The daughter of faith-healing Christians and the son of a TV evangelist are the stars of this lively cautionary tale about religion, family, faith, and loveI start my story with the day I first saw Jesse Pegler. That was when my whole life first started changing.Sixteen-year-old Opal Ringer is the daughter of Royal Ringer, the Pentecostal leader of a motley flock of down-on-their-luck believers. Jesse Pegler is the son of Brother Pegler. An "evange...

A Long Island teenager reunites with her older sister in a novel about family, sibling rivalry, and the love you didn't know you were missingFifteen-year-old Suzy Slade's parents are divorced. Now Suzy lives with her mother in a beautiful house on the ocean in Seaville, Long Island. Her gorgeous older sister, Chicago, lives with their father in New York City. At least, she did. Chicago just roared into town on her brand-new Harley.With her sister's...

What do you do when your whole world is blown apart? A seventeen-year-old confronts love, betrayal, and his brother's illness in this brave, deeply compassionate novel by M. E. KerrLife is going great for Seaville High senior Erick Rudd. He's a good student, he has a girlfriend he'll probably marry, and he's on a straight path to college. Then his best friend's girlfriend lets him know she's attracted to him. Seventeen going on twenty-five, Nicki Marr is blond, gree...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder in this unusual love storyLittle Little La Belle isn't redundant. She's a dwarf—a beautiful blond heiress who lives a pampered existence in the New York town named after her family. With her eighteenth birthday approaching, her parents want to marry Little Little off to the perfect man.Enter Sydney Cinnamon. Orphaned young, he went on to become one of America's most famous dwarfs. The pint-size TV performer could have hi...

From the Margaret A. Edwards Award–winning author of Deliver Us from Evie comes a novel about a gay teenager who discovers a different kind of love during an unforgettable summer in the HamptonsI'd always think of it as the summer that I loved a girl . . .Seventeen-year-old Lang Penner and his mother are spending the summer in the caretaker's cottage at Roundelay, the sprawling East Hampton estate of legendary rocker Ben Nevada. Lang passes ...

A cockroach wakes up one morning and discovers that he has turned into a boyShoebag likes his life as a cockroach. Like the others in his "tribe," he was named for the place of his birth—in his case, a white summer sandal. He enjoys living in a Boston apartment building with his parents, Drainboard and Under The Toaster, although they've lost countless relatives to jumping spiders, water bugs, beetles, and the deadly fumes of the dreaded exterminator. So when Shoeba...

A teenager whose parents have separated tries to adapt to life at a boarding school and make a fresh start in a strange new placeAfter her mother runs off with her much-younger boyfriend, fourteen-year-old Flanders is shipped off to a boarding school in Virginia. On the train, she meets Carolyn Cardmaker, a preacher's daughter who will become her best friend. She also meets Ernestine Blue.Miss Blue is Flanders's faculty advisor at the Charles School, where ea...

In this novel by the award-winning author of Gentlehands and Slap Your Sides, a teenager starts to look at life differently when his older brother is sent to the Persian GulfTo sixteen-year-old Gary Peel, Linger is home. His father is manager of the Pennsylvania restaurant; his mom takes care of the books; and Gary's older brother, Bobby, works there as a waiter. That is, until he decides to join the army.The only one from their hometown to...

The residents of Critters animal shelter are all looking for a homeThere are many creatures at Critters, an animal-rescue facility, who are waiting for a home. Irving, a twelve-year-old part–German shorthaired pointer, loves to watch the soaps and has been living at Critters so long he believes it is his home. Placido, on the other hand, has no problem finding new homes—but with his bad habits, the cat is always back within twenty-four hours. Goldie the Lab...

These 15 short stories by a writer the New York Times Book Review has called "one of the grand masters of young adult fiction" capture our fears, yearnings, loneliness, self-doubts, and universal need for love and acceptanceM. E. Kerr's pioneering young adult literature has gained a devoted following for fearlessly breaking rules and confronting conformity. In Edge, her trademark gifts of pulling apart relationships, exposing real emotion, and conv...

The daughter of faith-healing Christians and the son of a TV evangelist are the stars of this lively cautionary tale about religion, family, faith, and loveI start my story with the day I first saw Jesse Pegler. That was when my whole life first started changing.Sixteen-year-old Opal Ringer is the daughter of Royal Ringer, the Pentecostal leader of a motley flock of down-on-their-luck believers. Jesse Pegler is the son of Brother Pegler. An “evange...

A seventeen-year-old girl falls in love with a Latino immigrant in this powerhouse novel about taboo passion and interracial loveAnnabel Brown's first glimpse of the boy fated to change her life is on a soccer field near her home in the resort town of Seaview, Long Island. His name is Esteban Santiago, and he came to town as a member of a crew hired by Annabel's father, a widowed contractor. From the moment they see each other, Annabel and Esteban know they're mean...