National Network for Equitable Library Service

Having once shared a kiss with her best friend's boyfriend, Kevin, fourteen-year-old Charlie finds life even more awkward when their parents marry, making Kevin, still her crush, now her stepbrother.

Foster child Min Randall's life is not easy as she has to deal with a number of foster parents and Children's Aid, but things take a turn for the better when she finds an injured dog.

Twelve-year-old New York City twins Meg and Edward have nothing in common, so they are just as shocked as everyone else when Meg's hopes for popularity and Edward's mischievous schemes coincidentally collide in a hilarious showdown.

Born a bastard, Molly Bolt is adopted by a dirt-poor Southern couple who want something better for their daughter. Molly plays doctor with the boys, beats up Leroy the tub and loses her virginity to her girlfriend in sixth grade. As she grows to realize she's different, Molly decides not to apologize for that. In no time she mesmerizes the head cheerleader of Ft. Lauderdale High and captivates a gorgeous bourbon-guzzling heiress. But the world is not tolerant.

In this sharply observed and erotically charged debut collection, Journey Prize-winner Yasuko Thanh immerses us in the lives of people on the knife edge of desire and regret, hungry for change yet still yearning for a place to call home, if only for a little while.

An updated and whimsical new take on what it means to be Canadian. Lau alludes to the personal and political histories of a number of young Asian Canadian characters to explain their unique perspectives of the world, artfully fusing pure delusion and abstract perception with heartbreaking reality. Lau's stories feature the children and grandchildren of immigrants, transnational adoptees and multiracial adults who came of age in the 1990s--all struggling to find a place in the Western world and using the only language they know to express their hopes, fears and expectations.

Catori has all the odds stacked against her: a loner with mismatched eyes who hates school and just about everybody who goes there. Her ability to see things nobody else does makes her an oddball at school. She accidentally boards the wrong bus to school one morning and is transported to a strange parallel world. There’s no way back for her; the bus she boarded doesn't do return trips and she has to figure out her own way back. She discovers that the evil forces over-running this parallel world are tracking her down and have no intention of letting her go home alive.

Jeremy lives in a small community where winters are long and stray dogs roam the streets. When peer pressure leads Jeremy into a bad prank, he is immediately struck with guilt - and that's when Jeremy's life changes forever. Trying to make amends Jeremy befriends Yellow Dog - and in the process meets a curious old man who introduces him to the adventures of dog sledding. Soon Jeremy is forming his own old-time dog team with Yellow Dog at lead - and in the process discovers more about himself - and the old man - than he ever thought possible.

The first exciting adventure of Shepherd and Wolfe. High school student, Sheri Beckman, has disappeared. After a massive search turns up nothing, her boyfriend, Tony Shepherd, joins forces with the wise-ass troublemaker, Charlie Wolfe, to find out what happened. However, Charlie's way isn't always lawful, so when another missing girl shows up dead, Tony must decide whether doing right sometimes means doing wrong. Against a ruthless killer, they must work together and stop him before someone else dies. These aren't your parent's boy detectives.

Magpies have an eye for shiny things. They search for bright bits of meaning amongst the dirt and filth of their world. Living in a small town on the outskirts of Saskatoon with his emotionally distant and alcoholic father, Ben struggles with his increasingly somber view of society. He is haunted by the death of his older brother and the mysteries of his mother’s suicide. Unable to live life like the other magpies around him, he slips deeper into the darkness of his own mind.