National Network for Equitable Library Service

Sixteen-year-old Ani lives in the tiny Quebec town of Ste-Anne-de-Beaupre, where her family runs Saintly Souvenirs, a tourist shop catering to the many pilgrims who come to the town seeking a miracle. The bane of Ani’s existence is her hyperactive, over-sexed younger sister, Colette. Ani and her mother, Therese, are devout Catholics; Colette and her father are not. When Therese is paralyzed after a freak accident, Ani’s faith is tested, but when she is confronted with something shocking in her mother’s past, she has to rethink her whole existence.

Ria is rich, slim, pretty, popular. If you only knew her at school, you'd think she led a charmed life – and until recently you'd have been right. But her situation has taken a sudden, unfortunate change. Her parents' seemingly perfect marriage has broken up, and before she's had a chance to absorb the blow, her beloved father disappears in a plane crash. What's worse, rumors begin to surface that he may have perpetrated a multimillion-dollar investment scam and everybody – Ria's mother, her best friends, even her boyfriend – believes them.

Lily is discovered by a big-name director when she's auditioning for a role in a toothpaste commercial. He wants her for his new movie, which is great except for the fact that it's shooting in Los Angeles and Lily lives in Vancouver. With the help of her Chinese grandmother, she convinces her parents to let her go to LA with her agent as a chaperone. But when she gets there, she finds out that if she wants to be more than the flavor of the week, she's going to have to pay a price that may be way too high.

Growing up in a picturesque Newfoundland fishing village should be idyllic for sixteen-year-old Kit Ryan, but living with an alcoholic father makes Kit's day-to-day life unpredictable and almost intolerable. When the 1992 cod moratorium forces her father out of a job, the tension between Kit and her father grows. Forced to leave their rural community, the family moves to the city, where they live with Uncle Iggy, a widower with problems of his own.

Nell has been in foster homes all her life -- most of them have been horrible. She finally gets moved to a home she likes, and the ministry threatens to close it down unless an expensive renovation is made to the house. Nell and the two boys in the home, Billy and Tom, decide to raise the funds themselves. How do kids get large amounts of money quickly? By robbing banks, of course. Their first few heists are successful, but when they almost get caught on their sixth robbery, the friends start to fight about whether they should continue.

Del plays striker on his high school soccer team, the Cardinals, and they've gone almost three seasons undefeated. To Del, it's just a game, but some of the players think winning is all that matters. When an ugly tackle results in a major loss for the Cardinals against their main rival, the Rebels, things get heated between the teams. That night, one of Del's teammates has his ankle broken by an unknown assailant, leaving him unable to take part in the playoffs.

He killed his best friend, Logan, in a street-racing accident a year ago. As he tries to make amends to Logan's girlfriend and keep his promise to never race again, Tom is haunted by his dead friend. He thinks Logan is trying to tell him something. Not only that, since he faces huge medical bills from the accident and may have to give up his car, the pressure to race is almost unbearable.

Fifteen-year-old Tim loves his job at his dad's pet store, partly because he gets to spend time with his best friend, a black cockatoo named Elmo. But things at work have been tense since the store moved to a larger, more expensive location. To make extra money his father rents out the store's exotic birds for parties and Tim is furious at this exploitation of his friend. When Elmo is stolen from one of the parties, the police are unconcerned about the theft. Tim and his new human friend, Sapna, set out to find Elmo and discover that Elmo is more valuable than they'd ever imagined.

It's the middle of the twenty-first century and the elite children of New Middletown are lined up to receive a treatment that turns them into obedient, well-mannered citizens. Maxwell Connors, a seventeen-year-old prankster, misfit and graffiti artist, observes the changes with growing concern, especially when his younger sister, Ally, is targeted. Max and his best friend, Dallas, escape the treatment, but must pretend to be "zombies" while they watch their freedoms and hopes decay.

Fourteen-year-old Matt has only one goal in life: to become a hermit. He has no use for school, but he loves the solitude of the forest. When he hikes up to the cabin he built for himself, he discovers a mysterious stranger named Forrest has moved in. At first Matt doesn't connect Forrest's appearance with the rash of local robberies. Forrest seems to be the perfect hermit, and he teaches Matt the skills he needs to achieve his goal, including how to hunt with a crossbow. But when Forrest tries to kill an endangered Roosevelt elk, Matt questions the ethics of his new friend.