As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

"A brilliantly inventive new novel about loss, growing up, and our relationship with things, by the Booker Prize-finalist author of A Tale for the Time Being. After the tragic death his beloved musician father, fourteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house -- a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn't understand what these things are saying, he can sense...

First published in 1897, "Captains Courageous" follows the adventures of Harvey Cheyne, a spoiled, rich young man who is accidentally washed overboard from a luxury ocean liner and is rescued by the Portuguese captain of a fishing boat and his hard scrabble crew. Kipling, drawing on his own experiences living in Vermont, fills this classic coming of age story with period details of late nineteenth-century American fishing, whaling, and railroad travel....

An uncle is forced to take care of his teenage nephew after the boy's father dies.

A young teen thinks his town of Santa Cruz is infested with vampires, and becomes convinced of it when his own brother starts turning into one.

Thirteen-year-old Henry Wheeler struggles to be the man of his house and care for his reclusive mother Adele, all the while confronting the pangs of adolescence. Henry and his mother encounter Frank Chambers, an intimidating man clearly in need of help. Frank convinces them to take him into their home and later is revealed to be an escaped convict. The events of this long Labor Day weekend will shape them for the rest of their lives.

The First Lord of Alera, Gaius Sextus, has loyal followers and a relatively politically stable realm. When he is struck ill, however, he and those closest to him do their best to keep his sickness secret. Their knowledge that powerful forces exist who would like to rule Gaius' kingdom keeps them secretive, while Gaius continues to heal.

"Kevin's mother struggles to love her strange child, despite the increasingly vicious things he says and does as he grows up. But Kevin is just getting started, and his final act will be beyond anything anyone imagined."--Imdb.

Steven, a charismatic surgeon, is forced to make an unthinkable sacrifice after his life starts to fall apart, when the behavior of a teenage boy he has taken under his wing turns sinister.