Told through the voice of an overweight 13-year-old boy named Shuggy Atkins, this is the story of Shug; the one person who loves him, his mother Glenda; and her boyfriend Red, a brutal and ignorant man. Red hates Shug but uses him to break into houses to steal drugs and anything else that can be sold. Glenda makes a meager living looking after the local cemetery and spends her time trying to keep Red amused and away from Shug, whom he loves to humiliate...

Here is a gorgeous, slow-burning story set in the rural “badlands” of northern Ontario, where heartbreak and hardship are mirrored in the landscape. For the farming Pye family, life is a Greek tragedy where the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons, and terrible events occur–offstage.

"Eleven-year-old Alex Petroski, along with his dog, Carl Sagan, makes big discoveries about his family on a road trip and he records it all on a golden iPod he intends to launch into space"--

Trying to be a perfect student and friend is hard enough, but when Rachel develops a crush on her brother's tutor and lands a surprise date with Jeremy, she worries that she may be in over her head.

Sixteen-year-old Nomi struggles not to give in to despair when her mother and sister flee their home in East Village, a Mennonite community in Manitoba, leaving her in the care of her increasingly depressed father.

Ruth loves to bake cakes. When she is alone, she dreams up variations on recipes. When she meditates, she imagines herself in the warm, comforting center of a gigantic bundt cake. If there is a crisis, she bakes a cake; if there is a reason to celebrate, she bakes a cake. Ruth sees it as an outward manifestation of an inner need to nurture her family—which is a good thing, because all of a sudden that family is rapidly expanding. First, her...

Isolated from friends who believe the worst because she has not been truthful with them, sixteen-year-old Annabel finds an ally in classmate Owen, whose honesty and passion for music help her to face and share what really happened at the end-of-the-year party that changed her life.

Evie's stepfather returns home from WWII and brings more back with him than war stories. When an ex-GI who had served with her stepdad in postwar Austria shows up, Evie is caught in a complicated web of lies that she only slowly recognizes. Winner of the National Book Award. "Greer paces the story perfectly, drawing out each scene, pulling each character into the drama." -- AudioFile

Prince stars as "The Kid," a Minneapolis club musician, who struggles with both a tumultous homelife and his own smoldering anger while taking refuge in his music and his steamy love for sultry Apollonia Kotero. Semi-autobiographical.

Fourteen-year-old Anthony "Antsy" Bonano learns about life, death, and a lot more when he tries to help a friend with a terminal illness feel hopeful about the future.