Name Me Nobody

Fourteen-year-old Emi-Lou Kaya feels like a nobody in her Hawaiian town. Abandoned by her mother at age three, Emi-Lou hasn’t a clue as to who her father might be, and on top of all this, she is overweight. Her only salvation is the strength of the hard-as-nails but loving grandmother who raised her, and the feisty spirit of her best friend Yvonne. It is Yvonne who renames the dynamic duo Von and Louie, and who puts Emi-Lou on a strict weight-loss regimen. But Emi-Lou starts to worry about losing her touchstone when Von begins spending a little too much time with Babes, an older girl from the softball team. Rumors abound that her soul sister is a “butchie,” and when Emi-Lou suspects it’s true, she becomes desperate to get Von back to “normal” and back to her role as best friend.

Gangsta Rap

School, what school? My name is X-Ray-X So be careful how you flex I used to freestyle in me bedroom But me daddy got me vex The teacher kicked me out of the classroom Now I’m rapping in The Rex.

Ray has trouble at home and trouble at school. It’s the last straw for everyone when Ray and his friends Prem and Tyrone are permanently suspended. But they know what they want, more than most, perhaps. Their headmaster decides to give them a second chance, a chance to live their dream of forming a rap group. Through a specialized social program, the boys are taught the business of the music industry, what it takes to record an album, and how to lay down a track. Within weeks they have become the Positive Negatives, and within a few months they have signed a record deal and are on their way to the top. But their dream soon becomes a nightmare as violence escalates around them. Suddenly, not only their careers but their very lives are at stake. The Positive Negatives are determined to prove that you don’t need to be a gangster to be a great rapper.

Teen’s Top 10 (Awards)

The Two Loves of Will Shakespeare

Young William Shakespeare should be taking his glove-making apprenticeship much more seriously. However, carousing with his friends, carrying on with women, and sneaking off to see plays are all higher priorities for him. All this changes when Will’s best friend, Richard, asks him to write and deliver sonnets to a young woman, pretending the love poems are from Richard. Once Will lays eyes on the exquisitely beautiful Anne Whateley, he is deeply in love. He wants more than anything to make himself into a man worthy of such a young woman. But entanglements with a certain Anne Hathaway, the discovery of an old prank, and his distracted nature all complicate matters for the future Bard of Avon. In this highly entertaining historical novel Laurie Lawlor imagines how there came to be two different marriage license applications taken out on consecutive dates in November of 1582 between eighteen-year-old William Shakespeare and two different women both named Anne.

Girl, Going on 17: Pants on Fire

It’s never fun when a great summer comes to an end. Particularly when one argues with one’s adorable, but grossly insensitive, boyfriend the night before school starts. It’s such a terrible fight, Jess doesn’t know—are they broken up? Should she apologize? Too bad Jess is spending all her time in detention and can’t talk to Fred to figure it out. A sadistic new English teacher has decided Jess needs an attitude adjustment, and Jess can’t seem to stop making terrible mistakes. When she ends up pantless in her own backyard, Jess is left to ask herself: Where did she go wrong? And what can be done to make it up to Fred and salvage this horrible, horrible year?

The Wish House

From the best-selling author of WITCH CHILD and SORCERESS comes another engrossing, atmospheric novel — following a teenage boy as he uncovers the secrets of the mysterious and provocative Wish House. It’s the start of summer vacation, and fifteen-year-old Richard has discovered that a family has taken up residence in the usually deserted Wish House. Richard is intrigued by both the house and the bohemian family now living there. The father, Jethro Dalton, is an internationally renowned painter; his seemingly licentious wife is fascinated by herbs and cures. But it’s their beautiful and vibrant daughter, Clio, the muse for Jethro’s paintings, who draws Richard utterly into the Daltons’ world. Soon Richard finds himself so captivated by Clio that he steals off to the woods to spend days and nights with her, meanwhile struggling to understand and fit in with her eccentric clan. How could he know that some mysteries are best left alone — and that some betrayals can never be forgiven?