Suddenly, something big and white bumps up against the car, and I jump. I think I must be dreamin’, ’cause I just saw a horse run by. When Cole’s mom dumps him in the mean streets of Philly to live with the dad he’s never met, the last thing he expects to see is a horse - let alone a stable full of them. He may not know much about cowboys, but what he knows for sure is that cowboys ain’t black, and they don’t live in the ’hood. But here, horses are a way of life, and soon Cole’s days of skipping school and getting in trouble in Detroit have been replaced by shoveling muck and trying not to get stomped on.

When 12-year-old Maddie hatches a scheme for a secret sleepover with her two best friends, she ends up waking up to a nightmare. She’s alone - left behind in a town that has been mysteriously evacuated and abandoned. With no one to rely on, no power, and no working phone lines or internet access, Maddie slowly learns to survive on her own. Her only companions are a Rottweiler named George and all the books she can read. After a rough start, Maddie learns to trust her own ingenuity and invents clever ways to survive in a place that has been deserted and forgotten.

The moving story of an orphan, determined to know her own history, who discovers the true meaning of family. Twelve-year-old Crow has lived her entire life on a tiny, isolated piece of the starkly beautiful Elizabeth Islands in Massachusetts. Abandoned and set adrift in a small boat when she was just hours old, Crow’s only companions are Osh, the man who rescued and raised her, and Miss Maggie, their fierce and affectionate neighbor across the sandbar.

Eleven-year-old Charlie Reese has been making the same secret wish every day since fourth grade. But when she is sent to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina to live with family she barely knows, it seems unlikely that her wish will ever come true. That is until she meets Wishbone, a skinny stray dog who captures her heart, and Howard, a neighbor boy who proves surprising in lots of ways. Suddenly Charlie is in serious danger of discovering that what she thought she wanted may not be what she needs at all.

Life is comfortable for 12-year-old T'Challa in his home of Wakanda, an isolated, technologically advanced African nation. When he's not learning how to rule a kingdom from his father - the reigning Black Panther - or testing out the latest tech, he's off breaking rules with his best friend, M'Baku. But as conflict brews near Wakanda, T'Challa's father makes a startling announcement: he's sending T'Challa and M'Baku to school in America.

If there's one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it's that a real man takes care of his family. As the son of a former gang legend, Mav does that the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. With this money he can help his mom, who works two jobs while his dad's in prison. Life's not perfect, but with a fly girlfriend and a cousin who always has his back, Mav's got everything under control. Until, that is, Maverick finds out he's a father. But it's not so easy to sling dope, finish school, and raise a child.

A bag of chips. That's all 16-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad's pleadings that he's stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad's resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad's every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered.

The author of the best selling Left Behind series, Jerry B. Jenkins is one of the most widely read and deeply admired novelists of our time. With Hometown Legend he has written an inspirational tale placed firmly in the nation's heartland, where football, family, and faith are everything, and where one town's greatest contest has begun.

Maggie Atwood and Becky McCabe, mother and daughter, both champion riders, vowed to never, ever, go up against one another. Until the tense, harrowing competitions leading to the Paris Olympics. Mother and daughter share a dream: to be the best horsewoman in the world. Coronado is Maggie’s horse. An absolutely top-tier Belgian warmblood. Sky is Becky’s horse. A small, speedy Dutch warmblood.

Moving from a Texas ranch to an Australian Outback station was a life-changing decision for Travis Craig. Though it wasn’t really a decision at all. Something in his bones told him to go, though he had no clue as to why. Until he met Sutton Station’s owner, Charlie. Loving Charlie shouldn’t have been easy. The man was stubborn and riddled with crippling self-doubt. No, it shouldn’t have been easy at all. Yet somehow, falling in love with Charlie was the easiest thing in the world.

Lena has her killer style, her awesome boyfriend, and a plan. She knows she's going to make it big. Campbell, on the other hand, is just trying to keep her head down and get through the year at her new school. When both girls attend the Friday-night football game, what neither expects is for everything to descend into sudden mass chaos. Chaos born from violence and hate. Chaos that unexpectedly throws them together. They aren't friends. They hardly understand the other's point of view. But none of that matters when the city is up in flames.

Russ has just moved to the neighborhood, and the life of this teen basketball phenom has been turned upside down by tragedy. Cut off from everyone he knows, he won't pick up a basketball, but answers only to the name Boy21 - taken from his former jersey number. As their final year of high school brings these two boys together, a unique friendship may turn out to be the answer they both need.

The Urban Promise Prep School vows to turn boys into men. As students, J.B., Ramón, and Trey are forced to follow the prestigious "program's" strict rules. Extreme discipline, they’ve been told, is what it takes to be college bound, to avoid the fates of many men in their neighborhoods. This, the Principal Moore Method, supposedly saves lives. But when Moore ends up murdered and the cops come sniffing around, the trio emerges as the case's prime suspects.

Fourteen-year-old Billy Harriman can feel the changes. The sharpening of his senses. The incredible strength. The speed, as though he can text-message himself across miles. The confidence and the strange need to patrol Central Park at night. His dad had been a hero, a savior to America and a confidante of the president. Then he died, and the changes began in Billy. What Billy never knew was that his father was no ordinary man - he was a superhero.

When Brittany Ellis walks into chemistry class on the first day of senior year, she has no clue that her carefully created perfect life is about to unravel before her eyes. She's forced to be lab partners with Alex Fuentes, a gang member from the other side of town, and he is about to threaten everything she's worked so hard for her flawless reputation, her relationship with her boyfriend, and the secret that her home life is anything but perfect.

Suddenly, something big and white bumps up against the car, and I jump. I think I must be dreamin’, ’cause I just saw a horse run by. When Cole’s mom dumps him in the mean streets of Philly to live with the dad he’s never met, the last thing he expects to see is a horse - let alone a stable full of them. He may not know much about cowboys, but what he knows for sure is that cowboys ain’t black, and they don’t live in the ’hood. But here, horses are a way of life, and soon Cole’s days of skipping school and getting in trouble in Detroit have been replaced by shoveling muck and trying not to get stomped on.

Born and raised in West Philadelphia, Kareem thought he and his siblings would always be stuck in “The Bottom”, a community and neighborhood devastated by poverty and violence. Riding their bicycles through Philly’s Fairmount Park, Kareem’s brothers discover a barn full of horses. Noticing the brothers’ fascination with her misfit animals, Lezlie Hiner, founder of The Work to Ride stables, offers them their escape: an after school job in exchange for riding lessons. What starts as an accidental discovery turns into a love for horseback riding.

Jake Cullen is a freshman quarterback playing high school football in the high-pressure land of Friday Night Lights (Texas). He is also the brother of Wyatt Cullen, who quarterbacked his team to the Texas State Championship last season - not to mention the son of former NFL quarterback and local legend, Troy Cullen. To be a Cullen in Texas is to be royalty…and a quarterback. All of which leaves 14-year-old Jake in a Texas-sized shadow, a tall order for any boy, especially one who's merely a freshman.

Danny's tall and skinny. Even though he's not "built", his arms are long enough to give his pitch a power so fierce that any college scout would sign him on the spot. Ninety-five-mile-an-hour fastball, but the boy's not even on a team. Every time he gets up on the mound, he loses it. Ball ends up so far out of the strike zone it's laughable. But at his private school, they don't expect much else from him. Danny's brown. Half-Mexican brown....

Bryon and Mark aren't related, but they are as close as brothers. Ever since his parents died when he was nine, Mark has lived with Bryon and his mother. Now at 16, they like to reminisce about old times - the fights and pranks at school, smoking and swearing - junk they got into when they were younger. But lately things have been different. Bryon starts spending a lot of time with Cathy, and she makes him feel there are some things worth working for. He grows bored with all the fighting, the dead-end choices of life on the streets.

When Brittany Ellis walks into chemistry class on the first day of senior year, she has no clue that her carefully created perfect life is about to unravel before her eyes. She's forced to be lab partners with Alex Fuentes, a gang member from the other side of town, and he is about to threaten everything she's worked so hard for her flawless reputation, her relationship with her boyfriend, and the secret that her home life is anything but perfect.

Marva Sheridan was born ready for this day. She's always been driven to make a difference in the world, and what better way than to vote in her first election? Duke Crenshaw is so done with this election. He just wants to get voting over with so he can prepare for his band's first paying gig tonight. Only problem? Duke can't vote. When Marva sees Duke turned away from their polling place, she takes it upon herself to make sure his vote is counted. She hasn't spent months doorbelling and registering voters just to see someone denied their right.

Velveteen Vargas is an 11-year-old from Brooklyn who is granted a summer vacation in the country, courtesy of the nonprofit Fresh Air Fund. Her host family is a couple in upstate New York: Ginger, a failed artist on the fringe of Alcoholics Anonymous; and Paul, an academic who wonders what it will mean to "make a difference" in such a contrived situation.

At 15, Tex is spirited as a wild mustang and good-natured as a pup. He and his 17-year-old brother Mason have been on their own since Pop left for the summer rodeo tour. Come October, the money has run out and still no Pop. None of this bothers Tex much - until Mason sells Tex's horse to pay the bills. After that things turn sour between the brothers. Tex is constantly getting into trouble, but he resents Mace acting like a parent. Friends like Johnny and his gorgeous sister Jamie help Tex forget his problems.

Hockey is Conor's life. His whole life. He'll say it himself, he's a hockey beast. It's his dad's whole life too - and Conor is sure that's why his stepmom, Jenny, left. There are very few things Conor and his dad love more than the game, and one of those things is their Doberman, Sinbad. When Sinbad is diagnosed with cancer, Conor chooses to put his hockey lessons and practices on hold so they can pay for Sinbad's chemotherapy. But without hockey to distract him, Conor begins to notice more. Like his dad's crying bouts, and his friend's difficult family life.

Blue Collar Comedy star Bill Engvall is just a guy. He's been one his whole life. He can't help it; he was born that way. And that makes him an expert on the subject. For the record, here's the official definition of a guy: a person who doesn't think before he speaks. He can't. He's not that deep. Because a guy has only three basic needs: eating, sleeping, and sex. That's it. Just a Guy chronicles a lifetime in pursuit of those needs.

Mishna Wolff grew up in a poor black neighborhood with her single father, a white man who truly believed he was black. "He strutted around with a short perm, a Cosby-esque sweater, gold chains and a Kangol---telling jokes like Redd Fox, and giving advice like Jesse Jackson. You couldn't tell my father he was white. Believe me, I tried," writes Wolff. And so from early childhood on, her father began his crusade to make his white daughter down.

What girl doesn't want to be surrounded by gorgeous jocks day in and day out? Jordan Woods isn't just surrounded by hot guys, though - she leads them as the captain and quarterback of her high school football team. They all see her as one of the guys and that's just fine. As long as she gets her athletic scholarship to a powerhouse university. But everything she's ever worked for is threatened when Ty Green moves to her school.

Ever come across a situation that simply wasn't right - where someone was getting the dirty end of the stick and you wished you could make things right but didn't know how? Fourteen-year-old Jack knows how. Or rather he's learning how. He's discovering that he has a knack for fixing things. Not bikes or toys or appliances - situations...It all starts when Jack and his best friends, Weezy and Eddie, discover a rotting corpse - the victim of ritual murder - in the fabled New Jersey Pine Barrens. Beside the body is an ancient artifact carved with strange designs.

While looking out the window with her grandma's binoculars, Sammy witnesses a crime across the street at the Heavenly Hotel. What's worse, the thief saw her spying! As Sammy attempts to find the burglar who has made several other hits in the neighborhood, she finds herself trying to keep him from uncovering her - or worse, the police discovering that she's living illegally with her grandmother in the seniors-only housing!