The pitching machine hurled the first pitch. It was just like at the cages. Carlos was comfortable. He lifted his left leg slightly. Then he turned his hips to the ball. He swung the bat. Crack!
Terrance thought about football. He was sore from practice. That was good. Coach Fisher said his blocks were better. He'd get to play in the game! Coach was right about football. You've got to have something to work for. It makes you work at everything.
Mark just can't settle into his new life. He misses his friends and has trouble connecting with new classmates. Walking through his neighborhood, he sees an open window. Instantly, everything changes. Maybe he can pretend to be someone else and live a different life ... if only for a moment.
Victor, a Mexican American teenager known for being a fast runner, deals with racism at school but finds strength in his family, his future, and romantic interest in Tiffany, the most popular girl in school.
Ty, a great high-school football player, doesn't like being compared to his father, who left Ty and his mother after getting another woman pregnant. But Ty finds the strength to continue playing, even against his half-brother's team.
Dale Curtis, the rookie on the Jackson Eagles basketball team, struggles between his commitment to the team and loyalty to his ex-con brother.
Wallace, having messed up at his old school, is determined not to give up basketball, but he worries that bullies are going to interfere with his second shot at success. The plot contains profanity and drug use.
Stella Connors has spent her whole life bouncing around from one town to the next, following the latest musician her mother has fallen in love with. She has always vowed she will never become a pathetic groupie like her mother, Viv. But then her best friend uploads a video of Stella singing a cover of her favorite band’s biggest hit. It goes viral, and suddenly Stella’s ideas about who she is and what she wants take a real hit. As a publicity stunt, the band’s manager asks Stella to perform with them when they come to town. Stella is thrilled and agrees immediately. Soon she finds herself in the spotlight, with everyone after her for interviews and photo ops. And unless she’s reading things wrong, she’s pretty sure the band’s lead singer has a thing for her. When she gets invited to go on the road with the band and perform in another concert, Stella forgets every bad thing she ever thought about being a groupie. After all, she’s nothing like her mother. She’s a star. Isn’t she?
Charlie's world comes crashing down when her fiancé leaves her for another woman. Then Aunt Della wins a trip for two to Rome. Maybe Italy can mend her broken heart? Or at least distract her from it—who needs romance when you have Rome, Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast? But with adventure come mishaps, and Charlie's trip seems to be full of them! In between the chaos and hijinks, will Charlie take another chance at love?
Nick was used to being good at everything. Hockey, football, track, they all came easy to him. Surfing was his latest passion. That is, until the accident. Now partially paralyzed, Nick is angry, depressed and getting far too fond of his prescription meds. But his frequent visits to his physiotherapist, a Syrian refugee, and a budding friendship with a partial amputee who has also experienced firsthand the horrors of war help him start to piece his life back together. A story about overcoming the odds and changing your life for the better.
When paramedic Ashley Grant’s parents visit her in the Victoria and Albert Islands, her father, Frank, soon becomes bored with the beach vacation. When a plumbing emergency has him feeling useful again, he makes friends with Ashley’s neighbor Paul McIntosh. Then Paul disappears. Ashley isn’t worried; after all, he’s a single man on vacation. But Frank is determined to find out what happened to his friend, and he soon stumbles on the dark secrets of this Caribbean paradise.
A jewelry store robber discovers the amazing abilities of the disabled young woman who witnessed his crime.
When young Henry Fleming joins the Union army, he dreams of becoming a great hero. But after running in terror from battle, he must face his cowardice and fight bravely to win back his self-respect. Filled with vivid battle scenese, The Red Badge of Courage is considered a masterpiece of literature about war.
A Christmas Carol is without question one of Charles Dickens' greatest works. This extremely popular story introduces some of the most timeless, internationally known characters such as Scrooge, the unforgettable miser; Bob Cratchit, the underpaid clerk; and Tiny Tim, Cratchit's frail, loving son.
Paris is worried that Max isn't really visiting his grandparents. She thinks he's dating another girl. Instead of asking Max her real question, Paris takes her cousin's advice and accepts a date with Blake. After all, if Max can date someone behind her back, why can't she? Besides, no one will know her at the Wayfield homecoming game... or will they?
Moby Dick is an exciting story about Captain Ahab's compelling obsession to get his revenge and defeat the Great White Whale. The story truly portrays the tragedy of hatred. This timeless epic is considered one of the strangest yet most powerful stories ever written.
The students of Carter High return for their senior year. These books continue the stories from Carter High Chronicles and introduce new characters. Topics are involving and pertinent to young adult readers: romance, sports, friendships, exams, work, family. In just 48-pages, struggling readers can easily complete each novel. Starting your senior year at a new school is tough. Harder still when you can't hear some of what is said to you. Rick wanted the Carter High students to like him. He thought if they knew he wore a hearing aid, they wouldn't want to be his friends.
Peter Strand is half Chinese and half Cherokee and was adopted by an elderly white couple from Phoenix. Now he's a forensic accountant in San Francisco, where he's struggling with his identity. When his employer asks him to investigate a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization, Strand meets a cast of quirky characters who all seem to be hiding a secret. Peter soon finds evidence of a probable fraud, but when fraud leads to murder, he's drawn deeper into a murky mystery. The Black Tortoise is the second book in the Peter Strand Mystery series.
Leo sets out to teach his sister, Toby, that there are lessons to be learned by exploring the past. Little did they know that would stumble upon the answer to an old mystery.
Zack Freedman has complete control and feels a sense of calm on the high wire. If only he could say the same about the rest of his life. His fellow youth circus performer and roommate, Cubby, hates him, and his aunt dumps a yappy, excitable dog on him. When a necklace is stolen during a circus performance and the victim of the theft threatens to shut down the circus, Zack is desperate to solve the mystery so he can keep his place on the wire.
While volunteering at the local zoo, Robyn, Nick and Trevor learn that grizzly bears are being poached and their gall bladders removed for use in alternative medicine. Always ready to solve a mystery, the kids set out to find the poachers. Bear is not only big game, they learn, but big money to poachers. The stakes are high and the suspects many, as the kids head into their most dangerous adventure yet.
Dorf is all about skateboarding and so far that's worked out fine. But now that he's in a new city, the terrain has changed. He's no longer free to skateboard where he wishes, school is more difficult, and his passion for skateboarding garners him the nickname and reputation of a freak. With daring stunts he gains the grudging respect of local troublemakers, but he needs to tap into another kind of courage to effect real change.
When Trevor, Nick and Robyn visit the Royal Tyrrell Museum, Robyn is inspired to raise funds for a dinosaur dig that will close soon if it doesn't find funding. The kids are caught up in another mystery when a chain of suspicious events, including the disappearance of important fossils and a fraudulent discovery at the dig, leads them to wonder what's going on. Is the new visiting scientist behind the fraud, or did Robyn's enthusiasm to save the dig lead her astray?
Trevor, Nick and Robyn are ready to solve another mystery. When bobsledder Josh Gantz is accused of deliberately injuring a fellow competitor, he runs the risk of being thrown out of the sport -- right before the World Cup. Courtney Gantz asks Trevor, Nick and Robyn to help clear her brother's name. Can they find out who framed Josh? What is the meaning of the strange coded messages they keep finding around Olympic Park? Who eats orange bananas, anyway? The kids must unearth the clues in a race against time, before Josh's championship dreams end up on ice.
Follow the adventures of Buck, a loving family pet, who is stolen from his comfortable home to become a sled dog in the Yukon gold rush territory. As Buck faces freezing temperatures, starvation, and cruelty, he learns that he must be brutal to survive.
