Isabel has one rule: no dating. It's easier-it's safer-it's better-for the other person. She's got issues. She's got secrets. She's got rheumatoid arthritis. But then she meets another sick kid. He's got a chronic illness Isabel's never heard of, something she can't even pronounce. He understands what it means to be sick. He understands her more than her healthy friends. He understands her more than her own father, who's a doctor. He's gorgeous,...

Four students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who chooses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition.

Frustrated at life with an autistic brother, twelve-year-old Catherine longs for a normal existence but her world is further complicated by a friendship with a young paraplegic.

Clay Byars was recovering at home from a near-fatal car crash when he suffered a massive stroke. He was just eighteen years old. He awoke, back in the hospital, and was told he would be paralyzed from the eyes down for the rest of his life. Determined to defy the odds, Clay quickly and miraculously began to recover his mobility but discovered just how different his life would be-a disparity embodied by his identical twin brother, Will. As Will went...

When a new principal threatens to close the school library, Jamie Grimm tries to save the day by teaching a comedy class for his fellow students.

Fifteen years after a teenage girl plunged into a canal and emerged with brain damage that mentally trapped her in a state of childhood, her grandmother, a wealthy patroness, asks Brunetti, the Venetian inspector, to investigate. 256pp., 125K, Auth res: Venice; Switzerland

"In his moving memoir, John Cotter anticipates a world without sound . . . a compelling portrait of how deafness isolates people." —The Washington Post
John Cotter was thirty years old when he first began to notice a ringing in his ears. Soon the ringing became a roar inside his head. Next came partial deafness, then dizziness and vertigo that rendered him unable to walk, work, sleep, or even communicate. At a stage of life...

From the Periphery consists of more than 30 first-person narratives of everyday people who describe what it's like to be treated differently by society because of their disabilities. The stories are raw and painful, but also surprisingly funny and deeply inspiring. The oral histories describe anger, independence, bigotry, solidarity and love-in the family, at school and at the workplace. Inspired by the oral historians Studs Terkel and Svetlana Alexievich,...

After navigating middle school, ninth-grader Aven, born without arms, struggles with the challenges of high school, which test her confidence, strength, and sense of self.

Bailey, who is usually so nice, Bailey, my neighbor, my friend, my buddy, my pal for my whole life, knowing me better than anybody, that Bailey, that Bailey I am so mad at right now, that Bailey, I hate him today. Twelve-year-old Rosie and her best friend, Bailey, don't always get along, that's true. But Granny Torrelli seems to know just how to make things right again with her warm words and family recipes. She understands from experience that life's...