Eleven-year-old Aurora Petrequin's best friend has never spoken a word to her. In fact, Frenchie Livernois doesn't talk. Aurora is bouncy, loud and impulsive. Making friends has never come easily. When Frenchie, who is autistic, silently chose Aurora as his person back in third grade, she chose him back. They make a good team, sharing their love of the natural world in coastal Maine. In the woods, Aurora and Frenchie encounter a piebald deer, a rare...

"Beverly Tapinski has run away from home plenty of times, but that was when she was just a kid. By now, she figures, it's not running away. It's leaving. Determined to make it on her own, Beverly finds a job and a place to live and tries to forget about her dog, Buddy, now buried underneath the orange trees back home; her friend Raymie, whom she left without a word; and her mom, Rhonda, who has never cared about anyone but herself. Beverly doesn't...

Immersing himself in a fantasy world of knights and chivalry, introverted Ware is sent to a summer camp designed around social interactions and begins building a castle-like private space while clashing with a fellow misfit.

The battlefield was soaked in blood. Screams of injured soldiers rang through the air. Eleven-year-old Nathaniel Knox knelt behind a rock, his gun clutched in his shaking hands. Nate had been heading to New York City to find his father. But now he was trapped in a terrible gunfight between American and British troops. -- But King George was like a snake with America gripped in his fangs - and he didn't want to let go. So now it was war - brutal, bloody...

Anthony Puckett was a rising literary star. The son of an über-famous thriller writer, Anthony's debut novel spent two years on the bestseller list and won the adoration of critics. But something went very wrong with his second work. Now Anthony's borrowing an old college friend's crumbling beach house on Block Island in the hopes that solitude will help him get back to the person he used to be. Joy Sousa owns and runs Block Island's beloved whoopie...

"My name is Jose Antonio Vargas. I was born in the Philippines. When I was twelve, my mother sent me to the United States to live with her parents. While applying for a driver's permit, I found out my papers were fake. More than two decades later, I am still here illegally, with no clear path to American citizenship. To some people, I am the "most famous illegal" in America. In my mind, I am only one of an estimated 11 million human beings whose uncertain...

When the massive metal tank filled with sticky brown molasses that rises up over her crowded North End neighborhood explodes, young Carmen must fight for her life, as a tsunami of molasses rushes through the streets.

"Javari knew that West Virginia would be different from his home in Bushwick, Brooklyn. But his first day at STEM Camp in a little Appalachian town is still a shock. Though run-ins with the police are just the same here. Not good. Javari will learn a lot about science ... And also about rich people, racism, and hidden agendas. But it's Cricket, a local boy, budding activist, and occasional thief, who will show him a different side of the holler--and...

"A pivotal fixture of the Harlem Renaissance, Duke Ellington was the bandleader of the historic Cotton Club and a master composer -- writing close to 3,000 songs in his lifetime and capturing the spirit of the Black experience in the Unites States. Over a 50-year career, Ellington became one of the biggest names in jazz as we know it"--

"Sky Patel-Baum, Area 51's latest arrival, thought she had finally figured out her strange new home. Sure, there are aliens everywhere, and her new BFF Elvis is from the planet Galzoria. True, she just witnessed her first UFO landing. But these special visitors aren't dropping by this planet for funsies.... Nope, they're here with a warning: Area 51 is in danger! A hunk of space junk is headed right for the base! And it's not just any hunk of junk--it's...