#1 Have an adventure #2 Find confidence #3 Experience real love Yeah, those are the three reasons why I signed myself up as a foreign exchange student. Little Emily Klein, the popular girls' pet, going along with whatever, never speaking her mind. Puppe, they called me. "Little doll." But I was through with being a doll, through with being a background character in my own life. Everything was going to change-even if I had to cross an ocean for it. Bring on a year of bright lights, nightlife and parties in the USA. Except my plan didn't work. I was shipped off to the smallest of small-town America, a place where nothing ever happens, host families treat you like a maid, and nobody talks to shy German girls. That is, until I met them. Paul Shields. All-American football player (the kind with the pointy brown ball, not what people here call "soccer"). He's actually kind of sweet . . . or is he? Jon Denson. Paul's best friend, the brooding, leather-jacket type. We get along like a house on fire. Literally. They're my two tickets to an adventure that's way beyond what I can handle. The trouble with coming out of the shadows is that I start getting noticed. And now I need to make a decision that'll cost me either my mind . . . or my heart. No matter what, I'm sticking to my list. I'm not Puppe any longer. So who exactly am I?

When Travis and his sister, Corey, learn that their grandmother's quiet Vermont inn has a history of ghost sightings, they decide to do a little "haunting" of their own. Before long, their supernatural pranks are drawing tourists to the inn. But Travis and Corey soon find out that there are other ghosts at Fox Hill Inn, and their tricks have awakened something dangerous and threatening. It's up to these pranksters to figure out how to lay to rest the ghosts they've stirred. A fresh take on haunted houses, Mary Downing Hahn's entertaining, spooky story pokes gentle fun at charlatan ghost hunters while suggesting that ghosts are not to be trifled with.

A teenage girl, her friends, and their search-and-rescue dogs must uncover long-buried secrets to save a life in this unputdownable mystery from Jennifer Lynn Barnes, #1 bestselling author of The Inheritance Games. Kira Bennett's earliest memories are of living alone and wild in the woods. She has no idea how long she was on her own or what she had to do to survive, but she remembers the moment that Cady Bennett and one of her search-and-rescue dogs found her. Adopted into the Bennett family, Kira still struggles with human interaction years later, but she excels at the family business: search and rescue. Together with Cady's son, Jude, and their neighbor, Free, Kira works alongside Cady to train the world's most elite search-and-rescue dogs. Someday, all three teenagers hope to put their skills to use, finding the lost and bringing them home. When Cady's estranged father, the enigmatic Bales Bennett, tracks his daughter down and asks for her help in locating a missing child—one of several visitors who has disappeared in the Sierra Glades National Park in the past twelve months -- the teens find themselves on the front lines sooner than they could have ever expected. As the search through seven hundred and fifty thousand acres of unbridled wilderness intensifies, Kira becomes obsessed with finding the missing child. She knows all too well what it's like to be lost in the wilderness, fighting for survival, alone. But this case isn't simple. There is more afoot than a single missing girl, and Kira's memories threaten to overwhelm her at every turn. As the danger mounts and long-held family secrets come to light, Kira is forced to question everything she thought she knew about her adopted family, her true nature, and her past.

"This Olovely' book promotes the simple message that we are all different and that is lovely. A beautiful celebration of diversity!"--Julie Downing, award-winning author-illustrator ("Mozart Tonight"). Full color.or.

Can the right pair of shoes make *anyone* feel beautiful?Franny is constantly embarrassed by two things in her life. One is her right foot, which curls in from a birth defect, so she has to wear ugly, heavy orthopedic shoes. And the other is her mother Margaret: beautiful, extravagant, flamboyant -- *mortifying*, in their small Ohio town. Franny's first school dance is a disaster, so Margaret announces her latest crazy plan: They will travel to Italy to meet Salvatore Ferragamo, who will sculpt a pair of slippers especially for Franny. The idea is outrageous. The trip is expensive. And the experience changes Franny's life forever.

Susie Salmon is just like any other young American girl. She wants to be beautiful, adores her charm bracelet and has a crush on a boy from school. There's one big difference though – Susie is dead. Add: Now she can only observe while her family manage their grief in their different ways. Susie is desperate to help them and there might be a way of reaching them... Alice Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones is a unique coming-of-age tale that captured the hearts of readers throughout the world. Award-winning playwright Bryony Lavery has adapted it for this unforgettable play about life after loss.

Beloved is a lovely giraffe who is making a journey from Africa to France. Throughout her travels, she always remembers to keep her mother's important words close to her heart. Young readers will love the heartfelt story and beautiful illustrations.

"Romeo and Juliet meets The Fast and the Furious in this edgy romance set in the suburbs of Washington, DC"--

She's fallen for a human, but how can you love one man while stealing another? Narissa's not just any mermaid. She's a siren. She has the power to lure men into the sea, but all she wants is to live peacefully with them on land. Unfortunately, the mers are evolving and they're depending on her for human mates to keep their bloodlines pure. Rebellion burns in Narissa's heart, especially when her mother commands her to do her duty and return to the depths. She knows a way out, but asking a favor of Poseidon is too great a risk. When she falls for River, a man who makes her feel wanted and whole, she decides it's worth the risk. But her choice pulls River unwillingly into her world where greedy mermaids hunt, seas rage, monsters lurk... And her enemy controls them all. Can she save her people without losing the man she loves? This is a clean romantic fantasy.

An insightful and uplifting memoir about a young Haitian girl in post-earthquake Haiti, and the profound, life-changing effect she had on one journalist's life. In January 2010, a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, killing hundreds of thousands of people and paralyzing the country. Catherine Porter, a newly minted international reporter, was on the ground in the immediate aftermath. Moments after she arrived in Haiti, Catherine found her first story. A ragtag group of volunteers told her about a “miracle child”—a two-year-old girl who had survived six days under the rubble and emerged virtually unscathed. Catherine found the girl the next day. Her family was a mystery; her future uncertain. Her name was Lovely. She seemed a symbol of Haiti—both hopeful and despairing. When Catherine learned that Lovely had been reunited with her family, she did what any journalist would do and followed the story. The cardinal rule of journalism is to remain objective and not become personally involved in the stories you report. But Catherine broke that rule on the last day of her second trip to Haiti. That day, Catherine made the simple decision to enroll Lovely in school, and to pay for it with money she and her readers donated. Over the next five years, Catherine would visit Lovely and her family seventeen times, while also reporting on the country’s struggles to harness the international rush of aid. Each trip, Catherine's relationship with Lovely and her family became more involved and more complicated. Trying to balance her instincts as a mother and a journalist, and increasingly conscious of the costs involved, Catherine found herself struggling to align her worldview with the realities of Haiti after the earthquake. Although her dual roles as donor and journalist were constantly at odds, as one piled up expectations and the other documented failures, a third role had emerged and quietly become the most important: that of a friend. A Girl Named Lovely is about the reverberations of a single decision—in Lovely’s life and in Catherine’s. It recounts a journalist’s voyage into the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, hit by the greatest natural disaster in modern history, and the fraught, messy realities of international aid. It is about hope, kindness, heartbreak, and the modest but meaningful difference one person can make.