Material appropriate for young adults
Daniel has escaped Nazi Germany with nothing but a desperate dream that he might one day find his parents again. But that golden land called New York has turned away his ship full of refugees, and Daniel finds himself in Cuba. As the tropical island begins to work its magic on him, the young refugee befriends a local girl with some painful secrets of her own. Yet even in Cuba, the Nazi darkness is never far away . . .
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 3, Issue 2
The successful play is now a gripping novel. Knocked unconscious after explosions ring out during a field trip to an Anne Frank exhibit, boy-crazy Nicole Burns wakes to find herself living a parallel life as a Jew in 1942 Paris. This Nicole is dating the boy of her present-day dreams, but living under the Nazis gradually becomes a nightmare. Her family survives the Nazi occupation with the help of friends, but when her father is exposed as a resistant, their fate takes a dire turn. The shifts in Nicole’s lives — from a carefree, sophisticated Parisian girl to a wretch riding in a cattle car with Anne Frank; from a modern girl focused only on the drama of her high school life to a thoughtful observer of the potential of everyday injustices — will engage teens and change their views of history found in books and the history we’re making today.
1968, the year America grew up from racial and gender equality fights to the struggle against the draft and the Vietnam war. In 1968 Americans asked questions and fought for their rights. Now, 30 years later, we look back on that seminal year–from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assasination to the Columbia University riots to our changing role among other nations–in this gripping introduction to the events home and abroad. The year we first took steps in space, the year we shaped the present, 1968 presented by a former New York Times writer who lived through it all, shares the story with detail.
Kit and his parents are out sailing when things go horribly wrong. Fog rolls in; the compasses won’t work; weird cries come from the sea. Then squalls force their boat against a giant rock. They manage to get to shore, but the dismal, almost barren island they’re on provides no comfort. The only inhabitants are a brutal group of fundamentalists whose ancestors settled there long ago. For some reason they hate Kit the moment they see him.But Kit has glimpsed someone else, a girl who seems to be wild. He’s also seen a strange man who looks just like him, only older, with the same birthmark on his face. Kit goes in search of the girl, looking for answers to the eerie goings-on. He returns to find his parents gone and their tents torn to shreds. Have the islanders killed them? Kit sets off in a desperate search for them as he struggles for his own survival. Will the girl help him? And will he be able to escape the islanders, who clearly want to kill him? Journey on a startling voyage into the unknown, where an ordinary teenage boy faces a world filled with malice and a terrifying vision of the future, in this haunting thriller from award winner Tim Bowler.
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?
In Restoration London, sixteen-year-old Meg Moore spends long hours conversing with the famous authors and poets who visit her father’s bookstore, and even writes her own stories. Without warning, however, Meg comes to learn exactly how powerful words can be. The day her best friend’s brother Edward sets sail for Italy, Meg scoffs at his attempts at romance by answering him with a thoughtless jest. Soon news travels to London that
Edward’s ship has been captured and he has been sold as a slave in North Africa – and Meg cannot shake the thought that her cruel words are the cause. Now Meg must use her fiery language to bring Edward home, imploring her fellow Londoners to give all that they can to buy Edward’s freedom. But once Meg learns to direct the power behind her words, will she be able to undo the damage she has caused, and write freely the stories that she longs to put to paper? This sequel to At the Sign of the Star continues Meg’s story.
Once Cadel was going to take over the world. Now he’s stuck in foster care.
Ivy is used to being overlooked. The youngest in a family of thieves, scoundrels, and roustabouts, the girl with the flame-colored hair and odd-colored eyes is declared useless by her father from the day she is born. But that’s only if you look at her but don’t see. For Ivy has a quality that makes people take notice. It’s more than beauty — and it draws people toward her.
Which makes her the perfect subject for an aspiring painter named Oscar Aretino Frosdick, a member of the pre-Raphaelite school of artists. Oscar is determined to make his mark on the art world, with Ivy as his model and muse. But behind Ivy’s angelic looks lurk dark secrets and a troubled past — a past that has given her an unfortunate taste for laudanum. And when treachery and jealousy surface in the Eden that is the artist’s garden, Ivy must learn to be more than a pretty face if she is to survive.
Julie Hearn, author of The Minister’s Daughter and The Sign of the Raven, has created a memorable tale of nineteenth-century England with a character destined to take her place alongside Dickens’s Pip and Oliver Twist.
Stories to delight, enchant, and surprise you. Bestselling author and master storyteller Neil Gaiman here presents a breathtaking collection of tales that may chill or amuse readers—but always embrace the unexpected: A teenage boy who has trouble talking to girls finds himself at a rather unusual party. A sinister jack-in-the-box haunts the lives of the children who owned it. A boy raised in a graveyard makes a discovery and confronts the much more troubling world of the living. A stray cat fights a nightly battle to protect his adopted family from a terrible evil. These eleven stories illuminate the real and the fantastic, and will be welcomed with great joy by Neil Gaiman’s many fans as well as by readers coming to his work for the first time.
After her mother’s suicide when she is twelve years old, Yuki spends years living with her distant father and his resentful new wife, cut off from her mother’s family, and relying on her own inner strength to cope with the tragedy.