Synopsis: Susannah begins to learn about slavery in the South and the Abolitionist movement in the North, but the issues soon become more than idle gossip. Her father hires Jacob, an escaped slave, to work as a farmhand and live in the Allen's spare room. When tensions explode in her town, Susannah must face how to stand up to prejudice when it's a matter of life or death. The Spare Room is a story appropriate for all readers, ages 10 and up. The Spare Room by Jenny Land is a fast-paced, entertaining and thoughtful novel for young adults, the kind of book I loved to read as a child: not old-fashioned, but timeless, like Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird or the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House In The Big Woods series. The story is set in Vermont in 1843, almost twenty years before the onset of the American Civil War, during a time when abolitionists in New England were already calling for an end to slavery and escaped slaves from southern states were moving north toward Canada. Land has written a thoroughly engaging book, well grounded in the atmosphere of a time and a place when life was often very hard for families. The Spare Room brings this to the reader with carefully researched detail blended with the captivating energy of Susannah Allen s perceptive view of her world. This is a book that readers of any age will find hard to put down, and impossible to forget.The Spare Room reminds us that the freedom and equal opportunity we take for granted today were achieved only after a time of adversity and division, when many principled Vermonters took a stand. --Reeve Lindbergh, Author Land writes with the magical touch of Laura Ingalls Wilder. --Howard Frank Mosher, Author The Spare Room reminds us that the freedom and equal opportunity we take for granted today were achieved only after a time of adversity and division, when many principled Vermonters took a stand. --Jim Douglas, former Vermont Governor and historian

Synopsis: It’s been over six months since the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano. Alex and Darla have been staying with Alex’s relatives, trying to cope with the new reality of the primitive world so vividly portrayed in Ashfall, the first book in this series. It’s also been six months of waiting for Alex’s parents to return from Iowa. Alex and Darla decide they can wait no longer and must retrace their journey into Iowa to find and bring back Alex’s parents to the tenuous safety of Illinois. But the landscape they cross is even more perilous than before, with life-and-death battles for food and power between the remaining communities. When the unthinkable happens, Alex must find new reserves of strength and determination to survive.

Synopsis: As one of America's former leading cardiac surgeons, Dr. Nuño healed patients' hearts. Fixing "broken" hearts gave him a unique and intimate view into the power of the heart. Even coming face to face with death and losing patients, there is a beauty that can exist even in loss. The Spirit of the Heart is a collection of heart-warming stories that resonate at the core of our humanness. He graciously offers the insights he has gained from occupying a front-row seat at some of life's most real and raw moments. These tender stories teach us about what it means to be human, to be connected to others, to love, to live, to forgive.

Synopsis: With my eyes closed and Alex's core friends all around me, it was like I'd become my big sister, or something just as good. And so who cared if they were calling it Alex's party? One thing I knew: it would be remembered as mine.

Alex has it all—brains, beauty, popularity, and a dangerously hot boyfriend. Her little sister Thea wants it all, and she's stepped up her game to get it. Even if it means spinning the truth to win the attention she deserves. Even if it means uncovering a shocking secret her older sister never wanted to share. Even if it means crying wolf.

Told in the alternating voices of Alex and Thea, Adele Griffin's mesmerizing new novel is the story of a sibling rivalry on speed.

Synopsis: A riveting depiction of sisterhood, as one sibling's return home unleashes lies, a secret long buried, and emotional upheaval.

Caro Mitchell considers herself an only child--and she likes it that way. After all, her much older sister, Hannah, left home eight years ago, and Caro barely remembers her. So when Caro's parents drop the bombshell news that Hannah is returning to live with them, Caro feels as if an interloper is crashing her family. To her, Hannah's a total stranger, someone who haunts their home with her meek and withdrawn presence, and who refuses to talk about her life and why she went away. Caro can't understand why her parents cut Hannah so much slack, and why they're not pushing for answers.

Unable to understand Hannah, Caro resorts to telling lies about her mysterious reappearance. But when those lies alienate her new boyfriend, friends, and put her on the outs with her parents, Caro seeks solace from an unexpected source. And as she unearths a clue from Hannah's past--one that could save Hannah from the dark secret that possesses her--Caro begins to see her sister in a whole new light.

"Jarzab packs a lot into this story, questions of faith and forgiveness, science and religion, mental illness, guilt and possible redemption, as well as simple high school drama. But at its heart, this is a story about sisters."--Booklist, starred

"A layered meditation on family and belief that will ring true for faith-questing teens."--Kirkus Reviews

Synopsis: In this adaptation of his best-selling book, The Heart and the Fist, Eric speaks directly to teen readers, interweaving memoir and intimate second-person narratives that ask the reader to put themselves in the shoes of himself and others. Readers will share in Eric’s evolution from average kid to globe-traveling humanitarian to warrior, training and serving with the most elite military outfit in the world: the Navy SEALs. Along the way, they’ll be asked to consider the power of choices, of making the decision each and every day to act with courage and compassion so that they grow to be tomorrow’s heroes. Sure to inspire and motivate.

Synopsis: Ani believes she is just an insignificant whisper of a 12-year-old girl in a loud world. This is what her mother tells her anyway. Her father made her feel important, but he's been off fighting in Spain's Civil War, and his voice in her head is fading. Then she meets Mathias. His family has just moved to Guernica and he's as far from a whisper as a 14-year-old boy can be. Ani thinks Mathias is more like lightning. A boy of action. Mathias's father is part of a spy network and soon Ani finds herself helping him deliver messages to other members of the underground. She's actually making a difference in the world. 

And then her world explodes. The sleepy little market town of Guernica is destroyed by Nazi bombers. In one afternoon Ani loses her city, her home, her mother. But in helping the other survivors, Ani gains a sense of her own strength. And she and Mathias make plans to fight back in their own unique way.