Laurel imprint: 210 books

In a prose that is so beautiful it is poetry, we  see the world of growing up and going somewhere  through the dust and heat of Fresno's industrial  side and beyond: It is a boy's coming of age in the  barrio, parochial school, attending church, public  summer school, and trying to fall...

Welcome to Sturbridge, Pennsylvania, a small, dead-end town with nothing to do and no way out. At least that's how Ben, a high school senior and the second-best 135-pound wrestler in school, sees it. But Ben's fed up with being stuck on the bench, watching as his friend Al, the state champion, gets...

A candy striper helps a 17-year-old boy deal with his uncertain future as he awaits a liver transplant. Together, they use his "One Last Wish" money to build a center for terminally ill kids.

THERE'S A PERFECT GIRL at every school, yours included. You know her. Beautiful. Talented. Smart. Great parents. Cool boyfriend. You can’t even hate her, because, of course, she’s so nice. At Forest Hills High, Lara Ardeche is that girl. But things can change. “Skillfully...

It doesn’t take long for Cody Elliot to realize that his new high school is a little different. The other students are supernaturally strong, don’t like the sunlight, and are always placing orders at the local blood bank. When his new friend shows him his fangs, Cody doesn’t need any more clues—these...

While most 16-year-old girls are planning their weddings, Xueyan, known as Yanyan, has no interest at all in marriage. She is fascinated by medicine. In China in 1921, women rarely attend university, let alone medical school. Still, Yanyan is determined to become a doctor. But Yanyan’s feelings...

SIG IS A boy in a coastal tribe, the Storn, long ago in a Northern land. On the day of the wolf hunt, the life of the tribe changes forever, for Sig rescues a small girl, more like the wolves who shelter her than a human. Sig’s family adopts her and names her Mouse, and he becomes a loyal brother...

The Newbery Honor winner about a heroic Pakistani girl that The Boston Globe called “Remarkable . . . a riveting tour de force.” Life is both sweet and cruel to strong-willed young Shabanu, whose home is the windswept Cholistan Desert of Pakistan. The second daughter in a family with no...

It’s a hot, hot summer, and in the depths of the Toronto Transit Authority’s Lost and Found, 17-year-old Duncan is cataloging lost things and sifting through accumulated junk. And between Jacob, the cranky old man who runs the place, and the endless dusty boxes overflowing with stuff no one will...

Together again. It's been a year since Katie O'Roark, Chelsea James, and Lacey Duval shared a special summer at Jenny House. The girls have each spent the year struggling to fit into the world of the healthy. Now they're back, this time as "big sisters" to a new group of girls who also face...

Hi, I'm Kate Bjorkman. What do you do if you've lived a real romance with a great guy and he loves you as much as you love him? Simple, I wrote a romance novel with help from THE ROMANCE WRITER'S PHRASE BOOK. Nothing is made up. I want truth and conflict even in romance. I'm betting you'll want the same.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO if your best friend got pregnant? Fourteen-year-old Jaime is used to her best friend, Melissa, being the center of attention. Melissa wants to be a model—she’s beautiful, popular, and talented. There’s just one small problem—Melissa thinks she’s pregnant, and she...

Two tiger cub brothers are torn from the jungle and taken to Rome. The stronger cub is trained as a killer at the Coliseum. Emperor Caesar makes a gift of the smaller cub to his beautiful daughter, Aurelia. She adores her cub, Boots. Julius, a young animal keeper, teaches Aurelia how to earn Boots’s...

For a 16-year-old boy out in the world alone for the first time, every day’s an education in the hard work and boredom of migrant labor; every day teaches him something more about friendship, or hunger, or profanity, or lust—always lust. He learns how a poker game, or hitching a ride, can turn...