When Mandy's little brother says "Mandy made me do it", she gets into big trouble. Will Mandys mother ever believe that Tim can get into trouble all by himself?

Essays by popular children's authors reveal the books that shaped their personal and literary lives, explaining how the stories they loved influenced them creatively, politically, and intellectually.

An orphan finds a tiny, deserted cottage in the woods and works in secret to make it her own special home.

Kayla McHenry?s sweet sixteen sucks! Her dad left, her grades dropped, and her BFF is dating the boy Kayla?s secretly loved for years. Blowing out her candles, Kayla thinks: I wish my birthday wishes actually came true. Because they never freakin? do. Kayla wakes the next day to a life-sized, bright pink My Little Pony outside her window. Then a year?s supply of gumballs arrives. A boy named Ken with a disturbing resemblance to the doll of the same name stalks her. As the ghosts of Kayla?s wishes-past appear, they take her on a wild ride . . . but they MUST STOP. Because when she was fifteen? She wished Ben Mackenzie would kiss her. And Ben is her best friend?s boyfriend.

Best Romance, The NABE Pinnacle Book Achievement Award (Summer 2014) An inspiration of Barry Manilow's 70s hit song MANDY and in commemoration of its 40th anniversary, Judith Kohnen presents her fictional account of the story behind the song... Renowned singer/musician Garry Danzlo has decided to live a life of seclusion after a debilitating accident destroys his musical career. Guilt-ridden and stubborn, he wants no part of the holistic nurse his sister has hired to rehabilitate him. He's determined to get rid of her; she's determined to stay. Spunky, fun-loving Amanda Fields, widowed after a loveless marriage, is on a mission for love. More than anything in the world, she wants to adopt an eight-year-old, wheelchair-bound boy named Robbie. When her chance arrives that will provide her with sufficient funds for the adoption, there's nothing to stop her from accomplishing the temporary job in Colorado. But what she has to contend with is far more than just a difficult patient. Unexpected obstacles are suddenly out of her control. The least of her worries is falling for yet another man who doesn't love her back. "One Chance, One Moment" is a humorous, surprising and deeply emotional story of love found by two special people - love built on chances one must sometimes take, but sometimes give as well. Each moment becomes nourished by the faith of one woman, and eventually, by the dream of one man. Intriguing, fun, hope-filled, and bubbling with love, adventure and suspense, the novel explores: * How our choices can be guided by intuition * How love goes far deeper than skin * The various facets of the heart and how we observe them in life * The importance of forgiveness to find true peace within * How spirituality and intuitive development can shape our relationships * How we are sometimes faced with "one chance, one moment" opportunities in life. NOTE: When purchasing One Chance, One Moment, 20% of proceeds will be donated to charity - THE MANILOW MUSIC PROJECT - a program that tends to the needs of public schools and their severely depleted music programs.

“A beautifully written and well-researched cultural criticism as well as an honest memoir” (Los Angeles Review of Books) from the author of the popular New York Times essay, “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This,” explores the romantic myths we create and explains how they limit our ability to achieve and sustain intimacy. What really makes love last? Does love ever work the way we say it does in movies and books and Facebook posts? Or does obsessing over those love stories hurt our real-life relationships? When her parents divorced after a twenty-eight year marriage and her own ten-year relationship ended, those were the questions that Mandy Len Catron wanted to answer. In a series of candid, vulnerable, and wise essays that takes a closer look at what it means to love someone, be loved, and how we present our love to the world, “Catron melds science and emotion beautifully into a thoughtful and thought-provoking meditation” (Bookpage). She delves back to 1944, when her grandparents met in a coal mining town in Appalachia, to her own dating life as a professor in Vancouver. She uses biologists’ research into dopamine triggers to ask whether the need to love is an innate human drive. She uses literary theory to show why we prefer certain kinds of love stories. She urges us to question the unwritten scripts we follow in relationships and looks into where those scripts come from. And she tells the story of how she decided to test an experiment that she’d read about—where the goal was to create intimacy between strangers using a list of thirty-six questions—and ended up in the surreal situation of having millions of people following her brand-new relationship. “Perfect fodder for the romantic and the cynic in all of us” (Booklist), How to Fall in Love with Anyone flips the script on love. “Clear-eyed and full of heart, it is mandatory reading for anyone coping with—or curious about—the challenges of contemporary courtship” (The Toronto Star).