Youth - Novels in Verse

Project Apogee had one mission: to create biologically engineered perfect teenagers. The teenagers were supposed to be expressions of a perfect genetic mapping of traits, an example of the New Human. But when the teens go before the project committee, they are found to be utterly normal and unremarkable - a disappointment. Then there's Alex, the lost teen who failed years ago, who might just be the most remarkable of them all.

"Piano prodigy Claire Fairchild, 14, has always known music would be her life. So when she has the opportunity to enter a prestigious contest, she goes all in--until she realizes she's also competing against Juan, a close childhood friend and one of the most talented musicians she knows. It doesn't help that her thoughts about him are turning romantic. When Claire and her family receive a devastating blow from Batten disease her world enters a tailspin....

Still grieving for her father, twelve-year-old Birdie struggles to adjust to many changes, including when her grandmother, her mother, and her best friends all begin dating.

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, Xiomara Batista has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. She pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers-- especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. Mami is determined...

Told in two voices, sixth-grade cousins Hannah and Cal learn a lot about family when circumstances throw them together under one roof and Hannah's love of order clashes with Cal's chaotic behavior.

"'Ada' means first daughter, means oldest girl, means pressure. 'Ada' means you are expected to do a lot of things because the honor of this family rests on your back. When Ada leaves home for her freshman year at a Historically Black College, it's the first time she's ever been so far from her family - and the first time that she's been able to make her own choices and seek her place in this new world. As she stumbles deeper into the world of dance...

When her mother breaks up with yet another boyfriend, Calliope meets Jinsong at her latest middle school, who becomes her friend despite her Tourette syndrome and the embarrassment it can cause.

A fictionalized account of the experiences of a Polish Jew, Moishe, who with his parents, brother, and sister, struggles to survive the Nazi invasion and Holocaust.

"As protestors roil the campus, National Guardsmen are called in. In the chaos of what happens next, shots are fired and four students are killed. To this day, there is still argument of what happened and why. Told in multiple voices from a number of vantage points ? protestor, Guardsman, townie, student ? Deborah Wiles's Kent State gives a moving, terrifying, galvanizing picture of what happened that weekend in Ohio ?an event that, even fifty years...

"Jack is at the top of his game. He's a senior running back on the football team, dominating every opponent in his way. To everyone else, Jack is totally in control. In reality, he struggles with an eating disorder that controls every aspect of his daily life. When Jack starts using steroids, he feels invincible, but will the steroids help him win the big game, or will he lose everything he's ever worked for?"--Provided by publisher.