Perfectly Secret

by Susan Musgrave: “When I was sixteen years old I had secrets, all right. But my secrets were not exactly my own; they were the secrets of others.”
So writes Nan Germaine in Susan Musgrave’s most recent collection on the lives of teen girls. Nan remembers the loneliness of enduring her parents’ secret confessions: her mother’s unhappiness and her father’s infidelity. And Cathy Stonehouse, who lived her life in fragments, found her secret self threatened in a not so innocent game of Truth or Dare.
Heartfelt, disarmingly honest, and at times painful, these literary essays reveal the secret lives of seven teens. The collection featuring both leading and young, high-profile writers in a testament to the axiom that life isn’t always as it appears.
Call #: 305.235 PER 2004

Flavor of the Week

by Tucker Shaw: Meet Cyril Bartholomew. At sixteen, he's a cooking prodigy. Unfortunately for him, his dishes come out more friendly than fiery. And he knows as well as anybody that being friendly doesn't get you the girl.
Consider Rose Mulligan. She's the brown-haired beauty whom Cyril dreams of when he cooks. But Rose doesn't like him that way. She doesn't even realize that Cyril is responsible for the food that drives her wild. She thinks that Nick, Cyril's model-hot best friend, is the master chef. And since Nick's into Rose, he's more than willing to play along. Poor Cyril's too good a guy to speak up. But somehow he'll have to end this chrade, before it turns into a recipe for disaster.
From the author of Confessions of a Backup Dancer.

Looking for Alaska

by John Green: Miles "Pudge" Halter is abandoning his safe-okay, boring-life. Fascinated by the last words of famous people, Pudge leaves for boarding school to seek what a dying Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps."
Pudge becomes encircled by friends whose lives are everything but safe and boring. Their nucleus is razor-sharp, sexy, and self-destructive Alaska, who has perfected the arts of pranking and evading school rules. Pudge falls impossibly in love. When tragedy strikes the close-knit group, it is only in coming face-to-face with death that Pudge discovers the value of living and loving unconditionally.

Princess in Training

by Meg Cabot:
Student body president, that is. It's all the fault of Princess Mia's power-mad best friend and campaign manager, Lilly, who nominates her in the first place. This is not how Mia imagined kicking off her sophomore year, even if Grandmère thinks ruling her high school makes good practice for ruling Genovia someday.
As usual, though, Mia has bigger problems to worry about. Sophomore Geometry appears to be just as hard as freshman Algebra, and a shocking B on her first English assignment has Mia reeling. And with Michael, her one true love, uptown at college, what is the point of even getting up for school in the morning? The last straw is what Lana whispers to her on the lunch line about what college boys expect of their girlfriends...
Really, it's almost more than a princess in training can bear.

Cobwebs

by Karen Romano Young:

A girl walks across the Brooklyn Bridge, a backpack full of knitting slung over her shoulder, a green fish kite in her hand.
A boy balances on the bridge’s crisscross webbing, waiting for the girl to pass.
Are they angels? Spiders? In love? Or in danger? Once they connect, they’ll start a chain of events that could stretch out smoothly like the river below them — or become knotted like a tangled web of spider silk.

Uncovering Sadie's Secrets

by Libby Sternberg: "Now before you rush to judgment and say I should have handled it differently, ask yourself what would you have done had you been in my shoes? I mean, here I was trying to hook up with a guy who was my major crush, staying on top of my schoolwork, being a good daughter, and having to deal with what looked to be a major, possibly life-threatening problem involving a strange new friend.
They don’t cover this stuff in the “Healthy Living” classes I snooze through. Trust me, I’ve read the syllabus."

Friends, Enemies

by Rosie Rushton:

"I can’t believe it’s a year ago today that it all went horribly wrong…Friday 13th,
it was."
Of course Ella, who reads the horoscope every day, said it was because Mars and Venus were opposing each other in Saturn, or something like that.
Pippa, whose whole life is organized down to the tiniest detail, and who always says exactly what she thinks, said we were far too soft
Christy didn’t say much but Christy lives in a dream world composing music and choreographing imaginary people in imaginary ballets.
And Hannah? Well, it was really her fault. If she hadn’t been such a whinger, none of it would have ever happened.
Writing it down in black and white makes me feel really mean. After all it was me who got her into our crowd in the first place. I guess we should have all seen the warning signs…..”

Bras and Broomsticks

by Sarah Mlynowski: Everyone needs a little magic. Especially 14-year-old Rachel. Not only did her younger sister, Miri, inherit her mother's ample bosom (so not fair), it turns out that her little sis is also a witch! Of course, there's a chance that Rachel is a witch too--maybe her powers just haven't kicked in yet. If only they would . . . in the meantime she's got to suffer being a B-lister with a crush on an A-list guy, watch her best friend and social schemer Rosie desert her, and be an unwilling participant in her hapless father's remarriage to STBSM (soon-to-be-stepmonster). Retch.
Samantha Stevens? Sabrina? Anyone in Salem home? Rachel Weinstein needs your help!

Prom

by Laurie Halse Anderson:
High school senior Ashley Hannigan doesn't care about prom, but she's the exception. It's pretty much the only good thing at her urban Philadelphia high school, and everyone plans to make the most of it-especially Ash's best friend, Natalia, who's the head of the committee. Then the faculty advisor is busted for taking the prom money, and Ash suddenly finds herself roped into putting together a gala dance out of absolutely nada.

Teen Knitting Club

by Jennifer Wenger, Carol Abrams, and Maureen Lasher: You can learn to stitch together hats, sweaters, blankets and more with this book! It's a comprehensive, covered spiralbound guide that takes you through the fundamentals-tools, basic stitches, yarn selection and more-before providing clear directions and diagrams for 35 projects plus tips for starting a knitting club.
Call # 746.43 WEN 2004

Scorpia

by Anthony Horowitz: Alex Rider, the spitting image of his father in so many ways, is about to find out just how closely he is his father's son. When Alex learns that his father was an assassin for Scorpia, the most powerful terrorist organization going, his world shatters. Now Scorpia wants Alex on their side, and Alex wages a war of conscience he no longer has the will to win. Until, that is, he learns of Scorpia's latest plot: an operation known only as "Invisible Sword" that will result in the death of thousands of people. Unless he can stop it first...

The Best of (Say Anything)

by the editors of YM magazine:
Everyone, and we mean everyone—has an embarrassing moment they'd like to forget about. You know, like . . .

• tripping in the cafeteria
  
• getting caught picking a wedgie
  
• exposing a little more skin than you had in mind
  
• blurting out something that's completely ridiculous—in front of the guy you have a crush on.

The good news is, you aren't alone. More than a million readers have written to ym over the years with some of the silliest, craziest, most embarrassing stories ever heard! The best of the best—the ones that made the editors shriek with laughter—are in this book.

Girls In Pants: the Third Summer of the Sisterhood--ON CD!

by Ann Brashares: Tibby, Carmen, Lena, Bridget and their magical pants are back! It's the summer before they all go to separate colleges, so everything's about to change, and the sisterhood needs the Pants more than ever. Unabridged!

Get info about the upcoming Traveling Pants movie here!

Sammy & Juliana in Hollywood

by Benjamin Alire Saenz: The “Hollywood” where Sammy Santos and Juliana Ríos live is not the West Coast one, the one with all the glitz and glitter. This Hollywood is a tough barrio at the edge of a small town in southern New Mexico. Sammy and this friends—members of the 1969 high school graduating class—face a world of racism, dress codes, war in Vietnam and barrio violence. In the summer before his senior year begins, Sammy falls in love with Juliana, a girl whose tough veneer disguises a world of hurt. By summer’s end, Juliana is dead. Sammy grieves, and in his grief, the memory of Juliana becomes his guide through this difficult year. Sammy is a smart kid, but he’s angry. He’s angry about Juliana’s death, he’s angry about the poverty his father and his sister must endure, he’s angry at his high school and its thinly disguised gringo racism, and he’s angry he might not be able to go to college. Benjamin Alire Sáenz, evoking the bittersweet ambience found in such novels as McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show, captures the essence of what it meant to grow up Chicano in small-town America in the late 1960s.

Swollen

by Melissa Lion: I run to feel my heart beat hard against my ribs, to feel strong, tough and free. I run from school and the good girls, the bad girls, all the labels. Once, just days before he died of a swollen heart, I ran from the most popular boy in school. And then, the day he died, a new boy arrived. A boy I would run to if he would let me, and maybe he will.
This is the story. It's about love. No matter how hard I try it's never quite right. But I keep trying. I keep running anyway.

The Serious Kiss

by Mary Hogan: 14-year-old Libby Madrigal wants one thing: a serious kiss. Not some slobber session beneath the bleachers. Not some lap-kiss in somebody's basement or fake kiss 'cause a guy wants you to think he loves you so you'll do more. No, not a liar's kiss. Libby wants a kiss that means the real deal: Love. True love. Only problem is, her family is in a meltdown, her life is a toxic waste dump, the guy she likes already has a girlfriend, and her best friend just fell in love during detention. Even Juan Dog, her chihuahua, is beginning to wish he were in another family! When it can't possibly get any worse--you got it--it does.

I Was A Non-Blonde Cheerleader

by Kiernan Scott: New Jersey transplant and sassy brunette Annisa Gobrowski has a problem-literally everyone at her Florida high school is blonde. No lack of golden highlights is going to stop Annisa from making the cheerleading squad. But after accidentally breaking the most popular girl in school's nose, and discovering the cheerleaders all hate her, she starts having second thoughts. Is it too much to ask to land a spot on the team, win the heart of her dreamy crush and make tons of new friends?

Offsides

by Erik E. Esckilsen: To Coach Dempsey, the Warriors teams and their Indian mascot symbolize the honor and glory of the Southwind High School athletic tradition. But soccer star Tom Gray sees little more than a denigrating cultural stereotype in the team"s mascot and the stern, war-painted Indian-head profile. As a Mohawk, Tom knows only too well the hardships Native Americans face in their struggle for respect. So when his father"s tragic death forces him and his mother to move to Southwind, Tom must make the decision of a lifetime: betray his family and heritage, or boycott Dempsey"s team and abandon the sport he loves.

Faerie Wars

by Herbie Brennan: When Henry Atherton helps Mr. Fogarty clean up around his house, he expects to find a mess and a cranky old man; what he doesn't expect to find is Pyrgus Malvae, crown prince of the Faerie realm, who has escaped the treacherous Faeries of the Night by traveling to the human world through a portal powered by trapped lightning. An egomaniacal demon prince, greedy glue factory owners Brimstone and Chalkhill, and the nefarious Lord Hairstreak, leader of the Faeries of the Night, all dream of ruling the Faerie realm and are out to kill Pyrgus. Enlisting the help of his sister, Holly Blue, and his new friend, Henry, Pyrgus must get back to the Faerie world alive before one of his many enemies gets to him instead. But how many portals are open, and can Pyrgus find the right one before it falls into the wrong hands?

The Purple Emperor

by Herbie Brennan: Henry Atherton, his faerie prince friend Pyrgus, and Pyrgus's fearless sister, Holly Blue, return in this fantastic adventure to save the Faerie Realm from the evil Hairstreak and his henchmen, Chalkhill and Brimstone. With the help of forest faeries, some silk mistresses, a sewer-dwelling creature of unknown dimensions, and additional creatures magical and otherwise, the three intrepid young friends find their way from exile back to the home they all would die to preserve and protect.

Perfect World

by Brian James: Lacie doesn't fit in. Not with her best friend Jenna, who wants to go fast when Lacie wants to go slow. Not with her family, whose quiet makes Lacie want to scream. And not with Benji, the boy she's been set up with, at least, not yet. Growing up should mean you have more places to go and more things to do. But what if it only means that there are more places you don't belong? Lacie needs to escape her life. The question is how ...

Trick of the Mind

by Judy Waite:

A story about magic and mystery, Love and revenge.
Matt and Erin are both outsiders - they hang out up at the castle but they're not quite cool enough to be part of the gang. Matt just wants Kirsty to notice him, but she's more interested in loud-mouthed Billy - and Erin wants Matt to notice her, but the only thing that interests him about Erin are the magic tricks she teaches him.
Matt's life is a mess and a shock revelation compels him to run away to London, where he performs Erin's magic and tries to make his way as a street entertainer. But a tragedy at home means that Matt's life is going to change direction once again - and not for the better.

Sexy

by Joyce Carol Oates:

It was in November, a Thursday after swim practice. The thing with Mr. Tracy, Darren's English teacher.
The thing was how Darren would think of it, afterward.
The thing that was vague and not-named.
The thing that hadn’t happened, anyway.
Darren Flynn has the perfect life -- until that day in November.

After that day, after what happened (did it happen?), life is different. Darren is different. Nothing is as it was before. His friends, his family, even the people who are supposed to be in charge are no longer who Darren thought they were. Who can he trust, now?

Keeping the Moon

by Sarah Dessen: Colie expects the worst when she's sent to spend the summer with her eccentric aunt Mira while her mother, queen of the television infomercial, tours Europe. Always an outcast -- first for being fat and then for being "easy" -- Colie has no friends at home and doesn't expect to find any in Colby, North Carolina. But then she lands a job at the Last Chance Cafe and meets fellow waitresses Morgan and Isabel, best friends with a loving yet volatile relationship.

24 Girls In 7 Days

by Alex Bradley: Jack Grammar, average American senior, has no date to the prom. Or so he thinks. Percy and Natalie, Jack's so-called best friends, posted an ad in the classified section of the online version of the school newspaper. They figured it couldn't hurt-after all, there's not much in this world sadder than Jack's love life. Soon Percy and Natalie have assembled a list of girls eager to go to the prom with Jack, including one mysterious girl known only as FancyPants. He has just seven days to meet and date them before he will ask one special girl to the prom.

Basketball (Or Something Like It)

by Nora Raleigh Baskin:

Ever since his sudden move from the city to the suburbs, the one place Jeremy feels at home is on the basketball court. But North Bridge is not like any place Jeremy has ever played before. Back home, there would be twenty or thirty kids and maybe three or four balls. He'd wait for a ball, pick a spot, and shoot. Here the kids didn't have to wait at all. Balls were flying everywhere. Jeremy even saw two jerks get hit in the head because there were so many balls.
And the parents. They were always there, and there were so many of them—at the clinics ... at the tryouts ... everywhere. Who's playing anyway?
Maybe if Jeremy wasn't displaced and living with his grandmother, he'd feel as though he fit in. Jeremy figures the only way out is to take the car and leave. Just walk away from his teammates, Hank and Nathan, and Anabel. It's just a game, after all, isn't it?

Left Behind: a Graphic Novel of the Earth's Last Days book 1 v. 5

by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins: The thriller that started it all, Left Behind, begins when pilot Rayford Steele discovers that several passengers on a flight to London have disappeared, leaving only articles of clothing behind. After Steele learns that people all over the world have vanished, he realizes the truth: Christ has taken the faithful up to Heaven. Those who are left behind will face seven years of chaos, in which an apocalyptic battle between the forces of good and evil will be played out.