Dana McAllister couldn’t help wishing she was starting her sophomore year in the old brick high school in Boston instead of in this modern, new school. Nothing seemed quite right to Dana since Dad’s company transferred him, and the family had moved to California. The new house was different, the town was different, even the trees were different. Most of all, her older brother, Bill, seemed different. Back in Boston, Bill was a star athlete, a top student, the most popular boy in school. Now, Dad was putting pressure on Bill to fill out his college applications, to join the soccer team, to excel in his studies. But Bill, who was entering his senior year, was silent most of the time and seemed troubled and withdrawn. The kids at school all seemed nice enough. There was Ian, an amateur photographer who took pictures of weirdos for his scrapbook of “California Characters.” There was Sheila, who could have been good-looking if she weren’t always such a mess. There was Joannie, the pretty blond cheerleader who was only interested in having a good time. And there was Eric, the blue-eyed, suntanned surfer whose brilliant smile sent shivers of pleasure up Dana’s back. For a while, Dana thought things were looking up. She fitted in easily with the “in” crowd and, at the school dance, Eric spun her around the floor. But Dana couldn’t help worrying about Bill. Especially after she’d stopped in his room one night and Bill told her about the voices he heard, about the way he could see his name “B-I-L-L” spelled out in the stars, about eating oranges to keep himself from turning blue. What was wrong with Bill? Why was he acting so weird? Then came the fateful night when things got out of control. Bill looked wild and frightened. “Help me!” he pleaded with Dana. But there was nothing she could do except stand by helplessly as hospital attendants took her brother away. Heartbroken and confused, Dana found herself torn between her love for her brother, concern for her bewildered parents, and worry about herself. How would people treat someone whose brother was diagnosed as a schizophrenic? Would Ian want a picture of Bill for his “crazy” album? How would perfect Joannie and handsome Eric react? Would Sheila remain her friend? How could she face going through life as the girl with the crazy brother?

There's nothing worse than a rotten redheaded older brother who can do everything you can do better! Patricia's brother Richard could run the fastest, climb the highest, and spit the farthest and still smile his extra-rotten, greeny-toothed, weasel-eyed grin. But when little Patricia wishes on a shooting star that she could do something—anything—to show him up, she finds out just what wishes—and rotten redheaded older brothers—can really do. Patricia Polacco's boldly and exuberantly painted pictures tell a lively and warmhearted tale of comic one-upsmanship and brotherly love.

Lizzie, who loves to tell and write stories, is surprised to discover that much of her storytelling inspiration comes from her messy baby brother.

From the bestselling horror author of Within These Walls and The Bird Eater comes a terrifying novel that follows a teenager determined to break from his family’s unconventional—and deeply disturbing—traditions. Deep in the heart of Appalachia stands a crooked farmhouse miles from any road. The Morrows keep to themselves, and it’s served them well so far. When girls go missing off the side of the highway, the cops don’t knock on their door. Which is a good thing, seeing as to what’s buried in the Morrows’ backyard. But nineteen-year-old Michael Morrow isn’t like the rest of his family. He doesn’t take pleasure in the screams that echo through the trees. Michael pines for normalcy, and he’s sure that someday he’ll see the world beyond West Virginia. When he meets Alice, a pretty girl working at a record shop in the small nearby town of Dahlia, he’s immediately smitten. For a moment, he nearly forgets about the monster he’s become. But his brother, Rebel, is all too eager to remind Michael of his place…

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Loop me in, odd one. The words, spoken in the deep of night by a sleeping child, chill the young man watching over her. For this was a favorite phrase of Stormy Llewellyn, his lost love. In the haunted halls of the isolated monastery where he had sought peace, Odd Thomas is stalking spirits of an infinitely darker nature. As he steadfastly journeys toward his mysterious destiny, Odd Thomas has established himself as one of the most beloved and unique fictional heroes of our time. Now, wielding all the power and magic of a master storyteller at the pinnacle of his craft, Dean Koontz follows Odd into a singular new world where he hopes to make a fresh beginning—but where he will meet an adversary as old and inexorable as time itself.

Crazy Water - is he Comanche, half-breed, or white? The four men who find him with a head injury on the riverbank, name him Crazy Water. He doesn’t know his true name or where he comes from. He is dressed in Comanche garb, speaks the Comanche tongue fluently, and has more knowledge of hunting and tracking than most boys his age. He remembers nothing of his life before he was found at the riverbank. For nearly ten years he lives as a Comanche. When the Jerome Agreement is put into effect, giving each Comanche 160 acres of his own land, thereby breaking up the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache reservation, Crazy Water and his friends decide to take advantage of this and return to the reservation for their share of the land. When he meets beautiful Kyah and they fall in love, he concentrates on building a life without ever learning the answers to his questions. Will he ever learn who he is? If he has parents or other family? Or will his past remain a mystery forever?

As soon as she walked out of the Han family's house, Ngan Vi Trung immediately called Secretary Diep. Diep Vu Phong was preparing to go to sleep when he heard the phone ring. It was so late that Ngan Vi Trung still called me, something serious must have happened. Pressing the listen button, I heard Ngan Vi Trung's worried voice.

Horse Crazy explores the meaning behind the love between girls and horses. Jean O'Malley Halley, a self-professed "horse girl," contends that this relationship and its cultural signifiers influence the manner in which young girls define their identity when it comes to gender. Halley examines how popular culture, including the "pony book" genre, uses horses to encourage conformity to gender norms but also insists that the loving relationship between a girl and a horse fundamentally challenges sexist and mainstream ideas of girlhood. Horse Crazy looks at the relationships between girls and horses through the frameworks of Michel Foucault's concepts of normalization and biopower, drawing conclusions about the way girls' agency is both normalized and resistant to normalization. Segments of Halley's own experiences with horses as a young girl, as well as experiences from the perspective of other girls, are sources for examination. "Horsey girls," as she calls them, are girls who find a way to defy the expectations given to them by society-thinness, obsession with makeup and beauty, frailty-and gain the possibility of freedom in the process. Drawing on Nicole Shukin's uses of animal capital theories, Halley also explores the varied treatment of horses themselves as an example of the biopolitical use of nonhuman animals and the manipulation and exploitation of horse life. In so doing she engages with common ways we think and feel about animals and with the technologies of speciesism.