National Network for Equitable Library Service

Ryan Hale, aka Replay, is the most successful running  back in his high school's history. With university scouts making him offers he can't refuse, his future seems set. The problem is, Ryan would much rather go to film school. But his dad doesn't want to hear it. His teammates sure don't. He can't afford the application fees anyway. But then a solution appears when Markus, a strange exchange student with outrageous stories about mobsters and hackers, offers to pay Ryan to be his bodyguard.

Amber Fang enjoys life's simple pleasures. A perfect evening for her includes a good book, a glass of wine and, of course, a great meal, preferably straight from the jugular. Raised to eat ethically, Amber dines only on delicious cold-blooded killers. But confirming that her chosen victims deserve to die takes time. And patience. So it's a good thing Amber is studying to be a librarian. Her extraordinary research skills help her hunt down her prey, seek out other vampires and stay on the trail of her mother, who has been missing for over two years now.

Fifteen-year-old Charlie stays home from school so he can help his older brother, Tom, who is in a hip-to-toe cast after breaking his leg in a football game. When not waiting on his brother hand and foot, Charlie investigates a series of break-ins that have the whole neighborhood on edge. Things really hit home when Charlie nearly catches the thief and then foils an attempted break-in at his own house. As he continues to piece together the clues, Charlie realizes that the easiest way for the culprit to avoid suspicion is to hide in plain sight.

In the gay community, a young, husky man is known as a "cub" Seventeen-year-old Theo fits the definition perfectly, but he is very self-conscious about his body. So when his best friend signs him up for a cooking competition at Heat, the city's newest trendy restaurant, Theo is nervous. He's confident in his baking ability, and dreams of opening his own bakery one day, but he's not a chef, and he hates being in the spotlight.

Life as an ethical vampire isn't easy for Amber Fang. First, she has to track down and eat a murderer every month. Second, her mother is imprisoned in a bunker controlled by ZARC, a multinational arms dealer. Third, her fellow vampires are hot on her trail, bent on ridding the world of scrupulous bloodsuckers. And then there's Dermot, the handsome secret agent who hired her as an assassin in the first place and who has promised to help her rescue her mother. Amber can't decide if she should kiss him or kill him.

Zack Bernard has a thing for crime shows, especially the forensic-investigation kind. So when his friend Ella goes missing, Zack can't help piecing together what he thinks is concrete evidence that could lead to her whereabouts. The problem is, it's all pointing toward his dad. He knows his dad is lying about not having seen Ella because Zack saw them together at the mall the day she disappeared. What he doesn't know is why.

Camp Clearwater is home to best friends Nate, Owen and Mercy. They practically grew up on the Starling River. But the summer they turn sixteen an incident forces the camp to close its doors. Mike Elliot, the river guide who taught the teens everything they know, is lost to the rapids. A tragic accident, everyone agrees. Except for Nate. Mike was the best kayaker he'd ever met. The smartest. The safest. He respected and loved the river, and as far as Nate is concerned, the river loved Mike back.

After the death of her boyfriend, sixteen-year old Valentine stops going to school, quits seeing her friends and, finally, won't leave her bed. Desperate for her daughter to recover, Valentine's mother takes her on a trek in Thailand. In the mountains north of Chiang Mai, Valentine finds a world she didn't know existed, where houses are on stilts and elephants still roam wild. She learns about the Burmese civil war and the relentless violence against the Karen and Rohingya peoples.

Just as fourteen-year-old Lucy is starting to figure out life after her mom's death, her dad ships her off to Cape John, her mom's hometown, for the summer. Worse, she has to live with her nutty great-aunt Josie, who doesn't cook edible food or suffer fools. Soon Lucy meets Colin, freshly moved from the West Coast, who's digging an enormous hole in his new yard. He spends every day digging deeper in protest of his family's unilateral decision to move to this tiny oceanside community.

Fourteen-year-old Tanya Kofsky is invisible. She hates that no one listens to her, at home or at her new school. So as student elections get underway, Tanya starts secretly painting controversial images on the walls of the school. Soon everyone is talking about this amazing artist with a lot to say. The election results turn out to be a catalyst for more rebellion. And not just from students. Teachers, tired of the principal's authoritarian leadership, start promoting self-expression.