On July 4th 2013, Connor Sparrowhawk, also known as Laughing Boy or LB, was found dead in a specialist NHS unit. Connor, who had autism and epilepsy, had a seizure while in the bath and no member of staff was on hand to stop him from drowning. An entirely preventable death. Sara Ryan presents a frank, sometimes funny and touching account of her son's early life and preventable death and the unfolding #JusticeforLB campaign. This serves as a wake-up call to all of us and asks: can we really claim that we respect the life and dignity of learning disabled people?

When life is funny, make some jokes about it. Billy Plimpton has a big dream: to become a famous comedian when he grows up. He already knows a lot of jokes, but thinks he has one big problem standing in his way: his stutter. At first, Billy thinks the best way to deal with this is to . . . never say a word. That way, the kids in his new school won’t hear him stammer. But soon he finds out this is NOT the best way to deal with things. (For one thing, it’s very hard to tell a joke without getting a word out.) As Billy makes his way toward the spotlight, a lot of funny things (and some less funny things) happen to him. In the end, the whole school will know -- If you think you can hold Billy Plimpton back, be warned: The joke will soon be on you!

The year is 1988, and the streets of Southern California are full of crime, gangs, drugs, and teenage runaways. JD was no stranger to trouble. As a young rebellious boy, he ran to the streets believing that he could fulfill his dream of becoming a ruff and tuff street hustler. What he found was not what he expected. What he found was a side of the streets that was far more gruesome and macabre once he was lured into a world of child exploitation and trafficking that sought to make him a victim at the expense of his life.

Hearing loss affects countless millions of people, yet few sufferers even seek help, let alone try to find a cure. This is the story of a man who took on that daunting task and ultimately invented the world's most successful middle ear implant. Geoffrey Ball's adventure in technology began in the legendary Silicon Valley of California, the birthplace of so many innovations that have transformed our world, and ultimately led him to the mountains of Austria, where he now lives and continues his work. Ball's deafness was diagnosed early, but even as a child he knew that sign language and conventional hearing aids were not the answer. Despite his proficiency in lipreading, he wanted more - a better fix. Meanwhile, Ball never let his disability stand in his way. He became a kind of modern Renaissance man with interests that ranged from literature to sports to music, all coupled with an undeniable talent for entrepreneurship and invention. The author introduces us to family and friends, surfing buddies and lab rats, business partners and fellow inventors, computer and Internet legends, a brilliant, larger-than-life mentor who gave him his start, and the woman who ultimately saved his brainchild. He intersperses insights into technology, funding and business acumen with personal, often humorous anecdotes and fascinating accounts of successes, failures and near misses along the way. Today, every hour, somewhere in the world, one of his ground- breaking devices improves the quality of life of a hearing-impaired person. No one is laughing at the deaf boy now, and we haven't heard the last of Geoffrey Ball.

A tragicomic story of bad dates, bad news, bad performances, and one girl's determination to find the funny in high school from the author of Denton Little's Deathdate. Winnie Friedman has been waiting for the world to catch on to what she already knows: she's hilarious. It might be a long wait, though. After bombing a stand-up set at her own bat mitzvah, Winnie has kept her jokes to herself. Well, to herself and her dad, a former comedian and her inspiration. Then, on the second day of tenth grade, the funniest guy in school actually laughs at a comment she makes in the lunch line and asks her to join the improv troupe. Maybe he's even . . . flirting? Just when Winnie's ready to say yes to comedy again, her father reveals that he's been diagnosed with ALS. That is . . . not funny. Her dad's still making jokes, though, which feels like a good thing. And Winnie's prepared to be his straight man if that's what he wants. But is it what he needs? Caught up in a spiral of epically bad dates, bad news, and bad performances, Winnie's struggling to see the humor in it all. But finding a way to laugh is exactly what will see her through. **A Junior Library Guild Selection**

Two sworn enemies start to fall in love through anonymous notes in How to Speak Boy, a fun and charming YA novel from Tiana Smith. Quinn and Grayson have been fierce speech and debate rivals for years. They can't stand one another, either in competition or in real life. But when their AP Government teacher returns their school assignments to the wrong cubbies, they begin exchanging anonymous notes without knowing who the other one is. Despite their differences, the two come together through their letters and find themselves unknowingly falling for the competition. Before the state tournament, the two of them need to figure out what they want out of life, or risk their own future happiness. After all, what’s the point of speech and debate if you can't say what's in your heart?

A young boy named Osade teases an old hermit until the hermit puts a spell on the boy, who finds he cannot stop laughing.

Twentieth century America is a land of contradictions. A land conceived in liberty, yet threated by the forces of evil. It is a sick place in need of sick heroes. What we need is a real live savior, who can save us from ourselves-if he can live long enough.

Moving away from the explicitly political content of his previous novels, Victor Hugo turns to social commentary in The Man Who Laughs, an 1869 work that was made into a popular film in the 1920s. The plot deals with a band of miscreants who deliberately deform children to make them more effective beggars, as well as the long-lasting emotional and social damage that this abhorrent practice inflicts upon its victims.