Central Kansas Library System

As Palmer comes of age, he must either accept the violence of being a wringer at his town's annual Pigeon Day or find the courage to oppose it. He did not want to be a wringer. Palmer LaRue is rUnning out of birthdays. For as long as he can remember, he's dreaded the day he turns ten, the day he's supposed to become a wringer. This thing, this not wanting to be a wringer, did it ever knock him from his bike? Unite his sneaker lace? Call him a name?...

After being washed overboard from an ocean liner, fifteen-year-old Harvey Cheyne, spoiled son of a millionaire, is rescued by New England fishermen who put him to work on their boat.

"Shipped halfway around the world to spend the summer with her mom's eccentric Australian relatives, middle schooler and passionate violinist Louisa is prepared to be resentful. But life at the family's remote camp in the Tasmanian rainforest is intriguing, to say the least. There are pig-footed bandicoots, scary spiders, weird noises and odors in the night, and a quirky boy named Colin who cooks the most amazing meals. Not the least strange is her...

A teenaged Nigerian girl and her older brother struggle to cope with life in their tense, stifling household--caused by their father's demands for perfection--after getting a taste of freedom during a visit to their aunt's home.

Set in South Carolina in 1964, [this book] tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the town's fiercest racists, Lily decides they should both escape to Tiburon, South Carolina--a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. There they are taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters...

As Henry finishes fifth grade, his biggest concern is facing a summer with nothing to do. With his best friend, Max, away at summer camp, it's looking so bad he can feel himself "being pulled by the gravitational force of nothingness." But then Henry does something irresponsible, something with real consequences. And suddenly he'd give anything to go back to the nothingness. Has Henry turned into the dingus Max told him not to be? A classic coming-of-age...

Moving to Vermont the summer after seventh grade, a young gymnast hides a secret as she makes new friends and investigates her grandmother's claim that someone is trying to destroy her cricket farm.--

Seventeen-year-old Josh, a loner-philosopher who wants to make a difference in the world, tries to maintain his secret identity as the author of a web site that is receiving national attention.

When a boy and girl are drowned in the Blackwater River, thirteen-year-old Brodie must decide whether to confess that he may have caused the accident.

Twelve-year-old Ben Brown runs away from the circus with his dog (and best friend) Sancho to seek out his missing father. He stumbles into the lives of young sisters Bab and Betty Moss who live with their mother in a quiet, tidy house. Ben's juggling skills, Sancho's trick of spelling his name with letter blocks, and the duo's other tricks of the trade charm the small family while Bab and Betty's whimsical antics and their mother's steady goodness...