Gerald's communication in the form of clangs, toots, and blasts, distresses his parents and the kids at school.

Narrator Jack and his mother, who was kidnapped seven years earlier when she was a 19-year-old college student, celebrate his fifth birthday. They live in a tiny, 11-foot-square soundproofed cell in a converted shed in the kidnapper's yard. The sociopath, whom Jack has dubbed Old Nick, visits at night, grudgingly doling out food and supplies. But Ma, as Jack calls her, proves to be resilient and resourceful--and attempts a nail-biting escape.

The teenage son of an Appalachian single mother who dies when he is eleven uses his good looks, wit, and instincts to survive foster care, child labor, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival....

Traces the unlikely friendship of a wealthy Afghan youth and a servant's son, in a tale that spans the final days of Afghanistan's monarchy through the atrocities of the present day.

Bonding with a Sikh newcomer to his insular 1980s Ohio community, a bright misfit engages in reckless adventures that expose the racist views of his neighbors.

WhenHuck Finn and Jim run away from 'civilized ' life, they end up in some of the wildest adventures--as dark and deep and unpredictable as the Mississippi River itself.

In the rugged landscape of early frontier Texas, fourteen-year-old Travis faces taking over his family's farm and making a painful, important decision.

It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed. Dark creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and menace unleashed - within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it. His only defense is three women, on a farm at the...

"Getting in trouble is what Hector does best. He knows that not much is expected of him. In fact, he gets some of his most brilliant prank ideas while sitting in detention...When Hector plays a prank on a homeless man and is seen and shamed by a schoolmate, he reaches a turning point. He wants to be viewed differently and decides to do something that will change his fate for the better"--

While riding through the open country near his family's ranch house, Billy and his pony Blaze come across a dangerous mountain lion.