Akron Public Library

Sixteen-year-old Cody was born and raised "off the grid" deep in the wilderness by idealistic parents. When his father becomes seriously ill, the family is forced to move into the city so he can get treatment. Attending high school for the first time, Cody is an oddity and has a hard time adjusting. He finds unlikely allies in DeMarco, an inner-city kid, and Ernest, a philosophical homeless man, and he begins a tentative friendship with Alexis. When...

Six years ago, when Camden Daniels came back from war without his younger brother, no one in the small town of Alba, Colorado, would forgive him--especially his father. He left, swearing never to return. But a desperate message from his father brings it all back. The betrayal. The pain. And the need to go home again. But home is where the one person he still loves is waiting. Willow. The one woman he can never have. Because there are secrets buried...

"With two all-star college football players for brothers and a former Atlanta Falcons defensive lineman for a father, it is only natural for sixth-grade quarterback Benjamin Redd to follow in their footsteps. However, after his dad receives a heartbreaking ALS diagnosis--connected to all those hard hits and tackles he took on the field--Ben's mom becomes more determined than ever to get Ben to quit football. Ben isn't playing just for himself though....

"Twelve-year-old Arlo is afraid of fire, creepy TV shows, and even his own shadow—but most of all, he’s afraid of losing his mother to the disease that nearly claimed her life a year ago. During a Thanksgiving road trip, a sudden collision with a strange beast in the middle of the road totals the family’s car, and Arlo, his mom, and his sister end up stranded in a small town. There’s something off about Livermore. No one has a phone or a...

"Carrie Sheffield grew up fifth of eight children with a violent, mentally ill, street-musician father who believed he was a modern-day Mormon prophet destined to become U.S. president someday. She and her seven siblings were often forced to live as vagabonds, remaining on the move across the country. They frequently subsisted in sheds, tents, and, most notably, motorhomes. They often lived a dysfunctional drifter existence, camping out in their motorhome...

As Jo helps her mother and her baby brother on a cold and windy Christmas Eve, she searches for shelter - any kind of shelter - for the little family. Her mother is ill and the baby needs feeding. There is no other option but a barn owned by a local farmer known as a solitary grouch. Nobody cares for Franklin Murdoch, and Jo doesn't trust him to care for her family. But Murdoch turns out to be less of a threat than Jo has feared. He makes the desperate...