Akron Public Library

In 1849, a twelve-year-old girl who calls herself Lucy is distraught when her mother moves the family from Massachusetts to a small California mining town, where Lucy helps run a rough boarding house and looks for comfort in books while trying to find a way to get "home."

All the boys in EllRay's third-grade class have something they can brag about. Corey's on the swim team, Kevin is super tall, Jared's dad has an ATV. But EllRay's dad is a geologist - not much to brag about. After all, rocks are boring. Then EllRay sees the crystals in his dad's office, and they are really cool looking. If EllRay just "borrows" them to show his classmates, he knows they'd be impressed. And his dad will never have to know. It's a perfect...

When Xander travels through the portals in the King's strange house to visit Uncle Jesse as a boy, he learns that David has died and determines to do whatever it takes, and visit as many worlds as necessary, to change the future.

In the year following their son's death, May Chen's parents face racist accusations of putting too much pressure on their son and causing his death by suicide, and May attempts to challenge the racism and ugly stereotypes through her writing, only to realize that she still has a lot to learn and that her actions have consequences for her family as well as herself.

When fifteen-year-old Xander and his family move into an old, abandoned house in the middle of a dense forest outside of a small California town, they discover that not only are some of the rooms portals into other places, but that malevolent forces are at work.

Soon after her yearling, Jack, begins working with professional trainers at a nearby ranch, Abby Lovitt takes responsibility for a very large, very smart, and very curious retired racehorse named Gee Whiz.

Sixth-grader Annabelle spends autumn coping with competing groups of friends at school, her mother's pre-wedding stress, learning to get along with a cute stepbrother-to-be, and such momentous events as wearing her first bra and learning to shave her legs.

Since Grace was adopted by the Fontaines, she's been carefully taught the art of the scam and has an uncanny ability to create a personality to help her "parents," but their latest job has her questioning everything she's been taught and the family she's grown to love.

Marley Sandelski has always felt invisible at school when he is not facing bullies, but a series of unexpected events gives him a taste of popularity and insight into a few well-liked and greatly-feared classmates.

When eighth grader Abby Lovitt looks out at those pure-gold rolling hills, she knows theres no place shed rather be than her familys ranch-even with all the hard work of tending to nine horses. When he and Abby clear four feet easy as pie, heads start to turn at the ring-buyers heads-and Abby knows Daddy wont turn down a good offer.