Chasing Forgiveness

Chasing Forgiveness

Neal Shusterman

Young Adult / Science Fiction / Dystopia

A teen attempts to forgive the unforgiveable in this stunning novel ("VOYA") based on a tragic true story from the author of the "New York Times" bestselling Unwind dystology. Preston Scott was only twelve years old when his father killed his mother. He never saw it coming. Despite his parents constant fighting, Preston always thought they were perfect together. He never dreamed his father would be capable of murder. Then again, who could ever predict something like this? Fast forward: Preston is now fourteen. His father has just been released from jail and is moving near his grandparents house, where Preston and his younger brother Tyler have been living. His grandparents forgave his dad long ago for killing their daughter, and although Preston tries to feel the same kind of forgiveness, it s not easy: he ll never see his mother again, and yet, he still loves his father. How is that possible? Will Preston ever be able to reconcile his dueling feelings for his father, and move past this tragedy? "Chasing Forgiveness "was originally published in 1991 as "What Daddy Did.""
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Karen's New Year

Karen's New Year

Ann M. Martin

Children's Books / Young Adult

Karen the spy For New Year's Eve, Karen thinks everyone should make a promise. Hannie is going to stop biting her nails. Kristy promises not to talk to her boyfriend on the phone so much. And Karen makes the most promises of all - nine! But pretty soon, everyone starts breaking their promises. And her brothers and sisters are calling Karen a spy! Poor Karen. Why is everyone being bad except her?
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PrairyErth

PrairyErth

William Least Heat-Moon

Travel

Robert Penn Warren pronounced Heat-Moon's Blue Highways "a masterpiece." Now Heat-Moon has pulled to the side of the road and set off on foot to take readers on an exploration of time and space, landscape and history in the Flint Hills of central Kansas.
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Beware, Dawn!

Beware, Dawn!

Ann M. Martin

Children's Books / Young Adult

The Baby-Sitters all want to be the first winner of the Sitter-of-the-Month contest, even though they promise not to compete against each other. Now Dawn is getting threatening notes and sinister phone calls from someone known only as Mr. X. Is winning the contest worth keeping the threats a secret?
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Red Orc's Rage

Red Orc's Rage

Philip José Farmer

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Farmer returns to his towering World of Tiers, where immortal Lords fight bloody wars over a host of pocket universes. Jim Grimson is a young man with problems who finally goes over the edge, gets placed in a mental hospital, and ends up in the World of Tiers. But is it therapy or reality? "A wide-screen adventure that never fails to provoke, amuse, and educate".--Time.
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What's Eating Gilbert Grape

What's Eating Gilbert Grape

Peter Hedges

Literature & Fiction

Adapted into the classic 1993 film starring Johnny Depp as Gilbert and Leonardo DiCaprio in his Academy Award–nominated role as Arnie, * *What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is the touching and entertaining story of an unusual family that rises up to do the astonishing… Gilbert Grape is a 24-year-old grocery store clerk stuck in Endora, Iowa, where the population is 1,091 and shrinking. After the suicide of Gilbert’s father, his family never recovered. Once the town beauty queen, Gilbert’s mother is morbidly obese after seven years of house-bound depression; his younger sister is boy-crazy and God-fearing, while his older sister sacrifices everything for her family. And then there’s Arnie, Gilbert’s younger brother with special needs. With no one else to care for Arnie, Gilbert becomes his brother’s main parent, and all four siblings must tend to the needs of their helpless, grieving mother. So Gilbert is in a rut—until an enchanting new girl arrives in town. His family gathers for Arnie’s 18th birthday and Becky, the mysterious and lovely newcomer, breathes new life into Gilbert’s world. But can one person really change Gilbert, or his attitudes about his family and Endora? Rich with memorable characters, biting frustration, and family redemption, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape can’t be missed.
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A Soldier of the Great War

A Soldier of the Great War

Mark Helprin

Literature & Fiction

From acclaimed novelist Mark Helprin, a lush, literary epic about love, beauty, and the world at war. Alessandro Giuliani, the young son of a prosperous Roman lawyer, enjoys an idyllic life full of privilege: he races horses across the country to the sea, he climbs mountains in the Alps, and, while a student of painting at the ancient university in Bologna, he falls in love. Then the Great War intervenes. Half a century later, in August of 1964, Alessandro, a white-haired professor, tall and proud, meets an illiterate young factory worker on the road. As they walk toward Monte Prato, a village seventy kilometers away, the old man—a soldier and a hero who became a prisoner and then a deserter, wandering in the hell that claimed Europe—tells him how he tragically lost one family and gained another. The boy, envying the richness and drama of Alessandro's experiences, realizes that this magnificent tale is not merely a story: it's a recapitulation of his life, his reckoning with mortality, and above all, a love song for his family.
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Dawn and the Big Sleepover

Dawn and the Big Sleepover

Ann M. Martin

Children's Books / Young Adult

A bunch of kids at Stoneybrook Elementary have pen pals at a school in New Mexico. The Baby-sitters love hearing the letters that Charlotte, Becca, and the Pike children get from their new friends. Then the bad news reaches Stoneybrook: their pen pals' school has been destroyed by a fire. Dawn is so upset that she organizes a fund-raiser for them. And as a reward to all the kids who help out, she is going to throw a gigantic sleepover! A hundred kids, thirty pizzas--will Dawn survive her biggest baby-sitting job ever?
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The Kindness of Women

The Kindness of Women

J. G. Ballard

Science Fiction / Fiction

Ballard here writes a brilliant hybrid of autobiography and fiction. The sequel to The Empire of the Sun, this work puts his earlier account of a boy’s experiences in occupied Shanghai in the context of a lifetime. Ballard’s eye has never been more cinematic, and his writing, especially in the love scenes, is a masterful blend of the raw and the tender.
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Xenocide

Xenocide

Orson Scott Card

Science Fiction & Fantasy / Poetry / Nonfiction

The war for survival of the planet Lusitania will be fought in the hearts of a child named Gloriously Bright. On Lusitania, Ender found a world where humans and pequininos and the Hive Queen could all live together; where three very different intelligent species could find common ground at last. Or so he thought. Lusitania also harbors the descolada, a virus that kills all humans it infects, but which the pequininos require in order to become adults. The Starways Congress so fears the effects of the descolada, should it escape from Lusitania, that they have ordered the destruction of the entire planet, and all who live there. The Fleet is on its way, and a second xenocide seems inevitable.
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Tick Tock

Tick Tock

Dean Koontz

Thriller / Mystery / Science Fiction & Fantasy

Tommy Phan is a successful detective novelist living the American Dream in southern California. One evening he comes home to find a small rag doll on his doorstep. It’s a simple doll, covered entirely in white cloth, with crossed black stitches for the eyes and mouth, and another pair forming an X over the heart. Curious, he brings it inside. That night Tommy hears an odd popping sound and looks up to see the stitches breaking over the doll’s heart. And in minutes the fabric of Tommy Phan’s reality will be torn apart. Something terrifying emerges from the pristine white cloth, something that will follow Tommy wherever he goes. Something that he can’t destroy. It wants Tommy’s life, and he doesn’t know why. He has only one ally, a beautiful, strangely intuitive waitress he meets by chance—or by a design far beyond his comprehension. He has too many questions, no answers, and very little time. Because the vicious and demonically clever doll has left this warning on Tommy’s computer screen: The deadline is dawn. Ticktock Time is running out.
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A Secret in Time

A Secret in Time

Carolyn Keene

Children's Books / Mystery & Thrillers / Young Adult

No one solves crimes or captivates young readers the way teen detective Nancy Drew does--and no mystery series for young readers sells so well. While Nancy is displaying a prized antique clock at an antiques expo, a jeweled brooch is stolen. When she gets home, she finds it hidden in the clock, and she decides to use it to trap the culprit. . . .
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