Duff Pringle has bought his first car. (Used.) He’s got six days to drive 3,000 miles cross-country to California and start a new hi-tech job that will make him wealthy. (Sort of.) Nothing can stop him. (Or can it?)

Two prominent city residents have been murdered, and Barrie knew both of them. But does she know their killer? The police have connected both victims to her mother’s hair salon, and the obvious focus has become Barrie’s mom and the other stylists, all of whom happen to be convicted killers who met in prison vocational school.
Amidst intriguing people whom she can’t quite trust, and forced into living with the mother she can’t forgive, Barrie tries to ignore the uproar by immersing herself in her writing. But when she shares a troubling suspicion with the homicide detective, she suddenly finds herself pulled deeper into a situation that’s growing more frightening every day.

Edna is a precocious trouble-maker wreaking havoc at her Beverly Hills
school. Her therapist advocates medication, but her parents come up with
an alternative cure: Edna will spend the summer in the desert with her
grandparents. Their remote cabin is cut off from cell phone service,
Internet and television. Edna naturally finds this arrangement
unacceptable. She’s determined to rebel until she meets an older local
boy and falls in love for the first time. How can she get to know him
from the edge of nowhere?

After a family friend accidentally detonates a bomb during a political protest, the aftershocks continue to roil through 17-year-old Beamer Flynn’s life. The first child born in a commune her parents helped form, Beamer has grown up under the watchful eye of all the people once involved in the now-disbanded commune. They were all present at her birth, voted on her name (Merry Moonbeam), and still feel entitled to have a say in her life.
As those friends (the “Woodies”) gather at her Northern Minnesota home to discuss and deal with the consequences of the bombing, Beamer yearns to escape their constant presence–especially their surveillance of her life, her deepening romance with boyfriend Andy, and her developing relationship with a college student, Martin.
Andy will soon be graduating and heading east to college; he wants more emotional and physical intimacy. Martin wants time together and to become part of the cozy community around the family’s woodstove. The Woodies want updates on every conversation and night out. Beamer wants to escape.
Cross-country skiing, school, snowmobile racing, and winter softball (on-ice) all provide welcome distractions until Beamer comes to the attention of a persistent reporter who is writing about the bombing. When the reporter expands that story to include Beamer, the turbulent winter threatens to explode.
Through her relationship with Andy and Martin, and in the lingering shadow of the distant 1960s, Beamer is finally forced to examine her unusual upbringing and confront the legacy of being Everybody’s Daughter.

What does 12-year-old Sarah McDermott do when her mean uncle Frank threatens to commit her beloved grandpa to the County Nursing Home? She decides to “kidnap” Grandpa, with the help of her friend Joey, and take him to Chicago to find a doctor who will declare him competent. Granted, Grandpa has been doing some strange things since his stroke, but Sarah is convinced he is getting better.

The plan is set into motion, and what follows is a wildly hazardous and hilarious 180-mile odyssey from the family farm to Chicago over back roads in an ancient Model-A truck with Joey at the wheel. Joey’s observation that Sarah is “always making things sound so simple, and they hardly never end up that way” turns out to be true.

Border Baker thinks he’s perfectly content in New Mexico, his home for the last three years. But when his father inherits his childhood home in Minnesota and decides to move them again, Border feels he’s being held prisoner and force-fed a hometown. People in the town haven’t forgotten that his dad fled to Canada rather than serve in the Army in Vietnam, and Border becomes a target of their simmering resentment.
Border doesn’t want to give up the streets and coffee shops of Albuquerque for church and school in rural Red Cedar. A town full of folks who know his business, a school full of teachers who notice when he’s absent, and a social life centered around hockey and pizza isn’t exactly what he wants. Or is it?

Amarian and Vancien have to navigate a world where prophecy no longer guides them. Now that Vancien has been resurrected, he and Amarian face an overwhelming threat. For ages, the Chasm has kept the tortured souls who have died serving the foul god of Obsidian. These souls have been lying in wait to destroy anything associated with Kynell, the merciful god of the Prysm. Now their time of waiting is over. The Chasm has been opened, and unless someone stops them, the Chasm’s residents will pierce the very heart of Rhyvelad. 

Before Amarian and Vancien can contend with the Chasmites, they first have to contend with Corfe, the imposter who believes himself to be an Advocate. He has taken control of the capitol city of Lascombe. So the brothers undertake the journey from the swamps where they have been hiding to the brilliant but degenerate capitol. Along the way, they acquire responsibility for a young fennel and a pack of hungry children. They also encounter old friends, including Sirin the rude munkke-trophe, Gair the long-suffering defector, and Verial the untouchable woman.

But their task is impossible. The Chasmites are led by Zyreio himself, who is determined to have victory over the Prysm god. With the might of Zyreio bearing down on it, Rhyvelad cannot survive without the intercession of Kynell. But what happens when the help of a god makes things worse?

Kelly Ray is nineteen and a recovering heroin addict. To stay sober, she lives by a severe set of rules, and the last thing she needs is a complicated guy. And who could be more complicated than the heir to the throne of a war-torn European country? But when, by chance, she meets Prince Tomas Teronovich, Kelly is hooked–not so much by his looks, his gentleness, or his obvious attraction to her, but by the idea of getting him on her Aunt Kit’s radio talk show. So begins one amazing night, during which she will need to keep Prince Tom entertained, hidden from his guards and the politicians who want to control his every move; keep secret for as long as possible her connection to the controversial host of “Kit Chat”…and keep herself from falling in love.

Revolutions of the Heart won the 1994 Minnesota Book Award for Older Children’s Fiction, and was named a BCCB Blue Ribbon Book, as well as an ALA Best Book for Young Adults.
Outspoken 17-year-old Cory Knutson faces the most difficult year of her life — dealing with the death of her beloved mother and the racism she discovers in her own hometown. Friends and neighbors in her small Wisconsin town have become bitterly divided over Indian treaty rights, and when Cory starts dating an American-Indian boy, Mac, she becomes a target of the townspeople’s bigotry.

A spirited, adventurous twelve-year-old, Jessie Hanson, witnesses a hit-and-run accident in which a young girl is injured. With the help of her best friend, Tina Adams, she uses her detecting skills to cut through the victim’s amnesia and track down the driver of the deadly automobile.

This is the third in The Willow Lane Mysteries novella series, aimed at readers ages 9 to 12.

Bizza Johnson has just started her sophomore year at boarding school. Struggling with the idiosyncrasies and irritations of high school that every teenager faces, she also experiences and voices life’s fears and insecurities; the roommate who touts homemade lasagna and Bible verses, the parents who won’t get off her back and the girls everyone publicly hates and privately envies. Her occasionally dry sense of humor and irreverent observations point out the nearly universal, but often unacknowledged, experiences that make up the life of the most tortured creature on Earth: the teenager.

Think a baby monitor is just to keep tabs on the baby? That’s what Jessie Hanson believes until she hears a sinister conversation coming through her little brother’s monitor. Instead of baby chatter, Jessie hears a rough-talking man and a woman with an accent planning a robbery somewhere in her small Nebraska town. Twelve-year-old Jessie, with the reluctant help of her best friend, Tina Adams, decides to track down these thieves before someone gets hurt.

Strangers in the Lane is the second in this novella mystery series. Recommended for ages 9-12.

Time is running out…

When thirteen year old Jessie Hanson witnesses a kidnapping in broad daylight, she and her friends, Tina Adams and Bryce Peterson, use their combined deductive reasoning to help authorities find the culprit before the young victim is whisked out of Fairfield to be lost forever. Taken is the fourth book in ‘The Willow Lane Mysteries’ series set in rural small town Nebraska.

Wise beyond measure, in Tao-Girls Rule!, author and motivational speaker CJ Golden examines girlhood in all its glory. By combining the philosophy of Tao with a healthy dose of boldness, she offers a lightening rod to direct teen and preteen girls on how to be strong, courageous, and confident.

Following her first book, Tao of the Defiant Woman, Golden now brings her rare, uncanny insight to teens and pre-teens. In three parts, which include “Tao and Dynamic,” Living Life as a Tao-Girl,” and “Confident, Balanced, and Bold,” twelve chapters with titles such as “A Tao-Girl is Imaginative,” “A Tao-Girl is Radiant,” and “Celebrity Tao-Girls” show girls how to be spirited individuals that make the most of their uniqueness and strive to live a life of grace by combining the acceptance of ancient philosophy of Taoism with a healthy dose of bravery. One thing is certain, as our young girls face the challenges of growing up in an ever-changing and complex world, the anecdotes and biographical sketches found in this collection will lead them to appreciate that they are not alone. Being a Tao-Girl means embracing power and being a role model. It means keeping a dynamic attitude and having a loving and grateful spirit. There are gads of Tao-Girls out there to look up to. Kelly Clarkson is one. Queen Latifah is one. Miley Cyrus is another. There are Tao-Girls in every city and if you want, you can be one too.

The year is 2325, three hundred years after the Great Catastrophe, which wiped out most of Krinton. It’s now a world ruled by the legendary emperor, Treanthor, where technology is limited, education is discouraged and children become adults on their thirteenth birthday.

Marcus MacMillan embarks on an uncertain quest with his best friend, Rindel, driven by the pursuit of a crazy vision concerning PathOne – the route that is detailed in The Book Beyond Time, a mysterious ancient volume.

Ever since a new Era of Pleasure was announced in Krinton, gadgets, games and grench ports have been on the rise – made possible by the power of xanth crystals. The common Wryxl tribes are a happy people, and stuff like the feel-good sekrin is easily available. Why should Marcus tackle all kinds of challenges and danger, when everyone else is getting on and enjoying life?

So many voices and choices are demanding his attention. What will Marcus choose?

The Book Beyond Time is a fantasy adventure for a new generation of pre-teens as they prepare to navigate the tricky pitfalls ahead and explore issues of faith.

Two eleven-year-old amateur detectives set out to solve the mystery of a deceased neighbor’s missing will and to identify a stranger snooping around the house where the will is thought to be hidden. What begins as an excuse to use their new detective kit turns into a frightening experience that has the girls running for their lives.

This is the first in a new mystery novella series recommended for ages 9-12.

Amarian is a loving son, a protective older brother, and an attentive student. One rainy day, he arrives home to find a stranger at the hearth, a man who tells him that the prophesied time of the Advocates has arrived, and that he and his brother have been chosen to complete it. Amarian is given a choice: will he choose to side with power-hungry Obsidian or the merciful Prysm? Whichever he takes, his young brother will be forced to serve the other. It is a conversation in which he exhibits complete selflessness, yet one that begins a terrifying transformation, turning him from a regular youth into a man totally given over to darkness.

Almost fifteen cycles later, Amarian has disappeared from civilized society and his young brother, Vancien, has grown into a likeable young man. No one in the secure kingdom of Keroul expects anything more dramatic than the king’s regular wars against border tribes. The priestly order, whose function it is to serve Kynell, god of the Prysm, and keep track of the prophetic coming of the Advocates, has become complacent. Only one priest believes that the Advocate confrontation is coming soon. Telenar has devoted his life to finding the young Prysm Advocate in order to train him for the coming day of battle. He has no success until, through a painful journey, the Prysm Advocate finds him.

But Amarian has not been idle. Obsidian has gripped him fully, and the brother he once wanted to save is now his primary target. In anticipation of the coming conflict, he has formed an army: horrific Sentries, arrogant fennels, and corrupted humans will trample Keroul, with Amarian at their head. Vancien must meet him in battle, and as the prophecy says, “brothers will fight as enemies and one will die.”

But which one?

An edge-of-the-seat adventure! – Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
Seventeen-year-old Arden Munro has been raised by her older brother, Scott, ever since the death of their parents 10 years earlier. He has been her only family. But now Scott too is dead–or so believe the local police and everyone in Arden’s community. Arden, however, is convinced that Scott has staged his snowmobile accident and purposely disappeared. She will search until she finds him. As Arden obsessively continues her detective hunt, she is forced to examine her feelings of loss and isolation, and to finally realize that these feelings existed long before Scott’s accident. Whether or not her brother reappears, where should Arden turn for the support that usually comes from family? The page-turning mystery leads to a heart-tugging conclusion that is at once hopeful and sad, piercing and satisfying.

“With grace, humor, and sensitivity, Diana R. Zimmerman renders a traditional Mennonite farm family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as seen through a child’s eyes and spoken in the hypnotic rhythms of a young girl’s voice. The spirited speaker develops a rich sense of herself and her community as she grows up in a conservative religious context where “help means spank,” and female children are reared for lives of obedience, modesty, and piety. This is a remarkably immediate work of memory and imagination—authentic, fair-minded, and unsentimental— suitable for readers of all ages.”
—Julia Spicher Kasdorf, author of Sleeping Preacher and
The Body and the Book: Writing from a Mennonite Life
“Diana R. Zimmerman has written a great American memoir. I was reminded of Huck Finn and Harriet the Spy and Jo March as I chuckled and gasped and laughed out loud through this book. You will love this little Mennonite girl, and she will lead you back to your own inner child. You will also start seeing the world through her eyes. You won’t want this story to end.”
—Shirley Hershey Showalter,
author of Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World