Books with author Lisa Papademitriou

When the stresses of middle-school life get a bit sour, Hayley's cupcakes usually sweeten the situation. But now that she's dealing with her parents' divorce, battling a bitter ex-BFF, and trying to keep her cool around her crush, there seems to be a little too much salt in her mix. She's going to have to find the perfect recipe to balance her family, her friends, and her crush! (1) Save the Cupcake; (2) Taking the Cake; (3) Sugar and Spice; (4) Something New.

[Children's Fiction (Ages 8-12)][Read by Tara Sands]A playful, authentic middle grade novel about a girl discovering New York with a mysterious boy she meets at the Met.Callie never meant to let it go this far.Sure, she may have accidentally-on-purpose skipped a day at her fancy New York City prep school, but she never thought she'd skip the day after that! And the one after that and uh the one after that But when everything in your real life is going wrong -- fighting parents, bullied little brother, girls at school who just don't get it! -- skipping school starts to look like a valid mental health strategy. And when Callie runs into Cassius, a mysterious and prickly ''unschooled'' kid doing research at museums all across the city, it seems only natural for her to join him -- because museums are educational, which means they're as good as going to class. Right?Besides, school can wait. What can't wait is the mystery of why her grandmother seems to wish she could travel back in time to 1986, or what she wants so much to relive there. As Cassius helps Callie see the world in a whole new light, she realizes that some family secrets shouldn't be secret at all.

DON’T WE ALL harbor the secret wish that we won’t have to work for it? That luck—be it a spin of the wheel, a hop of the dice, the right card at the right moment—might just choose to favor us, whether we deserve it or not? That universal desire, along with many others, is played out in the lives of three teens who hope to beat the house, and control their futures. Come meet:• Sanjay, who wants to be much more than the dutiful, hardworking immigrant’s son• Kat, who wants enough cash to run as far as she can, from her past and who she’s afraid she might become• Jerrica, who thinks she can foresee the cards, and maybe make them be what she needs them to be.Each is irresistibly drawn to gambling’s alluring flirt, and to entanglements with each other, and within themselves. Themes of obsession and other risky business fuel the pages of this fast-moving, provocative tale.