg” who works his way into her heart. Follow Jessica as she navigates through her world.

Catherine, Called Birdy

This is the hilarious tale of a young maiden whose father can't wait to auction - marry - her off for a high price! But this is no damsel in distress, Lady Catherine refuses to be taken advantage of, if she can help it. After all, she'd rather play outside with townspeople than sit inside and sew! Read on to discover if she can avoid her suitors, and how she deals with the potential marriages of her friends!

Beowulf

Ok, so this may be a required reading item for some English classes...but this graphic novel is not your average translation!! The pictures are bright and vivid, so that you can actually understand just how ferocious the monsters were! And hey, it may even up your grades in English class....or at least earn a few brownie points with the teacher.

General Winston's Daughter

Averie Winston is 17, and the daughter of a powerful general. She and her (usually) grumpy guardian follow her father and Army officer fiance to Chiarrin, a nation occupied by her homeland's Army. Averie thinks that the trip will give her the chance to spend time with her fiance and her father, and maybe even make her a bride! She hires a native to be her personal servant, and makes friends with other female relatives of the Army. However, once she learns more about the culture of Chiarrin, the more that her opinions begin to change.

Fever 1793

This is a historical novel by acclaimed author, Laurie Halse Anderson. Sixteen year old Mattie Cook lives with her mother and paternal grandfather above the family coffee house in Philidelphia. She has a crush on a boy her mother doesn't approve of, and Mattie tries to get out of doing chores as often as possible! All this changes when the yellow fever epidemic hits the city. At first the family refuses to flee, while many neighbors rush to the country. Follow Mattie as she fights for her life, and those of her friends and family. Will she and her family survive the deadly disease, and the changes brought upon the city in the wake of all the disasters?

Honk If You Hate Me

Monalisa Kent was just 6 years old when she accidently burned down her hometown's futon factory. But that doesn't stop everyone in town from hating her! Mona has a passion for bumper stickers, and her spends a lot of her free time at the tattoo parlors run by her best friend's parents. The 10 year anniversary of the accident is approaching, and while the town is now benefiting from the fast food industry, Mona's past keeps haunting her. The stares, t.v. interviews, old footage....Mona is sick of all the attention. She doesn't even remember causing the blaze! Then her best friend Glenn begins to act strange... Is it time for Mona to stand up to the bullying and blame of the folk of Mussina Junction? And what secrets has Glenn been keeping from her?!

Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicholson

Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging presets the humorous journal of a year in the life of a fourteen-year-old British girl named Georgia Nicholson, who tries to reduce the size of her nose, stop her mad cat from terrorizing the neighborhood animals, and win the love of handsome hunk Robbie. The book is hysterical enough and added at the end of the story is a funny glossary that will help Americans understand the British slang.

Before I Die

Tessa has just a few months to live.

Fighting back against hospital visits, endless tests, drugs with excruciating side-effects, Tessa compiles a list. It's her Ten Things To Do Before I Die list. And Number One is sex.

Released from the constraints of 'normal' life, Tessa tastes new experiences to make her feel alive while her failing body struggles to keep up.

Tessa's feelings, her relationships with her father and brother, her estranged mother, her best friend, her new boyfriend, all are painfully crystallized in the precious weeks before Tessa's time finally runs out.

Stargirl

"She was homeschooling gone amok." "She was an alien." "Her parents were circus acrobats." These are only a few of the theories concocted to explain Stargirl Caraway, a new 10th grader at Arizona's Mica Area High School who wears pioneer dresses and kimonos to school, strums a ukulele in the cafeteria, laughs when there are no jokes, and dances when there is no music. The whole school, not exactly a "hotbed of nonconformity," is stunned by her, including our 16-year-old narrator Leo Borlock: "She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl."

T.W.O.C.

Stealing cars for joyrides became Matt's life after his revered older brother taught him how. Now, after a major accident, the teen, haunted by vivid, traumatizing images of his dead brother, attempts to ignore the realities of life and baits his parole officer/psychologist. To help him get a grip, he is sent off to the country--along with two other troubled youth, a juvenile arsonist and a tagger--for a weekend of activity-based therapy, which will have dramatic consequences for all three of them!

The Society of S

Ariella Montero's mother vanished the day she was born, leaving her to the care of her overprotective scientist father, who homeschools her and limits her contact with the outside world. Only when she reaches adolescence does Ari discover that her special diet and insular home life set her apart from her peers. Her father's confession that he was vampirized shortly before marriage, and that Ari can choose whether to be undead like him or mortal like mom, set her off on a road trip that eventually brings her to her mother and into an understanding of tough truths about her family.

If I Have A Wicked Stepmother, Where's My Prince?

Lucy Norton not only has a new stepmother to contend with, but her father has uprooted her cozy West Coast existence and taken her across the continent to Long Island. Dad commutes to his job in San Francisco, leaving Lucy with the wicked stepmother and the two evil little stepsisters. Lucy's new high school seems like a hostile environment until the most popular boy in school smiles at her, sending her stock flying through the roof. At home, Lucy suffers the indignity of living in the basement with no furniture while everyone else lives in relative luxury. She is, of course, made to do chores while the stepsisters get away with murder. Her stepmother and stepsisters are shallow, materialistic, spoiled and even dishonest...everything that Lucy isn't! Will this Cinderella ever get her happily-ever-after or is that just in fairytales?

Gentlehands

Buddy Boyle lives year-round with his family in unfashionable Seaville, New York, in a cramped little house on the bay. Skye Pennington spends the summers nearby on lavish estate complete with ocean view and a butler named Peacock.

But Skye and Buddy fall in love anyway. And every once in a while they visit Buddy's estranged grandfather, who makes them forget they're from opposite sides of town. Then a reporter appears, searching for a man known as Gentlehands, a man with a horrifying past. Who is Gentlehands? And what is his connection to Buddy's handsome, aristocratic grandfather? The mystery threatens to shatter Buddy and Skye's relationship, and change their lives forever.

Th1rteen R3asons Why

When Clay Jenson plays the casette tapes he received in a mysterious package, he's surprised to hear the voice of dead classmate Hannah Baker. He's one of 13 people who receive Hannah's story, which details the circumstances that led to her suicide. Clay spends the rest of the day and long into the night listening to Hannah's voice and going to the locations she wants him to visit. The message about how we treat one another makes for compelling reading.

The City of Ember

It is always night in the city of Ember. But there is no moon, no stars. The only light during the regular twelve hours of "day" comes from floodlamps that cast a yellowish glow over the streets of the city. Beyond are the pitch-black Unknown Regions, which no one has ever explored! Among the many other things the people of Ember have forgotten is their past and a direction for their future. For 250 years they have lived pleasantly, because there has been plenty of everything in the vast storerooms. But now there are more and more empty shelves--and more and more times when the lights flicker and go out, leaving them in terrifying blackness for long minutes. What will happen when the generator finally fails? Is there a way out of Ember? Will it be found before darkness takes over for good?

**Movie adaptation coming out in the Fall 2008!!

Secrets of My Hollywood Life

What if your picture was taped inside teenage boys' lockers across America, your closets were bursting with never-worn designer clothing, and the tabloids constantly asked whether you were losing your "good girl" status? It's a glamorous life, but 16-year-old Kaitlin Burke, co-star of one of the hottest shows on TV, is exhausted from the pressures of her fame. So with the help of her "non-famous" best friend she decides to spend two months undercover as an ordinary high school student. But could it be that real life high school is just as harsh as cutthroat Hollywood?? And can Kaitlin handle living a double life...juggling her new ordinary life and her hollywood fame?

Fix

Cameron and Allie are sisters. Cameron and Allie inherited big noses from their father, but other than that, they both have the good looks of their mother, formerly a rather famous model. When Cameron turned fifteen, her life changed completely. For the better, according to her. She got a nose job. She turned gorgeous, moved to a new school, and now she's so much more popular! Gone are the days when she used to called Beakface.

Allie's mother feels that she needs the same birthday present Cameron got: a nose job. It made Cameron a much happier person, and who wouldn't want that for their other daughter? Problem is, nobody asked Allie.
E. Schaarschmidt

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

If Naomi wouldn't have gone back for the yearbook camera, she wouldn't have hit her head on the steps. She wouldn't have woken up in an ambulance with amnesia. She would understand why her best friend, Will, keeps calling her “Chief.” She'd know about her mom's new family. She'd know about her dad's fiancée. She never would have met James, the boy with the questionable past and the even fuzzier future. Will and Naomi left the decision of who gets the camera to the toss of a coin. Naomi picked heads. She lost the coin toss and her memories as well.
E. Schaarschmidt