florida

Rosa Santos, a Cuban American, works to save her Florida town, seeks admittance to study abroad in her homeland, and wonders if love can break her family's curse.

Ten-year-old India Opal Buloni describes her first summer in the town of Naomi, Florida, and all the good things that happen to her because of her big ugly dog Winn-Dixie.

In 1935, when her mother gets a job housekeeping for a woman who does not like children, eleven-year-old Turtle is sent to stay with relatives she has never met in far away Key West, Florida.

"In 1990, Ellen McGarrahan was a young reporter for the Miami Herald when she covered the execution of Jesse Tafero, a man convicted of murdering two police officers. When it later emerged that Tafero may not have committed the murders, McGarrahan became haunted by that grisly execution--and appalled by her unquestioning acceptance of the state's version of events. Decades later, in the midst of her successful career as a private investigator, McGarrahan finally decides to find out the truth of what really happened. Her investigation takes her back to Florida, where she combs through court files and interviews everyone involved in the case, in. She plunges back into the Miami of the 1960s and 1970s, where gangsters and kingpins and beautiful women inhabit a dangerous world of nightclubs, speed boats, and drug cartels. Violence is everywhere. The murdered police officers, she discovers, are only one part of the picture. But even as McGarrahan circles closer to the truth, the story of guilt and innocence becomes more complex. She gradually discovers that she hasn't been alone in her search for closure, because whenever a human life is forcibly taken--by bullet, or by electric chair--the reckoning is long and difficult"--Provided by publisher.

"Ver?nica, a Peruvian-American teen with hip dysplasia, auditions to become a mermaid at a Central Florida theme park in the summer before her senior year, all while figuring out her first real boyfriend and how to feel safe in her own body"--Provided by publisher.

Eleven-year-old Miranium's summer is going down hill fast: her best friend, Thomas, has moved away, her know-it-all nemesis, Tamika, has moved too near for comfort, her parents are stressed since her father has lost his job, she has just blown up the microwave with an ill advised experiment (destroying her own cellphone in the process), and worst of all her beloved cat, Sir Fig Newton, has developed diabetes; there is no money for his medical care, and her parents want to re-home him--but Mira is determined to raise the money somehow even if it means turning to Tamika for help.

When outspoken feminist rebel Ruby McAllister stands up for a girl being humiliated into covering up, they become the leaders of the school's dress code rebellion, which forces them to face their own insecurities, biases, privileges and the ups-and-downs of newfound friendship.

Twelve-year-old Alice Jones and her family visit Aviles Island, where her mother disappeared long ago, and forms an unlikely friendship with Leo Mercury, who also wants to use the island's special power to contact a lost loved one.

With their father jailed for sinking a river boat, Noah Underwood and his younger sister, Abbey, must gather evidence that the owner of this floating casino is emptying his bilge tanks into the protected waters around their Florida Keys home.

"Twelve-year-old Lily moves to a creepy old house in a Florida swamp and finds out that the house isn't empty: it's packed full of the previous occupants' trash, keepsakes, and, Lily begins to suspect, maybe even their ghosts"--Provided by publisher.