Realistic Fiction genre
Kip is smart, but bored. When he needs a rush, he doesn’t go for drugs or alcohol–just the pure adrenaline hit that accompanies even the smallest bet. But when Kip meets a big-time gambler who introduces him to a high-stakes game, his life takes a dramatic turn. An engaging guy who creates a web of lies, Kip lays down the bets and takes readers on a roller-coaster ride.
When Sam finds a big black dog in her back yard she wants to keep him, but her mother can’t find out so Sam hides him in the shed. Meanwhile, Stella wakes up in a strange room to find that she’s had a stroke. She can’t move and she can’t talk, so how can she ask what happened to her dog?
When Logan’s dog runs away as he and his mother are moving to a new home after his parents separate, a girl named Hannah, who longs for a dog of her own, finds him.
These look-alike twins have always shared everything—their room, their toys, a crib, and, since the day they were born, a blanket. But as they grow into new beds, they need new blankets, too. Now they face a new dilemma: they don’t know how not to share.
Montana-born Rex loves nothing more than to take his kayak out on a river, the faster and more powerful the better. When he gets the opportunity to tackle the well-named El Furioso in southwest Colombia, he is thrilled. He anticipates the river’s challenges, but finds himself in a situation where the real danger is human. In Colombia, he meets Myriam Calambás, an Indígena, who has lived along the El Furioso all her life. Though she loves its rushing waters, she dreams of leaving to get an education so that she can help her people. Her dreams, and her very survival, are in the balance when she and Rex are caught up in the clash between paramilitaries, working for rich landowners, and guerillas, who are supposed to be protecting the poor.
Sixteen-year-old Carlos Duarte is on the verge of realizing his dream of becoming a famous make-up artist, but first he must face his jealous boss at a Macy’s cosmetics counter, his sister’s abusive boyfriend and his crush on a punk-rocker classmate.
When Manny moves on to Raleigh Middle School, he’s relieved that he’ll be with his other Latino friends from elementary school. Hanging out with his vatos is great; but before Manny knows it, kids are calling the clique the Emperors and saying that they are a gang. Gradually Alex, whose older brother is in prison, starts calling the shots; and the pressure is on Manny ”first to shave his head and eventually to get drugs for the vatos. Close calls with the authorities become more and more frequent, and Manny can see where it’s all headed. Does he have the guts to turn his back on his oldest friends so he can keep clean? This riveting novel about peer pressure and core values highlights a hot-button topic.
Finances are tight for the Hitchcock family this year, which means no summer vacation! But siblings Maddy and Benji are secretly delighted to escape the annual torturous ritual of family bonding. Then Dad announces big news: a cost-effective weeklong house swap in Paris, trading places with a French family named the Vadims.
But instead of a relaxing European vacation, it quickly becomes clear that something is very off about this house swap. The facts about the Vadims don’t quite add up. Then threatening characters start showing up, demanding a mysterious object. Soon the Hitchcocks are caught in a whirl of intrigue and running for their lives through the streets and over the rooftops of Paris, without even knowing why.
When two Mongolian brothers inexplicably appear one morning in Julie’s Year Six class, no one, least of all Julie, knows what to make of them. But then Chingis, the older of the two, proclaims that Julie is to be their “Good Guide” a nomadic tradition that makes her responsible for welcoming the brothers to their new home. Now Julie must somehow navigate them through soccer, school uniforms, and British slang, all while trying to win Shocky’ s attention and an invitation to her friend Mimi’s house.