A teenage boy must face the harsh realities of inner city life, a disintegrating family, and destructive temptations as he struggles to find his identity as a young man.
Sixteen-year-old Anooshka Stargirl, whose homelife is less than rosy, meets a rock singer named Orpheus and finds her obsession with him drawing her into his world.
Reviews the case of David Brown, a computer entrepreneur whose role in the murder of his young wife came to light years after her death in 1985--a crime for which Brown's fourteen-year-old daughter originally took the blame.
Fifteen-year-old Madison Sabatini, bored when her parents take her to stay in the gloomy beach town of Sandyland, throws herself into her photography, but when strange people start appearing in her pictures--who were not there when she took them and who are later reported dead--she is forced to turn to her quirky new friends for help.
When his parents go to Africa to work as missionaries, twelve-year-old Henry's eccentric aunts, Pigg and Mag, take him on a cross-country car trip, allowing him to gain insight into his family and himself.
Eleven-year-old Arlie is troubled by the sudden arrival of a new girl in school with an uncanny resemblance to Arlie's mother, a woman who rarely praises her.
As his own self-confidence grows, seventh-grader Dunk learns to be supportive both on and off the basketball court when his friend Jared goes through a difficult time, even though Jared's failure would provide Dunk more opportunities to prove himself.
Twelve-year-old Boom Broom thought his life couldn't get any worse, until he stumbles upon a foul-tempered merbaby and must find a way to return her to the world of the merfolk in the hopes of breaking the curse she seems to have put on Boom.
Living in the family car in their small North Carolina town after their father leaves them virtually penniless, Georgina, desperate to improve their situation and unwilling to accept her overworked mother's calls for patience, persuades her younger brother to help her in an elaborate scheme to get money by stealing a dog and then claiming the reward that the owners are bound to offer.
