This is a classic, standard resource for collection building and on-the-spot readers advisory absolutely indispensable for school and public libraries.

From a top young adult literary agent, the only guide on how to write for young adults With an 87 percent increase in the number of titles published in the last two years, the young adult market is one of the healthiest segments in the industry. Despite this, little has been written to help authors hone their craft to truly connect with this audience. Writing Great Books for Young Adults gives writers the advice they need to tap this incredible market. Topics covered include: Listening to the voices of youth Meeting your young protagonist Developing a writing style Constructing plots Trying on points of view Agent Regina Brooks has developed award-winning authors across the YA genre, including a Coretta Scott King winner. She attends more than 20 conferences each year, meeting with authors and teaching.

An extraordinary retelling of the passionate and tragic love between the conquistador Cortez and the Indian woman Malinalli, his interpreter during his conquest of the Aztecs. Malinalli's Indian tribe has been conquered by the warrior Aztecs. When her father is killed in battle, she is raised by her wisewoman grandmother who imparts to her the knowledge that their founding forefather god, Quetzalcoatl, had abandoned them after being made drunk by a trickster god and committing incest with his sister. But he was determined to return with the rising sun and save her tribe from their present captivity. Wheh Malinalli meets Cortez she, like many, suspects that he is the returning Quetzalcoatl, and assumes her task is to welcome him and help him destroy the Aztec empire and free her people. The two fall passionately in love, but Malinalli gradually comes to realize that Cortez's thirst for conquest is all too human, and that for gold and power, he is willing to destroy anyone, even his own men, even their own love.

The third in the internationally bestselling series from Russian author Sergei Lukyanenko Three years have passed since the events of The Day Watch. His wife and daughter spending the summer on a dacha not far from Moscow where Anton is working when his boss Gesser reveals he has received an anonymous note. An Other has exposed the truth about their kind to a human, and now intends to convert that human into an Other. The note has been sent to Zebulon and to the Inquisition’s offices in Berne – a place whose address only the highest level of mages and sorcerers know. Now cooperating, the Night Watch and the Day Watch, along with an Investigator from the Inquisition, seek to unmask the culprit. Anton will represent the Night Watch, while the Day Watch is sending High Vampire Kostya Saushkin, once Anton’s teenage neighbour. Installed in the apartment complex to which the letter writer has been traced, Anton begins to investigate the residents one by one. Reviewing the dossiers of the building’s inhabitants, Anton comes across a familiar – albeit much younger – face. Could Gesser be trying initiate his son as an Other?

More than simply a vital collection development tool, this book can help librarians help young adults grow into the kind of independent readers and thinkers who will flourish at college.

The Instant New York Times Bestseller! Kim Liggett's The Grace Year is a speculative thriller in the vein of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Power. Survive the year. No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden. In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive. Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life—a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it’s not just the brutal elements they must fear. It’s not even the poachers in the woods, men who are waiting for a chance to grab one of the girls in order to make a fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other. With sharp prose and gritty realism, The Grace Year examines the complex and sometimes twisted relationships between girls, the women they eventually become, and the difficult decisions they make in-between. “A visceral, darkly haunting fever dream of a novel and an absolute page-turner.” – Libba Bray, New York Times bestselling author

If you've tried Natural Family Planning and have discovered that your life is now awful - or if you feel judged or judgey, or if you trust NFP but your doctor doesn't, or if you're just trying to figure out how the heck to have a sex life that is holy but still human - you'll find comfort, encouragement, honesty, wit, and, most important, practical advice in The Sinner's Guide to NFP.