Akron Public Library

Thirteen-year-old Manny, a street kid fighting for survival in a Mexican border town, develops a strange friendship with an emotionally disturbed American soldier who decides to help him get across the border.

Twelve-year-old Lily mourns her brother, and has not spoken since the accident she feels she could have prevented, but the summer Tinny comes to town she is the only one who realizes Lily's secret.

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.

Bullied constantly during his freshman year in high school, Cameron's anger and isolation grows, leading to deadly consequences.

Told from their different points of view, twelve-year-old Shiloh, a troubled foster child, Dream of Night, an abused former racehorse, and Jess, a woman who cares for both, find healing by helping one another through their pain.

Set in the Monte Vista neighborhood of San Antonio and told in alternating voices, teenaged musicians Aarón and Mia grow close as they share and struggle to overcome the emotional pain of their troubled home lives.

Taylor Markham is now a senior at the Jellicoe School, and has been made leader of the boarders. She is responsible for keeping the upper hand in the territory wars with the townies, and the cadets who camp on the edge of the school's property over summer. She has to keep her students safe and the territories enforced and to deal with Jonah Griggs, the leader of the cadets and someone she'd rather forget. But what she needs to do, more than anything,...