Willow was like any other teenage girl until a fatal car accident left her an orphan with the ability to see ghosts. Relocating to live with her grandparents, she hoped to lay low to survive the rest of high school and maybe figure out the whole "seeing the dead" thing. But with ghosts popping up in the middle of class, Willow was struggling to keep the gossip at bay. No one thinks you're normal when you get caught having a one-sided conversation alone.

Ben Loory returns with a second collection of timeless tales, inviting us to enter his worlds of whimsical fantasy, deep empathy, and playful humor, in the signature voice that drew listeners to his highly praised first collection. In stories that eschew literary realism, Loory's characters demonstrate richly imagined and surprising perspectives, whether they be dragons or swordsmen, star-crossed lovers or long-lost twins, restaurateurs dreaming of Paris or cephalopods fixated on space travel.

When Runnel leaves his mountain valley to head for the great city of the water mages, he has no idea of his own magical talents. But he soon finds that without meaning to, he complicates and then endangers the lives of everyone he comes to know and care about. For when it comes to magic, there are rules and laws, and the untrained mage-to-be must be careful not to tap into deep forces and ancient enmities. Otherwise, other people might end up paying the price for his mistakes.

Writing brilliantly and profoundly about class, sex, love, loss, work, despair, and war, Saunders cuts to the core of the contemporary experience. These stories take on the big questions and explore the fault lines of our own morality, delving into the questions of what makes us good and what makes us human.

Outfield Menace is the tale of Kurt, a 15-year-old baseball player, living in a small, 1950s, Indiana town. During a confrontation with Angel, the resident bad boy of Blackford High School, Kurt attacks Angel, earning the wrath of the most dangerous gang in town. When Angel finally corners Kurt something happens that Kurt wouldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams. As the murder of a local boy is uncovered, suspicion is cast upon Angel, but Kurt has learned there's more to Angel than his bad boy image. Angel has a secret, however, that could get both Kurt and himself killed.

Bobby Pendragon is a seemingly normal 14-year-old boy. He has a family, a home, and even Marley, his beloved dog. But there is something very special about Bobby: he is going to save the world.

And not just Earth as we know it. Bobby is slowly starting to realize that life in the cosmos isn't quite what he thought it was. And before he can object, he is swept off to an alternate dimension known as Denduron, a territory inhabited by strange beings, ruled by a magical tyrant, and plagued by dangerous revolution.

Running for My Life is not a story about Africa or track and field athletics. It is about outrunning the devil and achieving the impossible: faith, diligence, and the desire to give back. It is the American dream come true and a reminder that saving one can help to save thousands more. Lopez Lomong chronicles his inspiring ascent from a barefoot lost boy of the Sudanese Civil War to a Nike sponsored athlete on the US Olympic Team. Though most of us fall somewhere between the catastrophic lows and dizzying highs of Lomong's incredible life, every reader will find in his story the human spark to pursue dreams that might seem unthinkable.

Sixteen-year-old Jimi knows people change, but nothing could prepare her for what's about to happen to her best friend, Del. Del is obsessed with becoming a chimera: a person who pays back-alley geneticists, known as "genies", to illegally splice animal genes into their own. The resulting physical changes have scared lawmakers into drafting legislation declaring chimeras officially nonpersons, so when Del goes missing, Jimi is desperate to find him before he alters himself forever.

The true story of a man, who at age 10, ran away from home and for five years, he survived on the streets of Kampala, Uganda, a city of 1.5 million. One man saw potential in him, supported Peter through school, and forever altered Peter's outlook in every possible way. Since then, Peter's turn-around story only becomes more remarkable. In Now I Am Known, Peter reveals the transformational power of taking risks, learning to forgive, overcoming self-doubt, and believing in a better future marked by optimism and purpose.

Pay It Forward, is the moving story of Trevor McKinney, a 12-year-old boy who accepts his social studies teacher’s challenge to come up with a plan to change the world. Trevor’s idea is simple: Do a good deed for three people and ask them to "pay it forward" to three others who need help. He envisions a vast movement of kindness and goodwill spreading beyond his small California town and across the world.

Tennyson: Don’t get me started on the Bruiser. He was voted “Most Likely to Get the Death Penalty” by the entire school. He’s the kid no one knows, no one talks to, and everyone hears disturbing rumors about. So why is my sister, Brontë, dating him? One of these days she’s going to take in the wrong stray dog, and it’s not going to end well.BronteMy brother has no right to talk about Brewster that way — no right to threaten him. There’s a reason why Brewster can’t have friends — why he can’t care about too many people.

Caden helped Jonas through the rough times, the lonely times, and the times Jonas needed someone to love and someone to love him back. The only problem was that Caden was imaginary - at least until Jonas spotted him in the cafeteria of Verona High School. When Jonas recovers from his shock, he is determined to meet the boy who was once nothing but a fantasy but is obviously quite real.

Beard's stunning debut is an epistolary novel written from 15-year-old Tess DeNunzio to her little sister Zoe. After Zoe's accidental death on September 11, 2001, a day so many others died, Tess' family is numbed by their personal tragedy. Already acutely aware of her odd place in a home where her mother and stepfather now have children of their own, Tess begins her letter as a means of figuring out her own life, from her two-hour-a-day hair and makeup ritual to her complicity in Zoe's death.

Tyler and Tanner are identical twins and best buddies, but their relationship is about to be transformed forever. Tyler grows increasingly uncomfortable with the rumors that haunt him and his brother, but Tanner doesn't want their relationship to change. Wanted or not, change comes. Tyler falls for Charlie, the new boy in town, and Tanner reaches out to help his teammate, Iggy, who is crippled in an accident and confined to a wheelchair. As Tyler and Charlie grow closer, Tanner grabs onto the small ray of hope that Iggy may someday walk again and pushes Iggy to make it happen.

Banished by bad decisions to spend the summer with his great-grandmother, Liam Peters thinks his life is over. After all, Marty Peters is a tough woman to be around. Maybe she wouldn't be so bad if she'd just take an interest in the modern technology he loves. Sure, she has some insight to her...but the woman is practically "pushing daisies". Not surprisingly, as tornado sirens announce a city-wide emergency, Liam discovers why that term should be avoided...well...like the plague.