Akron Public Library

When he is wrongly accused of gravely injuring his baby half-sister, Nikki, thirteen-year-old Branwell loses his power of speech, and only his friend Connor is able to reach him and uncover the truth about what really happe

Betty, her sister and mother were all shopping at the mall when the shooting happened -- and although they all survived, none of them would be the same after. Betty watches her mother throw herself into activism and away from her family, while her outgoing sister becomes a shadow of her former self. Desperate for answers, Betty finds herself reaching out to the shooter's brother, but all it does is reveal that nothing in life is simple to understand....

In this high-interest novel for teen readers, Jane finds her soulmate at a Baptist reform school.

Seventeen-year-old Matthew recounts his attempts, starting at a young age, to free himself and his sisters from the grip of their emotionally and physically abusive mother.

When high school queer teen, Rose, enrolls in boxing classes to alleviate her crippling anxiety exacerbated by a recent sexual assault, she instead finds herself sucked into an underground fight club and the charms of Elliott King, its ringleader. Will the fight world unravel her already fragile mental state or will it unearth a strength she never knew she had.

"Frida Bellows lives in a big house made up of four apartments. Every morning, she gets on her father’s shoulders and taps on the ceiling with a broomstick. This wakes her neighbor, a student named Ben Doldrums who knocks on the wall to wake the Mercredis, who in turn knock on the floor to wake the Reynolds. Frida likes this morning tradition. It makes her feel like she’s part of something big. Things change, however, when Ben stops getting out...

Eighth grader Ginny Shepard attempts to ground herself after realizing that the world is apathetic to the very real, very urgent realities of climate change, and reckoning with her own feelings of guilt and impotence.

To boost her college applications, seventeen-year-old Eloise, a loner girl struggling with her mental health, volunteers at a senior suppor center where she meets a dynamic elderly woman and a perpetually cheerful boy who challenge her to step out of her comfortzone.

Syah Walker wants to prove herself as a peer counselor at Emdaria North Middle School, but seventh-grader Nali (recently cut from the magnoball team) may well prove too much to handle--Nali's mindscape is filled with dark feelings of betrayal and grief, manifesting as monstrous mental constructs that pursue and threaten both girls.

A small boy creates a shelter for his sadness so that he can visit it whenever he needs to, and the two of them can cry, talk, or just sit. The boy knows that one day his sadness may come out of the shelter, and together they will look out at the world and see how beautiful it is.