Gorgeous

When 18-year-old Becky Randle's mother dies, she is whisked away from a trailer park to New York City, where fashion designer Tom Kelly offers to transform her into a glamorous Rebecca, a girl fit for a prince. But soon she begins to fear that she will lose touch with her real self.

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• Paul Rudnick On His 'Gorgeous' Adventure

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Having run away with her younger brother to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, twelve-year-old Claudia strives to keep things in order in their new home and to become a changed person and a heroine to herself.

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• Book News: E.L. Konigsburg, 'Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler' Author, Dies
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Nine Days

Tenth-graders Ethan and Ti-Anna go to Hong Kong seeking her father, an exiled Chinese democracy activist who has disappeared. They follow his trail to Vietnam and back, uncovering illegal activity along the way.

News and Reviews

• A Real-Life Fight For Freedom In 'Nine Days'

Debutante Hill

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The Summer Prince

In the futuristic Brazilian metropolis Palmares Tres, artist June Costa joins the bold new Summer King, Enki, to stage explosive, dramatic projects that the city will never forget. The pair adds fuel to a growing rebellion against the government's strict limits on new tech, and June falls deeply, unfortunately in love with Enki. Because like all Summer Kings before him, Enki is destined to die.

News and Reviews

• Samba, Spiderbots And 'Summer' Love In Far-Future Brazil
• Exclusive First Read: 'The Summer Prince' By Alaya Dawn Johnson

The Day My Mother Left

When his mother leaves to live with another man, nine-year-old Jeremy faces his own pain and loss, his father's depression and sister's distance, the pity of friends and strangers, and his father's remarriage two years later, finding solace in fishing and his artwork.

News and Reviews

• A Young Artist Finds Solace In Creatures Of The Sea And Sky
• A Mother's Abandonment and a Life in Art, Nature

Okay for Now

While 14-year-old Doug struggles to be more than the "skinny thug" that his teachers and the police think him to be, he finds an unlikely ally, Lil Spicer, who gives him strength to endure an abusive father, the suspicions of a whole town and the return of his oldest brother, forever scarred, from Vietnam.

News and Reviews

• With Audubon's Help, Beat-Up Kid Is 'Okay For Now'

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Fifteen-year-old Ari Mendoza is an angry loner with a brother in prison, but when he meets Dante and they become friends, Ari starts to ask questions about himself, his parents, and his family that he has never asked before.

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• Discovering Sexuality Through Teen Lit
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My Brother's Book

Published posthumously, Maurice Sendak's My Brother's Book combines poetry and art in an elegy to his brother.NPR Bestseller

News and Reviews

• Sendak's 'Brother's Book': An Elegy, A Farewell

The Outsiders

S.E. Hinton was just 16 years old when she wrote this novel about kids getting caught up in class struggles. Ponyboy is a greaser, from the wrong side of the tracks; he runs afoul of the upper-class Socs, leading to an epic rumble between the two gangs.

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• Rich Kids, Greasers And The Life-Changing Power Of 'The Outsiders'
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Code Name Verity

In 1943, a British fighter plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France and the survivor tells a tale of friendship, war, espionage and great courage as she relates what she must to survive while keeping secret all that she can.

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• 5 Young Adult Novels That You'll Never Outgrow
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Purity

Sixteen-year-old Shelby finds it difficult to balance her mother's dying request to live a life without restraint with her father's plans for his "little princess," which include attending a traditional father-daughter dance that culminates with a ceremonial vow to live "whole, pure lives."

News and Reviews

• 5 Young Adult Novels That You'll Never Outgrow

Where Things Come Back

Seventeen-year-old Cullen's summer in Lily, Arkansas, is marked by his cousin's death by overdose, an alleged spotting of a woodpecker thought to be extinct, failed romances, and his younger brother's sudden disappearance.

News and Reviews

• 5 Young Adult Novels That You'll Never Outgrow

Seraphina

In a world where dragons and humans coexist in an uneasy truce and dragons can assume human form, Seraphina, whose mother died giving birth to her, grapples with her own identity amid magical secrets and royal scandals, while she struggles to accept and develop her extraordinary musical talents.

News and Reviews

• 5 Young Adult Novels That You'll Never Outgrow

Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses

Writing in free verse honed to a wicked edge, the incomparable Ron Koertge brings dark and contemporary humor to twenty iconic fairy tales.

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Daughters of Eve

As the club sponsor for the Daughters of Eve at Modesta High, Irene Stark, a popular and dedicated teacher, uses feminist philosophy to manipulate the girls' lives in a bizarre plan to avenge past injustices.

News and Reviews

• Feminism Turns Fatal In A 1970s Classic

Colin Fischer

The screenplay writers for X-Men: First Class present the story of a boy who taps the investigative talents of a peer with Asperger's syndrome to prove he is innocent of blowing up a birthday cake in the school cafeteria, a case that teaches both boys about the mysterious qualities of human emotions.

News and Reviews

• Inspecting The Trend Of Autistic-Spectrum Characters

Jepp, Who Defied The Stars

Jepp, a teenage dwarf living in 16th century Europe, leaves home to seek his destiny.

News and Reviews

• A Tale Of Fate: From Astrology To Astronomy

Troy

Told from the point of view of the women of Troy, portrays the last weeks of the Trojan War, when women are sick of tending the wounded, men are tired of fighting, and bored gods and goddesses find ways to stir things up.

News and Reviews

• Rewriting Homer, With Some Lurid Twists

Skinny

After undergoing gastric-bypass surgery, a self-loathing, obese teenaged girl loses weight and makes the brave decision to start participating in high school life, including pursuing her dream of becoming a singer and finding love.

News and Reviews

• 'Skinny' Starts A Conversation For Overweight Teens

The Last Dragonslayer

In his witty first novel for young readers, the New York Times best-selling author introduces 15-year-old foundling Jennifer Strange. Jennifer runs Kazam, an agency for underemployed magicians in a world where magic is fading away, but when visions begin about the death of the world's last dragon at the hands of an unnamed Dragonslayer, Jennifer realizes that everything could change for Kazam — and herself — and that Big Magic is in store.

News and Reviews

• A Mashup Of Mundane And Magical In 'Dragonslayer'
• Exclusive First Read: 'The Last Dragonslayer'

Dodger

Surviving by his wits in an alternative-universe London ruled by a young Queen Victoria, the intrepid young Dodger inadvertently foils a murderous Sweeney Todd's operation and encounters numerous fictional and historical characters, including Darwin, Disraeli and Dickens. By the award-winning author of A Hat Full of Sky.

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• Pratchett Leaves Discworld For London In 'Dodger'

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

In a thought-provoking, coming-of-age novel, teenager Charlie struggles to cope with the complex world of high school. He deals with the confusions of sex and love, the temptations of drugs and the pain of losing a close friend and favorite aunt.NPR Bestseller

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