National Network for Equitable Library Service

DJ is always thrilled to spend time with his grandfather, a person he idolizes. When his grandfather announces that he's going to take all of his grandsons on individual adventures, it seems only fair that DJ, as the oldest grandchild, will get his adventure first. An adventure that sees his grandfather at the controls of a small plane as the two fly to Central America for a week. But when someone tries to kidnap him, DJ must flee through the jungle and down a crocodile-infested river, pursued by armed gunmen.

Bram’s friend Jeremy wants to go public with information about a hazing-related student death. The morning after he tells Bram this he’s injured in a hit-and run accident. Now Jeremy is in a coma, and Bram and Abby are trying to follow the trail that he left. Abby is convinced Bram’s swimming Coach is to blame. Bram knows Coach is innocent, but can he prove it? And what will happen if he’s wrong?

Julian’s parents separated when he was a baby and he is still angry and hurt. His mother has had relationships since, all of which have ended disastrously, but this time it seems serious. Jean-Paul looks like he might be the real thing. Julian is wary, and critical, as he comes to terms with the fact that he and his brother may have to let down their defenses and allow their mother to find happiness. In the end, he realizes that it is not blood that determine true family, but the willingness to stand together.

Keno is twenty-three, a high-school dropout working as a rent collector for a slum landlord. Apart from hitting on the office secretary, Cass, his life is bleak. His job takes him into sad, mean places where kids wail, drunks fight and women get beaten up. He works his territory with Jaco, who’s tougher and shiftier than any of the folks they’re sent to shake rent out of. One night Keno and Jaco finally catch up to one of their targets. But she’ll never pay. She’s dead. Battered almost beyond recognition. But they recognize her killer, and Jaco comes up with a scheme to blackmail him.

Daniel’s Crazy about Mac. She’s smart, funny, loyal and fiercely independent. The only problem is, when life gets too hard for Mac, she runs away. But she always comes back. Except now Mac’s grandmother is dead, their house is about to be torn down, and she’s been humiliated in front of the entire school. When Daniel finds out Mac has been saying goodbye to her friends, she realizes she’s planning on leaving for good. But can he find Mac before he loses her forever?

D'Arcy's dad is dead. She desperately wants it to have been an accident, but she is not sure. And when she learns the truth, things become even more difficult. Why would her father choose suicide? Why didn't she see the signs? Her father had always helped her get through everything in her life -- five minutes at a time. Can she do it alone? And then she meets Seth. When will things get back to normal? Learning to live without her father while her mother struggles with her own pain, D'Arcy finds an inner strength she wasn't aware of.

On her seventh birthday, Pauline rode across the lawns on her street followed by her best friend Henry, he on the blue wooden horse, she on the red. On the seventh lawn at the top of the street, she collapsed, becoming a sudden victim of the polio outbreak of the summer of 1954.Five years later, when In the Clear begins, she has survived, but paid a heavy price. A brace on her left leg allows her to walk, but she confines herself to her house, humiliated at the notion of being seen.

The city is cracking down on graffiti and guerilla art. Between that and cutbacks to the local art gallery it seems like nothing is safe. But Oswald, masquerading as a graffiti artist known as The Wiz, is fighting back, by painting elaborate murals in public places and planting art in the galleries, and then by taking on the mayor himself. As the fight escalates and the stakes become higher, Oswald gets in deeper than he meant to and needs to rely on his friends to get him out of his latest mess.

When the Edmonton Oil Kings discover Reuben Reuben has a hockey game as unforgettable as his name and his Inuit heritage, life changes in a hurry for him and his best friend Gear. A wealthy businessman sponsors a three-on-three pond-hockey tour across the western Arctic, and Reuben and Gear soon find out the tournament is not what they thought.

Dorf has always lived by his personal motto: If it’s worth doing, do it. If it’s not worth doing, do it anyway. But now he’s in a new city, and the terrain has changed. He’s no longer free to skateboard where he wishes, school is hard, and he has the reputation as a freak. With daring stunts he gains the grudging respect of local troublemakers, but he needs to tap into the more elusive kind of courage to effect real change in his life.