Akron Public Library

Maxine, with the help of an over-enthusiastic genie, makes a wish that has everyone at the Fairy Tale Reform School focusing on producing a musical rather than figuring out how to combat Rumpelstiltskin.

Seventeen-year-old Luce is a new student at Sword & Cross, an unwelcoming boarding/reform school in Savannah, Georgia. Luce's boyfriend died under suspicious circumstances, and now she carries the guilt over his death with her as she navigates the unfriendly halls at Sword & Cross, where every student seems to have an unpleasant--even evil--history.

"Sage Winters always knew her sister was a little different even though they were identical twins. They loved the same things and shared a deep understanding, but Rosemary--awake to every emotion, easily moved to joy or tears--seemed to need more protection from the world. Six years after Rosemary's death from pneumonia, Sage, now sixteen, still misses her deeply. Their mother perished in a car crash, and Sage's stepfather, Alan, resents being burdened...

Sent to reform school after stabbing his abusive father, thirteen-year-old William befriends three boys with whom he works to tame horses before triggering a series of tragic events that brings them into a greater awareness of the world's cruelty and social norms.

In this bravura follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award-winning The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as...

The onset of summer brings steamy weather to East Tennessee and the Body Farm, Dr. Bill Brockton's human-decomposition research facility at the University of Tennessee. But even Brockton is about to get more heat than he's bargained for when a former student asks him to help prove that her sister's death was not suicide, but murder.Brockton's quick consulting trip takes a long, harrowing detour to the Florida panhandle and the ruins of the North Florida...

It's been more than twenty years since Olof Hagström left home. Returning to his family's house, he knows instantly that something is amiss. The front door key, hidden under a familiar stone, is still there. Inside, there's a panicked dog, a terrible stench, water pooling on the floor. Upstairs in the shower, the father Olaf has not seen or spoken to in decades is dead. For police detective Eira Sjödin, the investigation of this suspicious death...

Phoebe, Teal, and Robin find themselves trapped at Dr. Foreman's School for Girls where the guards are ruthless and Dr. Foreman delights in horrific punishments, causing the girls to join forces and fight back in order to survive.

Inspired by real events, told through alternating timelines and two intimate perspectives, this hauntingly poetic family drama and coming-of-age story, capturing a shameful period of South Korean history, explores the legacy of violence and the psychology of power, while highlighting extraordinary acts of devotion and friendship that can arise in the darkness.

"When privileged white sixteen-year-old Cindra is sent to a reform camp in Montana, she becomes transfixed by Lucky, a mysterious camp employee. As the connection between them grows, Lucky and Cindra become lovers and escape into the Rocky Mountains to create an idyllic life, living off Lucky's vast knowledge of the wilderness"--