In a world where nothing is certain, a little magic couldn't hurt...right? When Erin Channing's favorite aunt dies, Erin is bequeathed a pink crystal ball and a set of weird instructions. Granted, Aunt Kiki (aka Aunt Kooky) always lived "outside the box." But now Erin and her two best friends are convinced that the pink crystal ball holds the key to their future—or at least the key to getting dates... Consider Your Fate to Be Sealed . . . Absolute knowledge is not unlimited; let the planets be your guide to the number. There are sixteen ways to die, but four of them you will never see. The future belongs to you alone. Other voices will be disappointed. One rotation is as far as you can see. Only uncertainty lies beyond.

This guide offers exciting new reading paths for students who enjoy fantasy, science fiction, and paranormal themes. With over 350 titles organized into their primary appeal characteristics and scores of thematic lists, librarians and educators will benefit from lists of contemporary selections specifically written for teens. Interest in teen fiction has grown in popularity in the last decade, especially within the fantasy and paranormal genres. This timely guide is one of the few books on the subject that lists titles that are written specifically for teens. Read On...Speculative Fiction for Teens features popular, contemporary themes ranging from vampire love and ghost stories to epic fantasy and out-of-this-world science fiction. Each of the five chapters caters to a specific area of interest—story, character, setting, mood, and language—and within the chapter, numerous lists of novels are organized by topic, with the best titles highlighted. Each of the more than 350 listed titles includes bibliographic information and a brief, punchy description.

A fun and passionate work of non-fiction exploring the modern mother’s path to reinvention, both in the home and in the workplace.

As a guidance counselor at an elite, Bel Air high school, Lara Stone works with spoiled, bratty kids every day, and she is definitely not ready to have any spoiled, bratty kids of her own. At least, not now. Not when her life is going so well, and certainly not since she has finally managed to kick-box and low-carb herself down to a perfect size four. But Lara’s husband has different ideas, and they include fatherhood. Now. Suddenly, Lara finds herself deep within the underbelly of pregnancy. A far cry from the blissful, glowing mother-to-be, Lara is instead a cranky, reluctant participant in all things baby. And her mood doesn’t improve when she’s given the task of getting one of her students—the punk, outcast daughter of a famous movie director—into a highly competitive college. But as Lara struggles with uncontrollable crying, inexplicable weight gain, and scary hemorrhoids, she finds that she has maternal instincts she never thought she had, and discovers that expecting is nothing like she ever expected.

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

Lara Stone is back again, and nine months of being miserably pregnant was nothing compared to how miserable she is now that her baby has actually arrived. But when Lara’s long-estranged dad shows up with a stripper on his arm, her husband begins flirting with a hot twenty-five year old, and her nanny is casting voodoo spells to keep her from losing that last ten pounds, Lara soon finds that sleepless nights, S&M-like pumping bras and a raging case of the post-baby blues are the least of her problems.

A warm and uplifting novel about an isolated witch whose opportunity to embrace a quirky new family—and a new love—changes the course of her life. As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don’t mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she’s used to being alone and she follows the rules...with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos "pretending" to be a witch. She thinks no one will take it seriously. But someone does. An unexpected message arrives, begging her to travel to the remote and mysterious Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to control their magic. It breaks all of the rules, but Mika goes anyway, and is immediately tangled up in the lives and secrets of not only her three charges, but also an absent archaeologist, a retired actor, two long-suffering caretakers, and…Jamie. The handsome and prickly librarian of Nowhere House would do anything to protect the children, and as far as he’s concerned, a stranger like Mika is a threat. An irritatingly appealing threat. As Mika begins to find her place at Nowhere House, the thought of belonging somewhere begins to feel like a real possibility. But magic isn't the only danger in the world, and when peril comes knocking at their door, Mika will need to decide whether to risk everything to protect a found family she didn’t know she was looking for....

Fifteen-year-old Diana Keller accidentally begins teaching The Obvious Game to new kid Jesse on his sixteenth birthday. As she buries her shock about her mother's fresh cancer diagnosis in cookbooks, peach schnapps and Buns of Steel workouts, Diana both seduces athlete Jesse and shoves him away under the guise of her carefully constructed sentences. As their relationship deepens, Diana avoids Jesse's past with her own secrets, which she'll protect at any cost. Will Diana and Jesse's love survive his wrestling obsession and the Keller family's chaos, or will all their important details stay buried beneath a game?