Books in Laurel-Leaf Books series

With her parents splitting up, 16-year-old Sammie Davis may not want to feel a thing, but feelings happen. For starters, she’s plenty angry. Her dad’s leaving their upstate New York home and moving clear across the country. Her mother—well, she’s packing up and relocating to New York City with Sammie, who has no say about any of it. Overnight Sammie is forced to deal with change. And one change spawns another: Roles get reversed, old and new friendships tested, and sexual feelings awakened. It’s a scary time. But as Sammie realizes that things can’t stay the same forever, that even the people she loves and trusts the most can disappoint her, she begins to accept that change isn’t always bad. It’s how you cope, jumbled feelings and all, that counts. And as she copes, Sammie’s sense of self emerges proud and strong.

Marcy is thrilled when her former teacher, Ms. Finney, asks her to be a junior counselor at a creative-arts camp. This is Marcy's big chance to have a summer away from her family, at a new place where only Mrs. Finney knows that she was once a fat nobody. Marcy's sure it will be a perfect summer. But camp life is anything but perfect as Marcy copes with noisy, gigling girls, including Bunk Five's problem camper, the bat of the title, and the thrills of her first romance.

Thirteen-year-old Jesse leads a pretty boring life in just about the most boring place in the universe -- otherwise known as Ida, Texas. She cannot forget the death of her baby brother seven years ago, and how she just couldn't pray for him when he was sick. She never talks about it though, not even to her best friend, which is something she doesn't have, anyway. But all that changes when Roxanne moves into the trailer next door. Thirty years old, with her fake fur coat, wild red hair, and romantic notions, Roxanne is a revelation to Jesse. Why has she moved to Ida, of all places? Their growing friendship will change Jesse's life, giving her back a vision of hope beyond the mundane world around her.

Caught in a violent storm, Lisa and her three friends take refuge in an old deserted house. Inside are strewn odd tricks and gadgets-the props of a practiced magician. Doors slam shut. The phones go dead. A ghostly hand creeps across the mantel. But the group's fascination at these effects quickly turns to horror.Lisa has always dreamed of being a magician. Now her life and the lives of her friends-depend on her skill. Because one by one the tricks are becoming more sinister, luring the group closer and closer to the terrible secret at the end of the corridor...

It's soccer season, and sophomore Bones Austin and his team are struggling to make it to the district play-offs--against all odds. To make matters worse, Bones has a crush on the girlfriend of his best friend, Joey. Bones and Joey are forced to learn a little something about teamwork, even when hard times seem to be tearing them apart. Rich Wallace returns to Sturbridge, Pennsylvania, in his stunning follow-up to Wreslting Strubirdge, in Knopf Paperback for the first time.

Falsely accused of witchcraft, 15-year-old Alys is staked out on a hillside and left as sacrificial bait for a hungry dragon. It's cold. And dark. And raining. And Alys is thoroughly alone. Even when she breaks free of her bindings, there's nowhere for her to go. If she tries to return to her village, the people of St. Toby's will simply stake her out again.Alys hears wolves howling in the distance. Then she sees the shadow of the dragon coursing across the moon. The question is...does the dragon see Alys?

When Claudia decided to run away, she planned very carefully. She would be gone for just long enough to teach her parents a lesson in Claudia appreciation. And she would live in comfort -- at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She invited her brother Jamie to go, too, mostly because he was a miser and would have money. The two took up residence in the museum right on schedule. But once the fun of settling in was over, Claudia had two unexpected problems; she felt just the same, and she wanted to feel different; and she found a statue at the museum so beautiful she could not go home until she had discovered its maker, a question that baffled even the experts. The former owner of the statue was Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. And without her help Claudia might never have found a way to go home.

"Tanith must choose among the unhappy but familiar world of her clan, a growing fondness for a young warrior of a neighboring tribe, and the lure of the wolf pack. Her story, steeped in prehistoric imagery and legend, is a compelling search for identity and self-worth within a richly drawn setting."--BooklistHer earliest memories are of the wolves. And of the hunters who killed them and reclaimed her to human society--as a slave. Tanith has grown up as part of a savage, plundering clan, in a world ruled by brute strength, superstition, and animal cunning. Now, hated and shunned, Tanith flees human society for the more humane company of wolves. But the gentle son of a chief from a neighboring clan beckons her back. He offers Tanith the chance to join once again with her own kind. She must make her final choice of which cry to answer--the wavering, longing bellow of the human or the steady, beating call of the wolf.

Thirteen-year-old Tom, an unhappy foster child in Liverpool, falls into a massive open grave and is transported to Ireland in 1847 in the middle of the deadly potato famine. Thirteen-year-old Tom Mullen has always been alone, moving about from one disastrous foster home situation to another. He has never known the true meaning of family love. When he hears that a mass grave has been unearthed on his school grounds, he feels drawn to the grave, pulled toward it, but can’t explain why. I sucked in a deep breath to try and calm my bursting chest. The smell from the open grave wasn’t bad the way you’d expect from so many dead people. . . . But it wasn’t the smell that got to me, it was the feeling that something in the black pit was calling and reaching out to me, pulling me, that same urge again, the one I’d been getting for the past couple of days, but stronger now and more powerful. It terrified me, if you really want to know the truth.The truth is Tom’s life is about to change forever.

Once there was a boy named Jack who traded away a cow for a handful of beans. But Jack was no fool, he was haunted since the day his father climbed up into the clouds and vanished. When the beans provide a way for Jack to pursue his father, he enters the Giant’s world, where he discovers the terrifying ends of greed and desire. In Donna Jo Napoli’s transforming novel, Jack’s search for his father yields not gold, but sustenance, love, and the means to build a life.