Central Kansas Library System

When four year old Colton Burpo made it through an emergency appendectomy his family was overjoyed at his miraculous survival. What they weren't expecting, though, was the story that emerged in the following months, a story as beautiful as it was extraordinary, detailing their little boy's trip to heaven and back. This true story, retold by his father but using Colton's uniquely simple words, offers a glimpse of the world that awaits us, where as...

The life of a ten-year-old boy in rural Virginia expands when he becomes friends with a newcomer who subsequently meets an untimely death trying to reach their hideaway, Terabithia, during a storm. All summer, Jess pushed himself to be the fastest boy in the fifth grade, and when the year's first school-yard race was run, he was going to win. But his victory was stolen by a newcomer, by a girl, one who didn't even know enough to stay on the girls'...

Seventeen-year-old Greg has managed to become part of every social group at his Pittsburgh high school without having any friends, but his life changes when his mother forces him to befriend Rachel, a girl he once knew in Hebrew school who has leukemia. Suggested level: secondary.

When popular Lizzie Lovett goes missing, seventeen-year-old Hawthorne, a lonely misfit, finds herself becoming obsessed with solving the mystery. Bad things don't happen to popular girls like Lizzie Lovett-- until her disappearance became the one fascinating mystery the sleepy town of Griffin Mills has ever had. Hawthorn is convinced she'll turn up at any moment, and comes up with her own theory for Lizzie's disappearance. A theory way too absurd...

When his best friend drowns while they are both swimming in a treacherous river that they had promised never to go near, Joel is devastated and terrified at having to tell both sets of parents the terrible consequences of their disobedience.

"It's Carter's first day of middle school, and there's chaos in the Jones household. His little sisters are fussing, there's no milk, his mom is frantic, and the Jeep won't start. And then the doorbell rings. Carter opens the door to find a bowler-hatted English butler standing on the stoop. Carter isn't expecting the Butler to stay and help the family, though they need help. Nor is he prepared for the Butler's high standards, or his determination...

In the sandy desert of the Mojave, Madison is a small town on the road between nothing and nowhere. It's not an exciting place to live, but Eldon's not about to wish to be somewhere else. Because in Madison, everyone gets one wish on their eighteenth birthday - and that wish always comes true. Most of Eldon's classmates have had their wishes picked out for months, even years. Not Eldon. He's seen how wishing has hurt the people around him. His parents'...

 In 1918, the world seems on the verge of apocalypse. Americans roam the streets in gauze masks to ward off the deadly Spanish influenza, and the government ships young men to the front lines of a brutal war, creating an atmosphere of fear and confusion. Sixteen-year-old Mary Shelley Black watches as desperate mourners flock to séances and spirit photographers for comfort, but she herself has never believed in ghosts. During her bleakest moment,

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On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. In a matter of minutes, they killed twelve students and a teacher and wounded twenty-four others before taking their own lives. For the last sixteen years, Sue Klebold, Dylan's mother, has lived with the indescribable grief and shame of that day. How could her child, the promising young man she had loved and raised, be responsible for such horror?...

After the death of his grandmother, ten-year-old Spoon observes the changes in his grandfather and tries to find the perfect artifact to preserve his memories of her.