You can look at something every day and never really see it. Payton Gritas looks at the back of Sean Griswold's head in most of her classes and has for as long as she can remember. They've been linked since third grade (Griswold-Gritas; it's an alphabetical order thing), but aside form loaning Sean countless number-two pencils, she's never really noticed him. Then Payton's guidance counselor tells her she needs a focus object--something to concentrate her emotions on while she deals with her dad's multiple scleorsis. The object is supposed to be inanimate, but Payton chooses Sean Griswold's head. It's much cuter than the atom models or anything else she stares at! As Payton starts stalking--er, focusing on--Sean's big blond head, her research quickly grows into something a little less scientific and a lot more crush-like. And once she really gets inside his head, Payton also lets Sean into her guarded heart. But obsessing over Sean won't fix Payton's fear of her dad's illness. For that, she'll have to focus on herself.

Live like it's 1962 in this fun, contemporary YA read from the never-out-of-date Lindsey Leavitt.

When Desi Bascomb gets discovered by the elite Façade Agency--royalty surrogates extraordinaire--her life goes from glamour-starved to spectacular in a blink. As her new agent Meredith explains, Desi has a rare magical ability: when she applies the ancient formula Royal Rouge, she can temporarily transform into the exact lookalike of any princess who needs her subbing services.

Lindsey Leavitt's trademark humor, heart, and sweet romance meet Vegas!

Told in letters, posters, blog posts, homework assignments, and more, The Pages Between Us is a totally fun, totally earnest snapshot of middle grade friendship—and what it truly means to be there for someone during the ups, downs, and everything in between. Piper and Olivia have been best friends since…well, forever. But they're distressed to find that their new middle school schedules aren't giving them enough together-time. Luckily, an idea sparks when Piper finds a cute, sparkly notebook to disguise as her "French Class" homework. It's genius—now the two BFFs can stick together all the time. And document their adventures—you know, for anthropology's sake. But as the two navigate the tricky new world of sixth grade, they realize that they may need to branch out more than they originally thought. Their notebook, once a life raft, begins to feel like a big responsibility. Can they grow up, without growing apart?

DIVBig-hearted Chloe Camden is the queen of her universe until her best friend shreds her reputation and her school counselor axes her junior independent study project. Chloe is forced to take on a meaningful project in order to pass, and so she joins her school’s struggling radio station, where the other students don’t find her too queenly. Ostracized by her former BFs and struggling with her beloved Grams’s mental deterioration, lonely Chloe ends up hosting a call-in show that gets the station much-needed publicity and, in the end, trouble. She also befriends radio techie and loner Duncan Moore, a quiet soul with a romantic heart. On and off the air, Chloe faces her loneliness and helps others find the fun and joy in everyday life. Readers will fall in love with Chloe as she falls in love with the radio station and the misfits who call it home. UPraise for /uUWelcome, Caller, This is Chloe/u Spring 2012 Indie Next List Children Selection "Debut novelist Coriell shows sparkling wit and great skill in creating complex characters with memorable personalities. Chloe’s emotional growth is believable, and her attraction to a quiet, mysterious boy at the radio station adds spice and tension to the story." —Publishers Weekly “This debut novel is more than it seems. Tough issues are addressed here, and the information is ladled out deftly.”/divDIV/divDIV—VOYA/divDIV/divDIV “This is fun, lighthearted chick-lit that touches on drug abuse and tough family issues. Romance, personal growth, and friendships are central to the story line. A quick, enjoyable read.”/divDIV/divDIV—School Library Journal/divDIV/div “Looking for a fun, inspiring read? Then check out Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe. Entertaining and full of heartrending moments, and the author has created interesting and unique characters. Even though this is more of a sparkling and humorous read, Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe delves into some tough topics such as drug addiction and bullying. 5 stars”DIV/divDIV—North Valley Magazine/divDIV/divDIV “It’s kinda like Mean Girls but with more shoes.”/divDIV—Ashbury Park Sunday Press/divDIV/div

I Am the Beggar of the World presents an eye-opening collection of clandestine poems by Afghan women. Because my love's American, blisters blossom on my heart. Afghans revere poetry, particularly the high literary forms that derive from Persian or Arabic. But the poem above is a folk couplet—a landay, an ancient oral and anonymous form created by and for mostly illiterate people: the more than 20 million Pashtun women who span the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. War, separation, homeland, love—these are the subjects of landays, which are brutal and spare, can be remixed like rap, and are powerful in that they make no attempts to be literary. From Facebook to drone strikes to the songs of the ancient caravans that first brought these poems to Afghanistan thousands of years ago, landays reflect contemporary Pashtun life and the impact of three decades of war. With the U.S. withdrawal in 2014 looming, these are the voices of protest most at risk of being lost when the Americans leave. After learning the story of a teenage girl who was forbidden to write poems and set herself on fire in protest, the poet Eliza Griswold and the photographer Seamus Murphy journeyed to Afghanistan to learn about these women and to collect their landays. The poems gathered in I Am the Beggar of the World express a collective rage, a lament, a filthy joke, a love of homeland, an aching longing, a call to arms, all of which belie any facile image of a Pashtun woman as nothing but a mute ghost beneath a blue burqa.