Circa Now

Come What May

Lauren Brooke · 157 pages

After the tragic death of her mother, 15-year old Amy Fleming is running the farm with her older sister Lou, her Grandad, and stablehands Ty and Ben. In "Come What May", Amy is stunned when Lou reveals that she has been in contact with their estranged father. Can Amy bring herself to meet him, after he abandoned the family so many years ago?

Be Light Like a Bird

Monika Schroder · 240 pages

The Heaven Shop

Deborah Ellis · 192 pages

Compelling and uplifting, this powerful new work by the author of The Breadwinner trilogy is a contemporary novel that puts a very real face on the African AIDS epidemic, which to date has orphaned more than 11 million children. All royalties for this book will be donated to UNICEF.

The Leanin' Dog

K.A. Nuzum · 250 pages

In wintry Colorado during the 1930s, eleven-year-old Dessa Dean mourns the death of her beloved mother, but the arrival of an injured dog and the friendship they form is just what each needs to change their lives forever.

Silhouetted by the Blue

Traci L. Jones · 212 pages

After the death of her mother in an automobile accident, seventh-grader Serena, who has gotten the lead in her middle school play, is left to handle the day-to-day challenges of caring for herself and her younger brother when their father cannot pull himself out of his depression.

Dandelion Clocks

Rebecca Westcott · 288 pages

The Secret Hum of a Daisy

Tracy Holczer · 316 pages

"After 12-year-old Grace's mother's sudden death, Grace is forced to live with a grandmother she's never met. Then she discovers clues in a mysterious treasure hunt--one that will help her find her true home"-- After the sudden death of her mother, twelve-year-old Grace is forced to live with a grandmother she's never met. Then she discovers clues in a mysterious treasure hunt, one that will help

A Dog Called Homeless

Sarah Lean · 224 pages

Fifth-grader Cally Louise Fisher stops talking, partly because her father and brother never speak of her mother who died a year earlier, but visions of her mother, friendships with a homeless man and a disabled boy, and a huge dog ensure that she still communicates.

Crazy Lady!

Jane Leslie Conly · 186 pages

As he tries to come to terms with his mother's death, Vernon finds solace in his growing relationship with the neighborhood outcasts, an alcoholic and her retarded son.

Love, Aubrey

Suzanne LaFleur · 272 pages

"I had everything I needed to run a household: a house, food, and a new family. From now on it would just be me and Sammy--the two of us, and no one else."A tragic accident has turned eleven-year-old Aubrey's world upside down. Starting a new life all alone, Aubrey has everything she thinks she needs: SpaghettiOs and Sammy, her new pet fish. She cannot talk about what happened to her. Writing lett

Perfect

Natasha Friend · 232 pages

Following the death of her father, a thirteen-year-old uses bulimia as a way to avoid her mother's and ten-year-old sister's grief, as well as her own.

Slob

Ellen Potter

Twelve-year-old Owen Birnbaum is the fattest kid in school. But hes also a genius who invents cool contraptions like a TV that shows the past. Something happened two years ago that he needs to see. But genius or not, there is much Owen cant outthink. Like his gym coach, whos on a mission to humiliate him. Or the way his Oreos keep disappearing from his lunch. Hes sure that if he can only get the T

Out of the Dust

Karen Hesse · 235 pages

"Dust piles up like snow across the prairie. . . ." A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo's life, scarring her inside and out. Her mother is gone. Her father can't talk about it. And the one thing that might make her feel better -- playing the piano -- is impossible with her wounded hands. To make matters worse, dust storms are devastating the family farm and all the farms nearby. Wh

Summerlost

Ally Condie · 260 pages

"Following the sudden deaths of her father and autistic younger brother, Cedar Lee spends the summer working at a Shakespearean theater festival, making a new friend, and coming to terms with her grief."--

Eggs

Jerry Spinelli · 224 pages

Nine-year-old David has recently lost his mother to a freak accident, his salesman father is constantly on the road, and he is letting his anger out on his grandmother. Sarcastic and bossy 13-year-old Primrose lives with her childlike, fortuneteller mother, and a framed picture is the only evidence of the father she never knew. Despite their differences, David and Primrose forge a tight yet tumult

The Crossover

Kwame Alexander · 240 pages

"A bolt of lightning on my kicks, the court is sizzling, my sweat is drizzling. Stop all that quivering, cuz tonight I'm delivering," raps basketball phenom Josh Bell. Thanks to his dad, he and his twin brother, Jordan, are kings on the court, with crossovers that make even the toughest ballers cry. But Josh has more than hoops in his blood. He's got a river of rhymes flowing through him -- a sick

Chains

Laurie Halse Anderson · 326 pages

If an entire nation could seek its freedom, why not a girl? As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old Isabel wages her own fight...for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, she and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate become the property of a malicious New York City couple, the Locktons, who have no sympathy for the American Revolution and even less for Ruth a

Like the Willow Tree: The Diary of Lydia Amelia Pierce, Portland, Maine, 1918

Lois Lowry · 224 pages

After being orphaned during the influenza epidemic of 1918, eleven-year-old Lydia Pierce and her fourteen-year-old brother are taken by their grieving uncle to be raised in the Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake. Includes author's note about the Shakers.

Summer of the Wolves

Polly Carlson-Voiles · 352 pages

In Pasadena Nika has lost her parents and now her foster mother as well only to be shipped off with her brother to an uncle she has never met, a wolf biologist in Minnesota. Full of grief she is determined to need no one, but discovering an orphaned wolf pup with her uncle leads Nika into events and emotions she never expected. Carlson-Voiles believes that serious encounters with wildness in n

Starting From Here

Lisa Jenn Bigelow · 290 pages

Sixteen-year-old Colby is barely hanging on with her mother dead, her long-haul trucker father often away, her almost-girlfriend dumping her for a boy, and her failing grades, when a stray dog appears and helps her find hope.

After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away

Joyce Carol Oates · 292 pages

In the raw was how the world felt now. My feelings were raw, my thoughts were raw and hurtful like knife blades. . . . In the blue had been my place to hide, now In the raw there was nowhere to hide.Jenna Abbott separates her life into two categories: before the wreck and after the wreck. Before the wreck, she was leading a normal life with her mom in suburban New York. After the wreck, Jenna is a

Evermore

Alyson Noel

Since the car accident that claimed the lives of her family, sixteen-year-old Ever can see auras and hear people's thoughts, and she goes out of her way to hide from other people until she meets Damen, another psychic teenager who is hiding even more mysteries.

Far from You

Lisa Schroeder

Lost and alone...down the rabbit hole. Years have passed since Alice lost her mother to cancer, but time hasn't quite healed the wound. Alice copes the best she can by writing her music, losing herself in her love for her boyfriend, and distancing herself from her father and his new wife. But when a deadly snowstorm traps Alice with her stepmother and newborn half sister, she'll face issue

Black Dog Summer

Miranda Sherry · 283 pages

In this debut novel a mother watches from the afterlife as her teenage daughter recovers amidst the startling dysfunction of her extended family.