Akron Public Library

Struggling with grief over a mother who is on life support as well as her slipping grades and her anger with her stepfather, Emma forges an uncharacteristic connection with a local bad boy, Caleb, who makes her heart feel alive again.

Missing her mother who died last year, fourteen-year-old Sofia finds an anonymous outlet for her personal questions and deep, dark secrets in the Dear Kate advice columnist until, much to her horror, Sofia's father starts dating Kate.

After receiving a wooden puzzle box at a town festival, twelve-year-old Kallie figures out how to open the box and finds that her fate seems to be connected to a young bone carver from another time.

Confined to their dreary castle while mourning their mother's death, Princess Azalea and her eleven sisters join The Keeper, who's trapped in a magic passageway, in a nightly dance that soon becomes nightmarish.

"When Jasmine moves to Gold River after her mother's death, she finds herself powerfully drawn to the Carlisle, an abandoned hotel on the edge of town. It appears in her nightmares and calls to her during the day. It's a local tradition in Gold River for kids to try to stay a night in the Carlisle without being scared away. When Jasmine hears about this, she convinces her friends to join her. How hard can it be to stay up all night in an abandoned...

High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns. and soon finds that reality and fantasy have begun to meld. While. bestselling author John Connolly tells a dark and compelling tale. by heroes and monsters and ruled by a faded king who keeps his. company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the. darkness. Angry and alone, he takes refuge in his imagination. his family falls apart around him, David is violently propelled. into...

"From bestselling and award-winning author Sara Pennypacker comes a beautifully wrought, utterly compelling novel about the powerful relationship between a boy and his fox. Pax is destined to become a classic, beloved for generations to come. Pax and Peter have been inseparable ever since Peter rescued him as a kit. But one day, the unimaginable happens: Peter's dad enlists in the military and makes him return the fox to the wild. At his grandfather's...

"Life used to be great for Rose: full of friends, a loving mom, and a growing fashion blog. But when her mother dies in a car crash, Rose is sent away to live with a strange grandmother she hardly knows and forced to attend a new school where mean girls ridicule her at every turn. The only place Rose finds refuge is in her grandmother's greenhouse. But one night she sees a strange light glowing from within it. She goes to investigate, and finds herself...

"On the day of his mother’s funeral, a young boy conjures the very visitor he needs to see: a gorilla. Wise and gentle, the gorilla stays on to answer the heart-heavy questions the boy hesitates to ask his father: Where did his mother go? Will she come back home? Will we all die? Yet with the gorilla’s friendship, the boy slowly begins to discover moments of comfort in tending flowers, playing catch, and climbing trees. Most of all, the gorilla...

Things change for Emma after her mother passes away and her stepfather is keeping her mother's body alive because she is pregnant. She finds a connection with suspected drug addict and juvenile delinquent Caleb.